Lions, elephants and tacos- Oh my!
Restaurateur shares 60 years of Thousand Oaks Boulevard memories
By Nancy Needham nancy@theacorn.com

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers FAMILY DINNERS- Lupe's Mexican restaurant on Thousand Oaks Boulevard is still operated by the Zuniga family. Thousand Oaks grew up around the eatery opened by Lupe's mother, Martha.

Animal trainers from the World Jungle Compound used to ride elephants down the street to her mother's restaurant.

"They would tie their elephants to a big oak tree, and the trainers would come inside to eat," Lupe Zuniga recalled.

That was when Thousand Oaks Boulevard was called Ventura Road and was only two lanes wide- one lane going one way, and the other lane going the other way, she said.

The World Jungle Compound later became Jungleland. People moved into the area, and the town grew up around Lupe's Mexican restaurant. Lanes were added to Thousand Oaks Boulevard, and other businesses began to thrive.

Zuniga lived in the house behind the restaurant, and grew up in Thousand Oaks before it became a city. She's seen many changes and is looking forward to a few more as she works with the Thousand Oaks Boulevard Association to help develop a specific plan for the boulevard.

When Lupe was 6, her mother, Martha, opened a small cafe that only offered about 12 dishes. She charged 25 cents for a taco and 35 cents for a hamburger. That was 60 years ago, in 1947. Martha went into business against the wishes of her husband, Natividad Zuniga.

"He said, 'Who will come? There is no one around here to come,'" Zuniga said.

"Our nearest neighbor was five miles away. At night, there were no streetlights, and it was very dark. We would sleep outside in the summertime, and we could see a lot of stars."

Her father kept a rifle handy to scare off wild animals, she said. There were lots of coyotes and skunks.

And sometimes the animals were more exotic. Lions from the facility down the street occasionally escaped and came to visit. Usually the escapes occurred when the big cats were being transferred from one cage to another. When changing cages, the lions were usually tranquilized, so the they were usually sleepy when her family spotted them.

Her mother would call their trainers and tell them, "'Come and get your animals,'" she said.

Once, her mother walked out the door of their home toward the restaurant, carrying the family's pots and pans which she also used at the business. All of a sudden, young Lupe heard loud clanging and clattering. Moments later, her mother ran back inside, no longer carrying the cookware. She told the family that as she crossed the Conejo Creek bridge between the house and the restaurant, she was startled by a gorilla swinging from her children's tree swing. She called the trainers, and they came and got the gorilla, Zuniga said.

The bridge is history. "Now it's covered with concrete," Zuniga said.

The local population was modest, but the restaurant stayed busy. Sailors and Marines traveling from Port Hueneme to San Pedro found out what a great cook her mother was, Zuniga said. "She cooked the same food at the cafe as she fed us at home," she said.

The restaurant eventually grew to seat 75 customers. Her parents have both passed away, but left their three daughters a legacy of knowing the rewards of working hard.

"My father was a stoop laborer when he first began. Before he died he was the controller of the company," she said.

She and her younger sister were raised under the counter of Lupe's, she said.

When she was about 8 years old she was allowed to help out. The plates she delivered from the kitchen to the tables were very heavy, she said.

Zuniga's older sister Lala Cristerna has managed the restaurant for many years and is now about to retire.

Zuniga, who holds a doctorate in psychology, works as a psychologist. Younger sister Barbara Zuniga is a Superior Court judge in Contra Costa County, Calif.

By the end of the year, Zuniga and her sisters hope to have added 50 more seats to the restaurant and also plan to serve customers in an outdoor patio.

She's looking forward, she said, to future changes in the area around the restaurant.

She realizes she can't turn back the pages to the years when her family saw elephants outside during the day and bright stars shining down on them at night.

"We can't go back, but we're going to try and capture the essence of a village, a small town. We want to keep Thousand Oaks the very unique country village that it is," she said.