Summer 2023

was interested in the business side of restaurant operations and, to further his education, enrolled at Monterey Peninsula College (MPC). There he met a young man with whom his life would forever be linked. Fresh out of Brooklyn, Balestreri arrived on the peninsula at the age of 16 with his mother and siblings.They left New York after the death of his father to join his mother’s relatives in the area, settling in Carmel. As the eldest son, he felt responsible to be a breadwinner. He followed the cantaloupe harvest in the summer and took jobs during the school year as a dishwasher and busser at the Highlands Inn, Casa Munras and Asilomar—even working as a bartender, despite his young age. Upon graduating from Carmel High, he enrolled at MPC, where he met Cutino in an economics class. Balestreri’s big break came at the age of 18, when fellow bartender Don Sprong bought the Seven Pleasures, a very high-end, white-glove nightclub. Fibbing about his age to get a better position, the “23-year-old” Balestreri was hired as the maître d’. It was at this job that he realized his love for the industry. After MPC and a compulso- ry stint in the Army, he felt he needed a more for- mal education and enrolled in Lewis Hotel Management School inWashington D.C. In 1961, he returned home for a job with Sal Cerrito and Art Boudin that failed to materialize, so Cerrito sent him south to Visalia to work his magic on a floundering hotel he owned there. Balestreri became known for his ability to improve opera- tions and was soon hired by Boudin to turn around his Monterey restaurant, The Rogue, which he did, taking it to the No. 1 grossing restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula at the time. While Balestreri managed The Rogue, Cutino went to work at Boudin’s Carmel restaurant,The Jolly Roger. The young men became roommates and would often visit each other at work. It became clear that they were both of the same mind—it was time for a change. Having both experienced significant success working for others in the industry, they knew they were ready and well equipped to step out on their own. Balestreri would manage the front of the house and Cutino would manage the kitchen. But finding an appro- priate building they could afford proved difficult. In the late 1960s, old Monterey was full of great restaurants, making real estate for the type of establishment they envisioned scarce, so they had to look farther and think creatively. C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 203 Looking over a menu behind the red lacquered bar in the late 1960s. The bar has since been stripped and returned to its original finish. “It’s not by accident that one gets the feeling that ladies should be wearing lace and satins and gentlemen appear in high collars and cutaways at the Sardine Factory.” Photo: Courtesy of The Sardine Factory