Casa de Tableta, now known as the Alpine Inn, and formerly known as Rossotti's Saloon and Zott's, was built c.1851 in

Portola Valley Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Val ...

, California at the junction of Arastradero Road. It was listed as a

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meeting at least one of ...

in 1969 and on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973. As of 2020, it's the second oldest saloon in operation in the state of California. Some additional historical names of the building include Félix Buelna's Casa de Tableta; Fernando's Store; Philpott's; Stanton's Saloon; Chapete's Place; The Wunder; and Schenkel's Picnic Park.

History

Casa de Tableta

After the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexicans, Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% ...

ended in 1848, many Californios were pushed from their homes, and around this time Máximo Martínez of the

Rancho Corte de Madera Rancho el Corte de Madera was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Máximo Martínez. The name translates as "the place where lumber is cut". The roughly triangula ...

Mexican land grant The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...

gave his friend Félix Buelna ninety five acres of land. Casa de Tableta was built by Félix Buelna in the 1850s, the building was originally used as a meeting place and gambling hall for Mexican-born Californios. The building was strategically located at the junction of a well traveled Native American trail that had also used by the Californios and the Gold Rush-era settlers, and used in order to travel to San Jose and for logging and cattle purposes. The trail was called "Old Spanish Trail" and it connected the coastal town of Pescadero to the valley town of Palo Alto. The nearest large city was San Jose, which had recently outlawed Sunday gambling. Buelna encouraged his friends to come to Casa de Tableta to gamble and play

Three-card Monte Three-card Monte – also known as Find the Lady and Three-card Trick – is a confidence game in which the victims, or "marks", are tricked into betting a sum of money, on the assumption that they can find the "money card" among three face-dow ...

. In 1867, Buelna leased Casa de Tableta to two people, and then by 1868 he lost the property in a poker game to William Eccles Stanton, an Irish teamster.

The Wunder

Stanton leased the building to an Englishman named William Tate Philpott, which disrupted the Californios. By 1875, Stanton hired F. Rodriquez Crovello, a barkeep from the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

, and the saloon gained the nickname, "Chapete's" or "Black Chapete" because he had a large black

handlebar mustache A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. These moustache styles are named for their resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a spaghetti moustache, because of its ste ...

. Staton died in 1887, and a few years later Charles Schenkel took over the saloon and renamed it "The Wunder". Construction in nearby areas developed and with the formation of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, there were students coming to patronize the saloon. Most of the towns nearby were "dry zones" during the late 1800s, but due to the rural location, this saloon thrived and was able to continue to serve alcohol. Before 1911, Croatian immigrant and local orchard rancher Walter Jelich Sr. worked as a bartender.

From Schenkel's Picnic Park to Rossotti's Saloon

The sign that read, "The Wunder", which was crossed out during the

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

(1920 to 1933), instead it was named "Schenkel's Picnic Park" featuring a large outdoor seating area that runs along

Los Trancos Creek Los Trancos Creek (meaning "barriers" or "cattle guards" from the Spanish "Las Trancas") is a stream, creek that flows northerly from Monte Bello Ridge on the northeast slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains to its confluence with San Francisquito Creek ...

, however it still served alcohol. When prohibition ended in 1933, the business was sold to Enrico Rossotti and it was renamed "Rossotti's Saloon" and food service was introduced. By 1956, the ownership had changed and it was formally renamed "Alpine Inn Beer Garden" however many still called it "Rossotti's" or "Zott's". In 1969, a California Historical Landmark number 825 historical marker was added to the site by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the town of Portola Valley. In 1976, a group of Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) scientists made history and sent an electronic message from a computer, while sitting in the picnic area of the saloon. The first two-network

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

transmission was between a specialized SRI van and

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

on August 27, 1976; the van was parked next to the Alpine Inn and wires were run to one of the picnic tables.

Present day

In December 2018, the saloon changed owners and underwent a remodel, changes to the menu, and introduced an outdoor tent in the picnic area during the winter season. The building is located near many present day scenic biking routes and hiking trails, and it is still popular with people affiliated with Stanford University.

References

External links

{{commons category-inline
Official website
National Register of Historic Places in San Mateo County, California Buildings and structures completed in 1851 California Historical Landmarks Portola Valley, California