How 5 of SLO County’s oldest businesses have succeeded

PASO ROBLES INN

In its more-than-150-year history, Paso Robles Inn has gone from hosting visitors enticed by the city’s famed hot mineral springs, to wine travelers lured by local vintages.

Meeting the expectations of modern travelers while retaining historical charm has been the main objective of Noreen Martin, chief executive officer of Martin Resorts. She and her late husband, Tom Martin, purchased the hotel in 1999. It was an ideal fit for them because of her “design background and Tom’s love of history, and our combined love for restoration,” she said.

Over the years, Paso Robles Inn has gone through many phases. The first El Paso de Robles Hotel was constructed on the site in 1864 and featured a hot mineral springs bathhouse. A later, grander version of the hotel — the one frequented by noted Polish musician and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski — was destroyed in a fire in 1940. Reconstruction began soon after, and the new hotel, now called Paso Robles Inn, opened in 1942.

Martin Resorts has overseen a number of renovations, including the installation of a new swimming pool and spa, 18 new wine-themed rooms, a revamp of the historical ballrooms and gardens, and general renovations to the guestrooms, lobby and restaurant. The majority of improvements were completed within the past three years.

Every upgrade was made with an appreciation for the inn’s storied past, Martin said. This included using period-appropriate materials and returning to the original mineral springs experience with private mineral spa tubs in certain rooms.

“Although it’s important for the inn to evolve … big changes just don’t always make sense,” she said. “People like the historic nature of the inn and like that continuity.”

This immersion in local history is what differentiates the property from the many hotels that have arrived in Paso Robles in recent years, Martin said. The inn’s employees are educated in area history. The city’s past is referenced throughout the hotel, from cocktails named after historical community leaders, to a piano in the ballroom lobby that was once owned by Paderewski.

Although Paso Robles Inn is a tourist destination, Martin maintains that it has not forgotten its importance to local residents. It frequently hosts community events and also renovated its coffee shop, a favorite hangout for many locals, in 2014.

“When you’ve been around for so long, people feel like the inn is a little part of them, and they are a little part of the inn,” Martin said.

BULL’S TAVERN

Billy Hales learned the history of Bull’s Tavern while serving stiff drinks to old-timers as a bartender in the 1980s. Now owner of the historical San Luis Obispo bar, Hales started out as a janitor, progressed to bartender and became manager.

What he learned goes something like this: Though early history is somewhat sketchy, the bar was likely part of a chain of Budweiser-owned taverns prior to Prohibition. When Prohibition arrived, it was a dress shop for about a decade.

Albert “Bull” Tognazzini opened his namesake bar in 1935. Since that time, its colorful array of owners has included former Cal Poly football coach Howie O’Daniels and former Oakland Raiders linebacker Dan Conners.

Hales said his purchase of Bull’s in 1999 was a sentimental one.

“Bull’s was where I learned the biz while in college,” he said. “Always near and dear to my heart.”

The bar has only moved once, relocating to a space next door in 2009, Hales said. The bar transitioned from a locals’ hangout to a college bar in the early 1980s, but he maintains that it retains its “blue-collar mindset during the daytime hours” and has never lost its old-school vibe. Hales credits the staff members, who are “no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth people who would rather impress with their wit than a foofy cocktail made with essence of persimmon and honeydew nectar bitters.”

Although Hales’ company, ASH Management, features a portfolio of bars that includes such fashionable establishments as Rooster Creek Tavern in Arroyo Grande, Hales has no plans to change the character of Bull’s. Instead, he sees the bar “cementing its legend” by simply refusing to reinvent itself.

“Bars like this are sadly falling by the wayside, giving way to the craft cocktail lounge or the power speakeasy. Bull’s speaks for itself, the genuine article in a sea of phonies,” he said, citing the bar’s motto, “Traditional not trendy.”

Hales believes it is tradition, and a sense of nostalgia among generations of patrons, that has kept the bar stools full for 80 years.

“It’s as part of the fabric of downtown San Luis Obispo as the Mission itself,” he said.

MORRIS & GARRITANO INSURANCE AGENCY

The story of Morris & Garritano Insurance Agency began in 1885, a time when residents traversed the streets of downtown San Luis Obispo by horse and buggy. Archibald McAlister, who would later become mayor, opened a “Lands, Loans, Rents & Insurance” office on Higuera Street.

The agency’s story is intertwined with many important local and national events. During World War II, owners Pete Bachino and Les Stockird, former owner Ernest Vollmer, and their families tended the properties of local Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps. Bachino later died in the airplane crash that killed 16 members of the Cal Poly football team in 1960.

Today, the company serves both business and individual clients. Its business services include commercial insurance, workers’ compensation, employee benefits, bonding, human resources and retirement plans.

Morris & Garritano is currently a corporation with four principals: CEO Brendan Morris, COO Kerry Morris, Gene Garritano and Dan Troy. The firm has more than 100 employees at its San Luis Obispo office, including many family members of past and present partners. The company serves both large corporations and small businesses throughout California, but primarily within San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Barbara counties.

Although many of its business clients suffered setbacks during the recession, Brendan Morris said the company has seen significant growth over the past five years. He credits the firm’s ability to find the right talent and its willingness to invest in technology. In 1964, the company purchased a state-of-the-art bookkeeping machine that was the size of a church organ. Today, the company continues to enhance its Internet-based solutions that “provide answers at the touch of a button” for clients, he said.

Morris sees the company expanding within the next decade.

“We are still dedicated to remaining a local-owned, thriving business,” he said. “In order to achieve this, we know that our footprint will need to expand into other growing communities.”

Although Morris professes a deep reverence for the past, he recognizes the need to keep ahead of a fast-moving industry.

“We know that we cannot stay stagnant,” he said. “We must continue to build on our history, experience and reputation, and we need to always be improving ourselves and the delivery of our services to remain relevant for generations to come.”

CRYSTAL SPRINGS WATER

Brothers Eric Mulay and John Mulay Jr. work in offices that were once their boyhood bedrooms. The San Luis Obispo location of Crystal Springs Water was the site of their family home and also contains the natural springs that have fed the business for more than 110 years.

Around 1904, local schoolteacher Mary S. Spaulding owned the San Luis Obispo property and began selling spring water to neighboring ranchers. Over the years, the business grew and changed hands. For the past 60 years, four generations of the Downing and Mulay families have owned it. Currently, Eric Mulay and his wife, Suzanne, own the division that includes bottled water and coffee delivery services. John Mulay Jr. owns the water softening and reverse-osmosis filtration division.

Technology has been the catalyst for Crystal Springs’ growth. In the beginning, the business was a simple “watering hole,” where people traveled to collect water. As transportation and automatic bottling methods evolved, so did the company’s ability to deliver its product. Today, it covers a territory from San Miguel to Santa Ynez and Lompoc.

Modernization has also brought competition, with bottled water becoming inexpensive and ubiquitous. Crystal Springs competes well because “we feel we offer a superior-tasting product,” Eric Mulay said. “It’s local and bottled at the source in SLO, so customers are assured of freshness.”

Mulay said the company is “doing well and growing,” although challenges are plentiful and include the rising cost of fuel, escalating insurance rates and a challenging regulatory process. It adapts by “always looking for efficiencies to save money,” said Mulay, who noted that the company recently acquired new fuel-efficient delivery trucks.

Drought has not been a detriment to the business. The springs still pour forth water, he said. In fact, the company has picked up accounts from customers who need to supplement dwindling well water supplies.

Mulay hopes to expand the company’s customer base as the local population increases and the economy improves. He does not, however, envision growing outside the current service area.

“We don’t overextend our territory,” he said. “We concentrate on serving our customers and doing it well.”

MARSHALLS JEWELERS

Jeff McKeegan became the fourth and current owner of Marshalls Jewelers somewhat by happenstance. He wandered into the San Luis Obispo store to inquire about wine glasses in 1981, shortly after graduating from Cal Poly. By the time he left, he had landed a job working behind the counter. A decade later, he purchased the business.

The story of Marshalls begins well before then, in 1889 when Azorean immigrant Manuel Marshall partnered with an horologist (maker of timepieces) from Bakersfield named Mr. Oppliger to open Marshall & Oppliger. The store has occupied several downtown locations since that time. Its present building was built in 1976, when Clifford Chapman, the owner at the time, hired Cal Poly architecture graduates to design a storefront in a style reminiscent of structures he admired in New Orleans.

Marshalls has evolved over the years, narrowing its focus on fine jewelry and “gradually sloughing off extraneous merchandise,” McKeegan said.

When McKeegan acquired ownership, he expanded its custom jewelry service, which includes jewelry repair, refurbishing and custom designs. Today, it is the largest part of the business.

Recessions are notoriously tough for jewelers, who “are usually the first to feel it and the last to recover,” he said. And though business declined during the recession, he said the store remained profitable and has since resumed a steady rate of growth.

He said that being a bona fide jeweler with an “in-depth understanding of the product and design process” gives the shop an edge over retail and chain stores. He also noted that Marshalls has developed relationships with local families that have been maintained over several generations.

“Working with children and grandchildren — even great-grandchildren — of people I have known is a joy,” he said.

Building a business on reputation and word-of-mouth is one advantage of owning a shop in a small town, McKeegan said.

“It’s how you treat your customers that will make the difference here,” he said.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 11:52 AM with the headline "How 5 of SLO County’s oldest businesses have succeeded."