Naja’s Place: the people’s bar in Redondo Beach
Najah’s original slogan was “Life’s Too Short to Drink Cheap Beer.” A vestige of her harbor roots lingers amid one isle of her desert store. Photo by Jeff Vincent.
Gastro what?
For those still catching up on modern hipster vernacular, a “gastropub” is basically a restaurant that focuses on pairing gourmet food and craft beer. Naja’s is not a gastropub, but the very concept driving them is something Najah had been humbly pioneering decades before they began popping up in the area.
“And now you’re telling me that it is the hip thing…” she says with surprise. “I was cooking gourmet food, but it was not enough for me… The beer was the best combination with the food… so gourmet beer and gourmet food.”
As it turns out, the same Naja’s Famous Kebab Platter that’s served at her desert oasis today has been, and still is, the secret weapon at Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach since 1981.
“To me, it was a goal to make people happy. My purpose is to see the smile on people… entertaining is part of giving people something they like to drink, or food, to enjoy… you bring different kind of food and see how people like… I start bring in different kind of beer, and I really saw the enjoyment… They really get very interested, and they bring their friends, they want to try different kind of beer…
“So, to me it was seeing people enjoying their beer — it make feel good, so I start going for further more, something to bring more, different kind of beer so they would really enjoy it… like a gourmet place for beer.
“Because you know, life is not easy on people. This is the place for them to have fun, enjoy, in a balanced way.”
It was Najah’s idea to build a big walk-in cooler to support a 77-tap draught system. This was no gimmick; it’s not as if Anheuser-Busch took up residence at every third tap, like you might find at a place like Yard House. With the slogan “Life’s Too Short To Drink Cheap Beer,” her primary focus was German styles, followed strongly by Belgian ales, and a range of beer from around the world playing the supporting cast. Long before you could waltz into the international section of BevMo!, you could go to Naja’s for a taste of Africa or India with a pour of Tusker or Kingfisher.
Hopeful champions also embarked on the journey of Naja’s Passport: “Drink Two Beers From Each Country Win Naja’s T-Shirt. Your Face On Naja’s Wall Of Fame.” I cite this from my own original and wrinkled Naja’s Passport, which was never exchanged for eternal glory on the wall. Alas, it was taken down with a change of ownership.
Beach Barmaid to Desert Fox
Whispers of Najah’s current whereabouts began with my parents, who retained fond memories of a character who sometimes served beer in a bikini top and filled in when the belly dancers didn’t show.
Bullhead City, Arizona, it was said. With a service station or towing company. Out near Needles, California. Successive owners of Naja’s Place agreed; but neither they, nor the boys down at the docks, where Najah used to park the family yacht “Princess Naja” out front of the bar, could provide a phone number. Further research yielded little information and no number; but I’d located the whereabouts of one Naja’s Food and Drink Garden (with the H dropped) in Fenner, not too far from Needles. And the wind blew me there.
Najah out front her desert oasis Naja’s Food and Drink Garden. Photo by Jeff Vincent.
Like many who’re probably wondering the same, I asked myself, “What is Najah doing out here in the sweltering desert, so far away from the salt-kissed air of Redondo Beach?”
It was a severely more ill-fated wind which carried Najah to her desert refuge than the one which I flew in upon.
“I was heartbroken, and so I came here,” she tells me while having a beer together at her Hi Sahara Oasis, which was its original name before the food and cafe component named Naja’s Food and Drink Garden took over.
“I wasn’t willing to let go [of the bar]… My son died, and I didn’t think it’s fair on the customer.”
When her son died abruptly in a boating accident, the devastation of losing a child dissolved Najah’s ability to entertain and making others happy. She and Ben had opened the gas station mini-mart truck stop two years prior, in proximity to the vacation home they’d built on the Colorado River in Bullhead City, which they visited once a month while living in Redondo Beach. It would become her permanent retreat.
“I used to sit in the bar and smile and everything, then I go break down in the back… I tried to act good and happy, but I couldn’t make it in the end… When my son died I choose to just leave and be with myself for a few years… That was basically the step, I have to pack up from there just for my own time of grieving.
“At the same time, it was not fair on the customer who come there just for having fun, enjoying themself, to see me in that situation… When I am grieving I look so miserable that I was adding negative energy there. And it was too valuable for me, whoever come there is like my own family who I don’t want them to, what do you call, to get sad with me. I wanted to do it by myself…
“It was too hard for me to sell this place, it was really hard… I felt I was losing my own family when I left this place… but when things happened different in my life, then I let go.”
In 1998, Najah sold the bar to Achim and Herman Britfeld. The torch of her creation, decades ahead of the craft beer trend, was passed to Achim, who’d already become a fixture in the bar while playing drums in the house band The Land Sharks for a half-dozen years prior. He’d previously approached Najah about selling; and while she’d firmly declined all wishful buyers in the past, she now felt that in Achim’s hands her baby would be safe from changing in her absence.
Najah says, “One day I was really, really down and depressed because of my son. I said, ‘Achim… I’m gonna let go this time.’ I just couldn’t stay anymore, and at the same time I don’t wanted people coming and change the whole thing. So Achim was like little bit security for me that he keep it as is.”