The Golden Oak Restaurant was originally built by the LaMalfa family in 1933 as a working winery. The LaMalfa family had operated a winery on the other side of San Pedro Street until prohibition laws were passed in 1918. In 1924, they purchased the land on which the Golden Oak is currently located and planted several acres of Petite Sirah grapes. In 1934 the LaMalfa's began building their new winery. The new winery building was constructed from hand-made bricks. Redwood, re-used from the original winery across the street, was used for the roof. This redwood (milled locally in the Santa Cruz Mountains about 1918) can be seen today in the pitched roof above the lounge area. Bricks for the walls were made on the premises in batches of 400 bricks - no more than 1,000 bricks could be made in one day. This was a laborious and time consuming process since there are more than 150,000 bricks in the original building structure. The South and West walls of the building are made of 12-inch square bricks while the North and East walls are made of 8-inch by 12-inch bricks. Wine production began in 1935, aided by high quality equipment imported from Italy. Some of that equipment is still on the premises. Originally fermentation was done in redwood tanks, the largest being 13,500 gallons. In 1939 a fermentation room was added on the West side of the winery, more than doubling the size of the building. This area of the building is now the main dining room. It was also in this area that a 36,000-gallon concrete fermentation tank was built. The walls of this tank are 12 inches thick at the top and more than 18 inches thick at the base. This tank is located at the back of the main dining area, and is now used as our Cellar dining room - a popular location for birthday parties and special group functions. Wine production ceased in 1946 as a result of poor sales. The building was left largely unused until it was sold in 1970 to the Filice family. The Filice's remodeled the facility and used it for a number of years as a tasting room and gift shop for the San Martin Winery. In 1984, Ed Lazarrini and Gus Panous purchased the property and began converting it into a restaurant. After spending more that $1.5 million on structural upgrades and remodeling, the Golden Oak Restaurant was opened on July 4th, 1985. The Golden Oak was immediately recognized as the finest restaurant in the South County. Today the Golden Oak Restaurant is owned by Ken Harlan who continues the tradition of excellence in both food and service. Like all that come here, we realize that the Golden Oak is a very special place. We are dedicated to maintaining its proud tradition, history and grandeur. Thank you for joining us, we wish you a very pleasant and memorable experience.