Did you ever eat in one of Juanita Musson's restaurants? Trust me, you'd remember.
Through the 1960s and '70s, Juanita was the coarse, generous, muu-muued, 300-pound master of a succession of roadhouses that constituted the antithesis of the current Sonoma Wine Country dining ideal.
"Finish it or wear it," she'd bellow to guests who kept an eye out for Erica the pig or Beauregard the monkey while chipping away at two-pound slabs of prime rib that flopped over the edges of the plate.
Late San Francisco columnist Herb Caen adored Juanita and once called her "the West Coast distributor for cholesterol." Caen added, "The American Medical Association has put her on its 'Wanted' list."
First-time visitors to Juanita's often were both overwhelmed by the portions and terrified by the rumbling mountain of a woman who served them up. It took some warming up to the powerhouse who cussed like a sailor and whose favorite prank was to walk up behind a seated male patron -- he could be your grandfather, or minister -- and set a tremendous breast on each of his shoulders.
"Sometimes I got a little nasty, but that was the name of the game, I guess," a smaller and gentler yet still frisky Juanita said days ago at a stately old-folks home in Agua Caliente, just outside Sonoma.
She's been retired almost 25 years and in October will turn 85. She walks with a walker and still wears muu-muus and her trademark tiara-like hair fans.
"I have things wrong with me, I'm sure, because I take so darned much pills," she said.
She doesn't get out much, but she engages and banters with staffers and fellow residents of Agua Caliente Villas who regard her as their resident ex-celebrity.
She's a favorite of aide Kristina Sandoval, who tells of discovering long ago that the living Sonoma Valley legend's dominant trait is not her sass or brass but the heartfelt care she shows to others.
"When there are new people who move in, she makes sure they've got what they need: shampoo, soap, lotion," Sandoval said. "She'd give them the shirt off her back."
Several fellow Agua Caliente Villas residents said it was a surprise to find themselves living next door or down the hall from Juanita because decades ago they frequented her infamous restaurants.
Resident Anna Warren, sweet and diminutive at 91, said she and her friend go all the way back to the series of pour-your-own-coffee diners that Juanita ran in Sausalito in the '50s. In those early days, Juanita catered to fishermen and night owls who stumbled into Sausalito after San Francisco's clubs closed.
Warren still remembers picking through a tasty but family-sized breakfast platter -- "three eggs, potatoes, ham, bacon, I don't know what all" -- and having Juanita challenge her, "What's the matter, honey, don't you like it?"
Juanita left Marin County in 1960 and opened a restaurant in a ramshackle former bar and gas station in El Verano owned by her friend Sally Stanford, the late San Francisco madame and Sausalito mayor.
When that place burned down in 1969, she moved to an old hotel in Fetters Hot Springs. It burned in 1976, killing a waitress. Juanita relocated to Glen Ellen's landmark Grist Mill in 1975, and in 1979 left Sonoma County to run a restaurant and bar at Port Costa in Contra Costa County.
Along the way, Juanita and her untamed eateries attracted national and international media attention. The lifelong pack rat pulled a 1970s Los Angeles Times story from a plastic sheath that's rubber-banded to her walker.
A paragraph high up reads, "A huge pig, jackasses, hens, roosters, cats, dogs, goats, monkeys, rabbits, turtles and other animals wander the spacious grounds . . ."
Juanita also pulled out a 30-year-old Press Democrat article in which she acknowledged, "A lot of people love me, and a lot of people hate me. A lot of people think I'm loud and vulgar and obscene.
"Well, I'll tell you, honey, maybe I am. But I ain't never turned away an animal that didn't have a home, and I ain't never turned away a man who was hungry."
She said she's grateful for the day decades ago that she gave up the booze that fueled her unladylike behavior.
At 84, there's still a mischievous glint in Juanita's blue eyes. Asked what all those crazy years in the restaurant business were about, she softened and said she just loved people and loved to feed them.
A great smile came to her as she said, "We did have fun."
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