Chad Stevens is the owner of Chad's Restaurant on Chapala Street, as well as Sambo's on Cabrillo. His start in the restaurant business was inspired and launched by his maternal grandfather, who opened Sambo's here in Santa Barbara in 1957. It would go on to become a chain of some 1400 restaurants across the country. Today, Sambo's in Santa Barbara is the only existing Sambo's. "It was the first," explains Chad, "And it is the last."

Initially resistant to a career in the restaurant business ("I was a little rebellious in the beginning and thought, 'no, I'm not going to do this just because it's the family business'") Chad shortly decided that he loved being around people and the preparation of good food and the camaraderie surrounding it. "My mom was a gourmet cook and the whole planning and preparation of the meal was a big celebration and a big deal, so I grew up with that excitement about food."

His mother went on to work on the corporate side of the restaurant and Chad quickly realized that the restaurant business was truly in his blood. "For me, this is just something that I love to do. I think with any business, if you love to do it, you will succeed. If you're just doing something purely for the money, you're probably not going to be very happy doing it."

Serving and catering to people has always been of interest to Chad, and those qualities are necessary in making a successful restaurant. "It's really like throwing a party every day at your house. When I'm asked, 'Why do you like this business so much?' that's the answer. You're catering to people....your friends come in to see you...there's good food and drinks. I like it a lot."

One of the downsides of being in the restaurant business, which is often heard, is the long hours. Chad agrees that the hours can be long, but insists that most businesses require hours just as long. "Anybody that cares about what they do and wants to succeed in it is putting in long hours. One of the toughest things about running a restaurant would probably be staff management. We have about 80 employees between the two restaurants so that's probably the most challenging thing about this type of a business."

One of the biggest challenges for a restaurant owner is to motivate the staff to continually do their best and to provide the customer with incomparable service. ""When you're dealing with people and everyone obviously has things going on in their lives, sometimes they're going through a difficult time, it becomes a challenge to deal with that in an effective way," shares Chad. One of the biggest difficulties in the restaurant business, according to Chad, is the fact that it is "transitional."

"It's a continual balance to try and help the employee become who they want to be. Many of the people in this business, on the service end, are in a transition in their life. They're going to college and planning to do or become something else and go into a different career. I would say 90% of employees who work in a restaurant at any given time are just transitioning into what they're going to do with their lives."

Chad's Restaurant opened on Chapala in 1992 when Chad was only 25-years-old and it was with a special blend of luck and talent and led him to a place much earlier than he thought he would have gotten there.

"Once I'd made the decision to go into the restaurant business, I went into the hotel/restaurant culinary department at Santa Barbara City College and my plan at that point was to continue my education and get a four-year degree in the restaurant business," he says. "I had finished two years in the City College program and was planning to transfer on to a four-year university and had gotten a job working for Palace Café and the owner told me 'If you can put in $6,000 you can possibly win a liquor license, which is based on a lottery. So, I'm not sure how it all works, but I applied and won, so with a little inheritance I scouted out and found Chad's location and got to the business a little sooner than I thought I would. My plan had been to travel the world after graduating from college, get a job at a restaurant in some great location like Hawaii, but it all happened much sooner than I expected."

Proving true John Lennon's adage that life is what happens when you're making other plans, Chad also met his wife at this time, and she was instrumental in his making all the pieces fit together. "We got married in November; we'll be celebrating ten years of marriage this November, and she and I really got Chad's going, which makes it even greater because we built it together."

Chad's is open these days for dinners only. "Lunch isn't usually very profitable," he explains, "Unless you're really in a high-traffic area, which we aren't. So we did serve lunch when we opened but determined it wasn't necessary for us, so we made the decision to be a dinner-only restaurant.

Indeed, Chad's has been an ever-evolving business, unlike Sambo's, which has been around for some 45 years. "Chad's opened as a simple, gourmet restaurant house and now we sort of have this bar scene that it's sort of grown into. And we have a lot of regulars. I'm not even sure if we know who we are yet. But that's what makes it fun and keeps it interesting.

What's his favorite thing on the menu at Chad's? "I guess it always changes. I mean, I really like fish. Being in the business I don't eat fish out much because I don't know where it's coming from and so there's always new, exotic fish coming out and I can taste this and decide whether I want to put it on the menu. I get to try out a variety of new things. I'm also a meat-head, so I like good meats. We have a top sirloin that's like a top triangle cut, we call it a Baseball, and it's 16 ounces of pure meat which we serve with a brandy sauce. That's a favorite dish of mine."

Chad admits he used to have much more of a hand in the menu, but these days his job has evolved into more of a 'guidance counselor,' guiding the restaurant where he feels it should go. "We've hired some really good people who are taking it into that direction. And he lets each position, be it Head Chef or General Manager, excel in what they're doing. Chad's personal cooking is mostly limited to his home and family these days, much to the benefit of his wife and children.

"I cook all the time, in fact, I'm the primary cook in the family," he laughs. "It's like that old adage, where the plumber usually has the worst plumbing at home. When I was working intermittently at the restaurant as a chef I wasn't cooking at home at all. But today I don't cook at Chad's and I love cooking at home. It's a love of life, really. I have a love of the restaurant business but to be just in the kitchen, cooking in 110 degrees heat, pressures on you constantly, I've outgrown that. I love cooking at home. Especially now that we have the boys I've tried to instill the values that my family had. Which was dinner was on the table at 6:00 every night and we were all expected to be there. That was a given and those are some of the best memories of my life and so I love carrying that on with my family."

Chad uses the Internet to find new ways to cook certain favorites like veal and fish. "I have a huge freezer with individually cut meats and so when I'm ready to cook dinner I'll pull something out and pull up the Internet and find a recipe that sounds interesting."

He's beginning to instill his love of cooking in his four-year-old son, who's learning how to measure ingredients in cooking cookies and muffins. "He loves it, and it's a nice way to spend time together," he says.

"For me, cooking, entertaining, its what makes me tick," he says." Anybody else might have a hobby that involved building cabinets or working on models, my hobby is cooking." If you have dinner at Chad's, seek him out to say hello. Not only is the food great, the atmosphere superb, but he's one of the nicest guys in town.

Chad hopes to open another restaurant in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, Santa Barbara can enjoy some of the best food in town at Chad's Restaurant, 625 Chapala Street. The phone number is 568-1876 and reservations are recommended.