Barrio Vallarta Olas Altas is a Unique Eatery with Three Food Trucks Under One Roof. We Interview Owner Raul Caballero about his new Restaurant.
The Parroquia de la Santa Cruz, the Church of Santa Cruz is Having a Fundraiser
Janice Chatterton, a Puerto Vallarta Icon Passes Away
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Hello fellow travelers, welcome this episode of the Puerto Vallarta Travel show. I am your host Barry Kessler and I am just so happy to be introducing you to my favorite vacation destination, and maybe even yours, Puerto Vallarta Mexico.
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That music you were just listening to is performed by Alberto Perez, the owner of the La Palapa Group of Restaurants. Those are La Palapa, Puerto Vallarta’s Oldest Restaurant on the famous Los Muertos Beach, and The El Dorado Restaurant and Beach Club right next door so you can enjoy that fantastic view of the Los Muertos Pier all lit up at night in beautiful colors, or during the day in its grand splendor for breakfast, lunch or dinner, seated with our toes in the sand right at the water’s edge. It’s so romantic, it’s so, Puerto Vallarta my friends.
This week I am going to take you to a restaurant with a clever idea, 3 food trucks under one roof. It’s called Barrio Vallarta Olas Altas, where we will talk with the owner Raul Caballero, but first, let’s see what’s happening this week in Puerto Vallarta, the 22nd of March 2019…
Fundraiser For The Parroquia de la Santa Cruz Church
Coming up the end of the month next week, Saturday March 30th there’s a big party planned in Parque de los Azulejos, this looks like a fun event, The Parroquia de la Santa Cruz, the church of Santa Cruz, the
big one in the middle of Colonia Lazaro Cardenas, on Aguacate and Venustiano Carranza is having a fund raiser in preparation for the big Fiesta de Mayo street party they have every year. They really need to fix the street in front of the church on Aguacate, and this is going to be a fun event on March 30th, let me read from their Facebook post….
We invite you to join us in celebrating Old Town.
- DATE: Saturday 30th March, 2019
- PLACE: Lazaro Cardenas Park (Zona Romantica)
- TIME: 5:30 – 10:30 pm*
- Open Bar all evening
International Buffet, featuring the best of our local chefs and restaurants from Colonia Emiliano Zapata
Entertainment:
- 5:30 – 6:15 – Latin Fusion Orchestra
- 6:15 – 7:00 – Bohemian 3 Musical Group
- 7:00 – 8:00 – Caribbean Show, performed by Xihuitl Ballet
- 8:00 – 8:30 – Jaleo School of Dance Presents, Spanish Flamenco Show
- 8:30 – 9:15 – Folkloric Ballet Xiutla
- 9:15 – 10:15 – Mariachi accompanied by Mexican Singer
- 10:15 – Dance Music
The price is 500 pesos or $28 US dollars, and that includes the open bar, and all that great food, so a really great deal!
Funds will be used for the annual Parish of Santa Cruz’s Fiestas de Mayo and repairing Aguacate Street in Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
So, remember it’s March 30th, 5:30-10:30. Drinking eating dancing party with the locals in Lazaro Cardenas Park, 500 peso donation and help the folks at Parropuia De Sata Cruz repair the street along side the church on Agucate, you know, the city doesn’t do it, it has to be done by the church, so help them out, and also help them fund the Fiesta de Mayo. Don’t miss it.
Facebook Page for Parroquia De Santa Cruz
Pictures of Dama Juana Festival
I got some pics of last week’s Raicilla Festival, Dama Juana on Cuale Island from my buddy Edgar Rivas from The Ceviche and Aguachili festival. Check out the photos in the show-notes.
The Puerto Vallarta Marathon is April 7th 2019
If you’re fond of sports and enjoy the atmosphere of races through places surrounded by the incredible views that can only be found at Puerto Vallarta, you can’t miss the chance to participate in this new edition of Marathon Puerto Vallarta 2019.
Prepare yourself for this incredible sports event that will take place on April 7th in three different categories: Marathon, Half Marathon and 5 km.
Run with us!
For more information and registration visit: www.maratonpuertovallarta.com
Follow us in FB @maratonpv TW @maratonpv IG marathon.puertovallarta
And look for our buddy Salvador Estrada, the candy man in his hand powered tricicleta. Don’t forget to say hello to him when you see him on the Malecon, and remember, he still needs help with funds to get him, and his support team up to Mexico City in August, but yes, you can participate in the 5 k, the half or full marathon if you are into that sort of thing.
Send them an email, I have links to everything in the show-notes at www.puertovallartatravelshow.com.
Beach and Bay and Estuary Cleanup and Updates
Cleanup is still underway from the sewage spill reported last week. As you may or may not know, there was a ruptured sewage pipe near the airport and convention center in Colonia Mojoneras causing some beaches to close and warnings about eating shellfish and raw fish. Well, things have improved for sure, but I found an interesting article in Vallerta Daily news which goes into some detail as to decisions made at the time of the pipe rupture.
Diverted Sewage to the El Salado Estuary in Puerto Vallarta was Intentional
The El Salado Estuary in Puerto Vallarta received an uninterrupted flow of sewage for three days due to a broken collector measuring 1.2 m in diameter, not by accident but by a technical decision revealed the secret secretary of integrated water management Jorge Gaston Gonzalez. Although this constitutes a crime as stipulated in the criminal code of Jalisco. According to the official when the sanitary infrastructure collapsed, they preferred that the sewage contaminate the protected natural area rather than to run through the streets of Puerto Vallarta.
However, this resulted in the water from the estuary running out of oxygen, which led to the fish migrating to the sea, elemental microorganisms also died due to the ecological imbalance and crocodiles are at risk of becoming ill or not reproducing since it’s nesting season is approaching.
There are technical reasons as to why the discharge of the sewage was necessary it had been driven somewhere it was intentional because somewhere the sewer had to be poured instead of making the runoff from the streets it was made in the Estuary, said the official.
We are in the mitigation stage the sanitation so that we can return the estuary to where it was before this spill, which will help to completely restore the life-cycle process of what could have been affected. We already have good conditions right now and even the tourism of the estuary has already re-opened it to visitors again. The state attorney for environmental protection filed complaints for the environmental crime that occurred on March 4. They claimed there was a lack of maintenance in the north collector that was known about for eight years but it did not receive investment which resulted in the collapse and caused continuous discharge for three days to the estuary which also affected the quality of the neighboring beaches.
So very interesting, the sewage was diverted away from the streets, and into the Estero.
They have been doing a great job cleaning out the Estero, pumping air in, and hopefully, tings will get back to normal. As I said, the beaches are better every day.
I have a link to the Vallarta news daily article in the show-notes.
Diverted sewage to the El Salado estuary in Puerto Vallarta was intentional
Also, remember that the local restaurants are aware of the issues and you can be sure that the fish you are eating is good. And hey, this is a huge bay. It’s one of the largest bays in Mexico with approximately 500 square miles in area, so look, there are many places in this bay where you can get good, clean fish. And shrimp, as I have said in the past, is from Sinaloa, up Mazatlan way. Much of it is farm raised, so please don’t worry. These restaurants don’t want you to get sick.
Interactive Street Map of Murals Offered by PV Street Art
The folks at PV Street Art have a cool online interactive map where you can take a self-guided tour of the murals around the Emiliano Zapata neighborhoods, downtown and the Cinco de Diciembre
Neighborhood. It’s a great map and a wonderful opportunity ti get a good walk, take tour camera and have a good old time, You can find it in the shownotes or just google PV Street Art Stroll and you should find it.
https://www.pvstreetart.com/interactive-street-art-map
Passing of an Icon Hotelier and Humanitarian Janice Chatterton
Puerto Vallarta saw the passing of another icon, gosh, we all are getting old, Janice Chatterton was the founder and creator of the beautiful Hacienda San Angel and Casa Kimberly Hotels, as well as the SPCA PV (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and 3 restaurants associated with the properties, The Iguana, the Hacienda San Angel Restaurant and La Capella, another fine restaurant.
Janice Chatterton passed away abruptly and unexpectedly on the evening of Friday, March 8, after a very brief illness.
Casa Kimberly is the luxurious nine-suite boutique hotel, with an open-air rooftop restaurant, tequila bar, pool and an intimate spa. It was lovingly created from the quaint side-by-side houses once owned by Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. Also, the home of The Iguana Restaurant.
Then Hacienda San Angel, just a few blocks away with twenty romantic suites offering breathtaking views of the Bay to the west, the Sierra Madre mountain range to the east and the terra cotta rooftops of the charming city all around. And Hacienda San Angel’s two restaurants and La Capella, and Restaurant San Angel.
She was quite a woman. Over the last year or two I have made numerous attempts to contact the folks at Hacienda San Angel and Casa Kimberly for an interview. And each time I would be referred to a publicist in West Los Angeles. Each time I emailed her, or called her, she just never committed, but when I thought that I was actually going to get an interview, I asked my buddy Howard Johns, the author of A Stolen Paradise, the book about the true story of the making of the Night of the Iguana. I told him I was going to be doing an episode about Hacienda San Angel, and Casa Kimberly, and I asked him if he had any cool stories, he could tell me about the property and he said to me well, yes, but they wouldn’t like it.
Well, as it turns out, I never did the interview, and although I have kept trying, I forgot about that conversation I had with Howard. I went online to do some research on Janice Chatterton, and came across a link to the epilogue of Howard’s book, A Stolen Paradise, and found this passage….
In 1990, Elizabeth Taylor sold Casa Kimberly and its original furnishings, art and other personal possessions to San Diego investors Maurice Mintzer and Toy Holstein, who managed the famous home as a bed-and-breakfast hotel and museum. Ten years later, the property was listed for sale at $1.75 million. In 2006, the house was seized for unpaid liens and taxes and its owners evicted. Shortly after, the home was purchased by Janice Chatterton, a wealthy San Francisco madam, who once ran the largest escort service in the bay area. (In 1983, Chatterton and her daughter Paula Carvajal were arrested by police and charged with pandering and pimping, two separate felony counts that each carry prison sentences of three to six years.)
This unexpected turn of events, in which a convicted prostitute took ownership of Taylor’s house, put a wry smile on the aging star’s face – if not for the buyer’s audacity then for the irony of her actions. Chatteron had already bought Richard Burton’s former home Casa Bursus and converted it to a boutique hotel named Hacienda San Angel, which opened in 2003. Her acquisition of Casa Kimberly was viewed by preservationists as an attempt to reunite Hollywood’s most famous couple, the memory of which still looms large in the Mexican port and elsewhere. In 2011, Taylor died from congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. She was seventy-nine…
So now I knew what Howard was talking about when he said, they wouldn’t like it. I had no idea he has referring to the current owner.
So, I asked Howard for his comments on the passing of this Vallarta Icon, and here’s what he said…
Hi Barry, as you know, Janice Chatterton died last week at age 84. Everyone in Puerto Vallarta is calling her a GREAT LADY and an ICON… I don’t know if those people are fully aware of her true identity. Janice was a former San Francisco madam who ran the largest sex-escort service in the city before she was arrested and convicted of prostitution. Her company employed hundreds of women and earned millions of dollars. When I interviewed Janice for my book in 2007, she made it clear that she did not want me to talk about her life. I thought she was being hypocritical since it was public knowledge that she had a criminal record. Somehow, Janice believed that her new image as a benevolent Puerto Vallarta hotelier overshadowed her nefarious past, which ironically provided the wealth to indulge her new life as an expatriate philanthropist. If you are mentioning this in your podcast, please include these comments, and make sure to tell people that my book is now for sale in paperback on amazon.com.
And so I did a simple google search of Janice Chatterton, San Francisco, and at the top of the page were two newspaper articles about her. And I remembered her and the story. It’s a California story that went national. I’ll read from the paper of record the New York Times.
VICE RING ON COAST REPORTED BROKEN
AP AUG. 24, 1983
The police said today they had broken up a prostitution ring of 150 housewives, nurses, secretaries and other women who worked for legal escort services run by a former streetwalker who became a millionaire.
The women charged $160 an hour for prostitution and carried credit card machines so their customers would not have to pay cash, the authorities said. The operation reportedly did millions of dollars in business in three years.
Capt. Diarmuid Philpott of the Vice Squad, who called it ”the largest sex- escort operation I’ve ever seen,” said it worked out of a Haight-Ashbury district storefront that was raided Aug. 8. He said customers called in on a 35-line telephone system employing up to four operators. 60 Bank Accounts
The police said the ring operated in half of California, funneling profits into as many as 60 bank accounts, some receiving as much as $80,000 a month.
A woman accused of being the leader of the operation, her daughter and two others were arrested Monday after an investigation that began almost two years ago, the police said. They were all charged with pandering and pimping, two separate felony counts that each carry prison sentences of three to six years.
The leader was identified by the police as Janice Chatterton, 49 years old, who lives in a $500,000 house north of San Francisco in the town of Mill Valley in Marin County. She was released on $25,000 bail.
Damn, a half million-dollar home in San Francisco? Okay it was 1983. Shoot, $500,000 will barely buy you a starter house today in Pacoima. Just saying.
According to court records, Miss Chatterton has admitted that she was once a prostitute working the streets of the city’s Tenderloin district. Her lawyer, George Walker, said Miss Chatterton paid taxes on more than $1 million income last year by operating escort services, which are legal.
The police also arrested Paula Carvajal, 28, Miss Chatterton’s daughter; Bruce Keegan, 45, a city firefighter, and Wendy King, 31. ‘Out of the Ordinary’
Miss Chatterton said her company, the Chayne Corporation, was ”out of the ordinary,” but she denied being involved in anything illegal.
The telephone Yellow Pages in San Francisco lists 63 escort services, and the police say six were run by the Chayne Corporation.
Miss Chatterton’s escort services include Oui, Diane & Lisa, Diane the Perfect 10, Linda & Karen, International Pets, Adults Only and Boccaccio.
So yes, I remember this event from August of 1983. I was fascinated by the story of these suburban housewives, turning tricks for extra allowance money to buy blow, coke, supplement their lifestyles, to me, it was fascinating. And there was Janice, collecting 60 per hour, from the backsides of these suburban California Housewives.
I thought long and hard about spiking this story. You know, people will be saying Barry, why the salacious stories about someone who can’t defend themselves? Why sully the name of an Icon?
They are dead, why speak poorly of the dead? Maybe you are thinking Hey, this information will hurt business at her boutique hotels, but I think not, I think it adds intrigue, don’t you? Maybe some may think this information will hurt the fine works being done by the SPCAPV.
Well, I don’t think this information hurts the SPCAPV. I mean, animal lovers are forgiving people, right? I mean, we forgive our pets for pissing on and taking dumps on our floors. We would never forgive a human for doing that! Right?
I think it’s actually a fantastic thing that Ms. Chatterton was so concerned with the well-being of the doggies of Puerto Vallarta. And it’s great to see the millions of dollars she made off the hard efforts of the Housewives of Northern California go to the dogs. Although it would have been more apropos if she preferred pussycats. Just saying.
And that my friend, is the rest of the story. You can get Howard John’s book, A Stolen Paradise, The True Story of The Making of The Night of The Iguana in paperback on Amazon, and you can listen to the interview I had with Howard way back in episode 8, and I’ll have a link to that episode as well as all the other links to the news articles in the show notes….
Episode 8 with Howard Johns
https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Paradise-Howard-Johns-ebook/dp/B074P6S3Z7
Okay,
If you don’t hate me, let’s get to the interview.
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Barrio Vallarta Restaurant, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
New restaurants are opening all the time in Puerto Vallarta. Some just take the place of another restaurant that just couldn’t make it among the 800 restaurants along the bay. They just usually change the tables and chairs if that, put on a new coat of paint and a new sign and off they go.
Well, this place I’m taking you to is far from that. It’s a great space that Raul created when he built Barrio Vallarta.
I was alerted to this restaurant by a listener who said he was impressed with what Raul was doing with social media, drones and such.
Barrio Vallarta is styled after an alleyway with three food trucks. You need to see the pictures in the shownotes, but I’m pretty sure that Raul can describe this place for all of you, so let’s go right now, to the Emiliano Zapata Neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta, on Calle Francisco I. Madero 225, and let’s meet the cowboy himself, Raul Caballero of Barrio Vallarta.
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OK, thanks to you Raul.
Contact Information for Barrio Vallarta Restaurant Food Trucks
- Barrio Vallarta Olas Altas Website: http://www.barriovallarta.com/
- Address: Calle Francisco I. Madero 225, Zona Romántica, Emiliano Zapata, 48380 Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico
- Phone: +52 322 209 1290
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barriovallarta/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/barriovallarta?lang=en
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barriovallarta/?hl=en
I have all the links and pictures as always in the show-notes to this episode.
Take some time next time you are in town, stop in and enjoy some great food and drinks. I have a map, phone number website in the notes, you know the drill. Okay that should do it for this week.
Next week, stay tuned for more on the ground reports from Puerto Vallarta Mexico, with travel tips, great restaurant and excursion ideas and more. Until then, remember, this is an interactive show where I depend on your questions and suggestions about all things Puerto Vallarta. If you think of
something I should be talking about, please reach out to me by clicking on the Contact us tab and sending us your message.
And remember, if you are considering booking any type of tour while you are in Puerto Vallarta, you must go to
Vallartainfo.com, JR’s website and reserve your tour through him, right from his website. Remember the value for value proposition. His experience and on the ground knowledge of everything Puerto Vallarta in exchange for your making a purchase of a tour that you would do anyway, you’re just doing it through him as a way of saying thank you. It costs no more than if you were to use someone else so do it. Really. And when you do take one of these tours, email me about your experiences. Maybe you can come on-board and share with others what you liked or didn’t like about the tour. Again, contact me by clicking on the Contact us tab and sending off a message. Don’t forget his maps, his DIY tours and his revitalized Happy Hour Board. I have links to all of those in the show notes.
And once again, if you like this podcast, please take the time and subscribe and give me a good review on iTunes if you would. That way we can get the word out to more and more people about the magic of this place. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Remember I made it easy for you to do just that with each episode I create. But if you haven’t been to my website, you really need to have a look there. I have the links to the places we talk about, interesting pictures and the more all right there in my blog-posts and show-notes for each episode of the show so check them out for sure if you haven’t already all-right? All right.
And thank you to Raul Caballero, I love your restaurant. Make sure you stop in and get yourself the food-truck experience the next time you are in Vallarta, go there, have a special meal and let the know you heard about them on The Puerto Vallarta Travel Show.
And thanks to all of you for listening all the way through this episode of the Puerto Vallarta Travel Show. This is Barry Kessler signing off with a wish for you all to slow down, be kind and live the Vallarta lifestyle. Nos Vemos amigos!
http://pvmcitypaper.com/download/538.pdf
https://www.astolenparadise.com/epilogue
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/08/23/Accused-escort-ringleaders-arrested/1303430459200/