Iconic City Grill leveled for parking lot in Anderson

DEMOLITION: Leckey Land Clearing tore down the former Golden Room and City Grill Steak House in Anderson last week, almost five years after it was destroyed by fire. City officials hope to someday expand Anderson Police Department on the site.

Shortly after 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug 18, two pieces of heavy equipment systematically began tearing down sections of the burned-out hulk of what had once been a popular watering hole later converted into an elegant fine dining establishment in Anderson, Mario’s Golden Room Lounge and later the City Grill Steak House.

Destroyed by fire in September 2004, the decorative clay-colored concrete block walls yielded little resistance to a 52,000-pound track loader driven by Troy Leckey, owner of Leckey Land Clearning. The city of Anderson awarded Leckey’s company a demolition contract of $19,738 to level the long-vacant ruins.

Jeff Kiser, Anderson’s director of public works, said the property will be paved over for parking.

Anderson officials purchased the property several months ago for $300,000 and hope someday to be able to construct a new police department facility on the property.

As Leckey and his track loader attacked the building’s west side where a kitchen and food preparation area had been attached to the main building’s two-story shell, an employee, Jake Johnson, deftly manipulated a large hydraulic claw-like attachment — known in the trade as a thumb — to gently squeeze portions of the larger structure’s east wall to eventually allow access to his large tracked excavator.

Watching portions of the concrete walls crumble nearly proved too much for Marilyn Fowler, who for eight years had been the daytime bartender at the Golden Room and later trained cocktail waitresses for the restaurant.

When asked what sorts of emotions she was experiencing while witnessing the demolition, Fowler replied with the single word at first.

“Sadness.”

But left in contemplative silence, she eventually continued.

“It’s the loss of an era. The Golden Room and steak house were both destination points. People came from Red Bluff, Shingletown, Redding, all around really to gather. I knew all of my customers by name. It’s just very sad to watch,” Fowler said, as she wiped away more than one tear rolling down her cheeks.

“I just see so many ghosts flying away,” she commented a few moments later, then turned quickly to get into her parked van nearby.

Doug Pruitt, a former customer of the restaurant and bar, also agreed via email to share some of his memories of the place.

“They served an excellent prime rib dinner and were known for their steaks,” Pruitt said as he warmed up to the subject.

Since the Golden Room was also a local hangout for many of Anderson’s lumber and paper mill workers, the bar kept several thousand dollars in currency on hand each Thursday night so it could cash the mill worker’s paychecks, Pruitt recalled.

“They probably had on hand as much cash as one of the local banks, but I believe that in all the years of operation, the Golden Room bar was never robbed,” he commented.

Perhaps its location two doors east of the Anderson Police Department also helped.

By late Tuesday, the entire upper story and interior framing had been knocked down and separated into three piles, one of concrete blocks, another containing scrap metal and the third mostly wood.

On Wednesday, Leckey and his crew had completely pulled down the entire building and hauled away most of the materials for recycling. And on Thursday, Leckey’s employees had broken the Golden Room’s concrete foundation into manageable chunks that could also be hauled away in an 18-wheeler.