Tasting Arcadia

Episode 27 - Santa Anita Park

• Karen Mac Nair • Season 2 • Episode 27

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On this episode with Tasting Arcadia with Karen Mac Nair she steps into the storied world of Santa Anita Park through our conversation with Rick Bakker, Director of Hospitality at this iconic Arcadia landmark. For 91 years, Santa Anita has been more than just a premier horse racing venue—it's been the backdrop for countless family memories, culinary traditions, and community gatherings. Rick also shares what Santa Anita Park is bringing to the Taste of Arcadia.

For more information and tickets to the Taste of Arcadia visit TasteOfArcadia.com.

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Podcast Introduction & Taste of Arcadia

John Villa

Welcome to Tasting Arcadia, the official podcast of Taste of Arcadia. Taste of Arcadia is an all-inclusive event featuring food and drinks from the San Gabriel Valley restaurants, all for one price Sample food, wine, beer and spirits. Check out our brand new cars, visit our business showcase booths, smile at our photo booth and shake it on the dance floor with me, john Villa from Dance Syndicate DJ Entertainment. Taste of Arcadia is September 13th at Santa Anita Park. The fun goes from 2 to 6 pm, with special VIP entrance at 1 pm. Don't forget this isa 21 and over event. Get your tickets today at tasteofarcadia. tasteofarcadiacom. Now let's hear it for our host, Karen Mac Nair.

Karen Mac Nair

Hi, John. Thank you so much for introducing me again. Hello everyone, I am Karen McNair, the CEO of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce and the host for Tasting Arcadia. It's another wonderful podcast about tasting at the different places throughout Arcadia and the San Gabriel Valley. Today I'm really excited I have Rick with me. He's the Director of Hospitality at Santa Anita Park. Welcome, Rick.

Rick Bakker

I appreciate it.

Karen Mac Nair

We've already had some time to catch up, so I'm excited to share with everyone out there all that is going on at Santa Anita Park. If you did not know, taste of Arcadia will be at Santa Anita Park this year at September 13th. I feel like you should know, though, because John just told you, so if you weren't listening, then you know. You can go to tasteofarcadiacom, and it is at the beautiful Santa Anita Park in the paddock area. But we're going to get to know a little bit more. Rick has some great things to share. So, rick, why don't you tell us? We all talk about Santa Anita Park all the time. I feel like we all drive past Santa Anita Park all the time, but what is the actual location of Santa Anita Park?

Rick Bakker

Everybody must have seen it at some point right, you think right If you live in this area. If you commute in this area, you've got to have seen it.

Karen Mac Nair

I feel like commute in this area you gotta have like it's a yes, but go ahead tell, just in case. I don't want to miss it.

Rick Bakker

So our official address is 285 west huntington drive. Uh in arcadia, um, but to get into the track we have many gates so um, there's a gate. Five off of huntington is probably your best bet on a race day, uh-huh um, and otherwise off of baltwin, right between the mall and us, there's a beautiful gate to get into our security booth and explain why you're there.

Karen Mac Nair

I do have to tell everyone if you're driving to Santa Anita Park and you pass the little round building that is the chamber office, so you either need to wave to us or stop by. I feel like everyone should know that too.

Rick Bakker

We are very close.

Karen Mac Nair

We are very close. We're neighbors, yay. So tell me a little about the season starting. Explain which season is this the short season? The long season? What do we have right now?

Racing Season & Opening Day Traditions

Rick Bakker

We are after the summer, we're going into our short season. It's a five-week race meet ending starting September 26th, ending October last weekend, I think it's 26th um, ending october last weekend, I think it's 26th um, and it's five weeks of great thoroughbred racing um in a beautiful location.

Karen Mac Nair

so I always feel like it's so exciting for the san diego park to open up again. It's just like a breath of entertainment, excitement, so many things happening right um, I do want to ask this question for a future. So then we we take a break right at santa ida park and it opens up again the day after christmas, right?

Karen Mac Nair

for 91 years now okay, I just have to say if you ever go around town, doesn't everyone have like an opening day story growing up as a kid? Recently they stopped by. I feel like I hear the opening day I've never spoken to anyone not having a story. Okay, I thought you were gonna say that you hadn't heard it. No, no, absolutely. Yeah, everyone has.

Rick Bakker

Everybody came with their grandpa, or with their dad or with somebody. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's been tradition and it's it's. You know, it's still our biggest day of the year. We expect 45 to 50 000 people and it's a it big party, so yeah you guys are great at big parties.

Food Options at Santa Anita Park

Karen Mac Nair

I have to say that so when you're in Santa Anita Park, there's, your focus is food. Our podcast is focused on food, so let's talk about I'm in Santa Anita Park. What are some places I could eat? There's many, many places.

Rick Bakker

So we obviously have your typical concessionaire fare um your hot dogs, your nachos um. Come on a dollar day, we have the two dollar hot dogs still um. But we have so much more right. We have a big outdoor restaurant called silks um where we have like a fast style um food service um anything from burritos to, you know, chicken sandwiches, steak sandwiches yeah um. We have our front runner restaurant, which is a little more fine dining um, where still our most popular this is is our you know front runner burger okay, that's my favorite.

Karen Mac Nair

It's for sure, it's my favorite too that and chicken wings, and we're all good.

Rick Bakker

We're all good for the day um and then we have some other like really nice places. I want to point out clocker's corner, which, yes, you know, for the morning workouts is a great breakfast spot um Probably the best breakfast burrito you can find for $9 in the area.

Karen Mac Nair

With the best view that you can get for $9. I was about to say With definitely a treat With the best breakfast burrito.

Rick Bakker

Sun coming up on the mount, the San Gabriel Mountains, horses on the track, so it's beautiful.

Karen Mac Nair

So with this, do you have any any like? Can I go for happy hour while the track's open? Is there's anything fun to do? There's a lot of fun to do um, obviously the racing is very exciting.

Rick Bakker

Um, every friday we have happy hour. Okay, all day happy hour, oh, on friday it's a happy day it's a happy day. It really is so um we have a lot of you know great features on friday it's a happy day. It's a happy day, it really is. So we have a lot of you know great features. On Friday it's free parking, free admission.

Rick Bakker

You can get drinks half off at certain locations, and we usually have food specials as well in our food court. At our taco stand Los Caballeros in front, we do specials. So Friday is really the day to come. So take the day off and come to the track.

Karen Mac Nair

I did not know that. It's like fun Friday it is. It really needs to happen. Are there any? So there's so much history at Santa Anita Park. We could do a two-hour podcast just about the history at Santa Anita Park and then I'd have to cue slides for YouTube and there'd be so many things. Again, I want to keep it focused on food. Are there any good food stories, any good things happening, any good memories, anything inspired? That's a long question, but you know what I'm getting at.

Special Events & Menu Inspiration

Rick Bakker

I know what you're getting at. No, we have. I mean, obviously the track has evolved throughout the 91 years that we've been open. I've seen some menus from when we opened and so the pricing, especially nowadays, makes us very jealous. But I think throughout the years we really evolved in what we're offering. We offer a little bit for everybody. Really, what has stayed the staple with Santa Anita is our carved sandwiches. They're carved life in front of you. We have our meat master starts at 3 am in the morning, takes care of the corned beef. We do brining and cooking all in-house the turkey, the prime rib, and so they carve it right in front of you and you know you have rye bread or sourdough roll, all the condiments you want, and that's really been our staple all these years and it still is, and people come to the track for it.

Karen Mac Nair

So we talked earlier about the stories about opening day. I feel like the number two story then is standing in line for sandwiches, right?

John Villa

Absolutely, there's a car sandwich.

Karen Mac Nair

There's a story. There's your first time having it. There's the oh my goodness, I can't imagine how great it was and all that they put on it. It always is the number two story I hear when it comes to Santa Anita Park.

Rick Bakker

It really is.

Karen Mac Nair

It's how great it is. So if you haven't tried it, I have news for you later where you can actually taste it Other places along with Santa Anita Park. So Taste of Arcadia is coming. It's September 13th. We're in the paddock, but do you have any other events happening at Santa Anita Park? We do a couple yes. I've noticed on Instagram or your website that you have a couple yes.

Rick Bakker

So during the meet we do different events every race day, so we have things like Chicken Wing Day on the apron. We have an Oktoberfest that we do, and so we organize different events. Our opening weekend, actually, we go back to our roots. We did the Goodwood British Opening Day at Santa Anita from 1982 through 2011. And so we're bringing that back this year with. British fanfare. Goodwood is a track in Britain that we do some collaborations with. And so we're bringing British food to Santa Anita that opening weekend.

John Villa

Oh, that's fun.

Rick Bakker

Exciting and fun. Yeah, fish and chips pop up and we have a track site experience with really cool items.

Karen Mac Nair

I love that. You can tie history into the excitement that we're having today, right, and you can tie food. One thing I've learned on this podcast, as people are talking, it's related to happy memories, it's related to positive experiences.

Rick Bakker

It really is.

Karen Mac Nair

And as you're talking, we're talking about San Diego Park. I just hear that over and over again, that your palate and your food just brings happy memories. So we're going to continue that with this opening weekend, which we're excited about, um, I'm sure. Well, I guess my question is how do we get inspired, how do you? And get inspired for your menus because you got a lot of food. It makes me stutter, like that's a lot of cooking happening at one time.

Rick Bakker

Right.

Karen Mac Nair

How do you even?

Rick Bakker

There's a lot of offering, but you got to offer, you know, for what everybody likes and prefers.

John Villa

And.

Rick Bakker

I'm sure everybody that listens has been to a ballpark, been to you know, an NFL stadium in their days and you know you got to cater to that crowd. Yeah, we really. I like to go to other places. I like to see, you know, the Angel Stadium and the Dodger Stadium and SoFi Stadium and just kind of see what they do Right, Find inspiration there, and I love to travel too, so sometimes we see something there that you know we get inspired by, we get.

Rick Bakker

We have multiple tracks across the country so we share inspiration with our colleagues on the west, on the east coast and you know we do events like breeders cup and Preakness on the East Coast that bring in a whole new sort of food direction.

Karen Mac Nair

Yeah.

Rick Bakker

So it's exciting to always be moving back and forth between that and put new inspiration in.

Karen Mac Nair

So you bringing that up. It's astonishing I get astonished that you can do a wedding and a party which has 100, 150 people. If you want to book your weddings or have any private parties, you can do a wedding and a party which has 100 150 people. If you want to book your weddings or have any private parties, you can always go to san diego park. They have wonderful rooms in space and then you do something as big as breeders cup. Your staff is amazing From the outside. Looking in, my staff is amazing. My staff has been.

Taste of Arcadia Preview & Future Events

Rick Bakker

We have a very varied staff. Some of them have been there for 40, 50 years, wow. So you don't just get something served to you, you get the story as well, which I find amazing. You don't find in many places anymore. But yeah, to talk about the scaling up, we really go from zero to 100 with our opening day after Christmas. We've been closed for almost two months and then we do our biggest day of the year, and so it's always exciting, it's always fun to go from zero to 50,000 people, rick, I'm stressed out for Taste of Arcadia.

Karen Mac Nair

I can't even imagine that and that is much smaller than you deal with on a regular basis. So Santa Anita Park has been so gracious to be our gold sponsor for Taste of Arcadia. We thank them so much. Thank you and all your team, thank all the marketing team, everyone out there at Santa Anita Park. Thank you so much for all that you do. So we're going to talk about what you're serving at Taste. We're going to get to visit you. You've been part of Taste in many different ways for many years, but this year you're bringing something special.

Rick Bakker

you want to share with it, us, what it is yes, so first off, I think Santa Anita Park is Arcadia right it's. It's such a big round of applause for that yep um, and so, unfortunately, last year we weren't able to join, but we were able to host.

Karen Mac Nair

Yes.

Rick Bakker

And this year we are back with a vengeance. So we, as we talked about our staple item, we were like it's time to, you know, serve that for once, I guess, outside of our raised meat. And so we're bringing the corned beef sandwiches and the turkey sandwiches to the Taste of Arcadia. So our meat master will be out of season, so we'll see if he finds his way into the kitchen that day, but he'll be getting up early that day and preparing all those meats for us so that we can carve them and get them out in front of you so for everyone out there, I have a huge smile on my face because I feel like this this is something that doesn't get to happen very often outside of the race season so thank you for making sure our guests really have that great taste of who, the before history of the food, the current history of the food, um at taste.

Rick Bakker

So we're super excited about that, yeah, and we are too.

Karen Mac Nair

We're looking forward to it. It's exciting You're also going to have a business booth. I'm just going to let you know about this. You're going to have a business showcase booth, so anyone visiting Taste of Arcadia can also stop by learn about everything we've talked about here what you do at the track and how we can continue to make the track part of our daily lives, part of our family memories, part of our events. We go from a beautiful day out with someone on a date to all the way having your wedding there, so we can help you get all the way through, or your Christmas party, because we're already going to be talking about Christmas.

Rick Bakker

So, speaking of Christmas, I know what is happening in.

Karen Mac Nair

A couple of special events are happening after Taste of Arcadia at San Diego Park. Do you want to tell us about what's happening during the holidays?

Rick Bakker

Yeah, there's two that I want to highlight. During the holidays, we have Enchant here on our on our premise, which is an amazing Christmas light event A hundred foot Christmas tree. There will be an ice rink in our parking lot. There will be igloo style suites. There will be private event space oh wow, it's going to be a huge production and it's so exciting to get that in Arcadia. So for everybody listening, it's a worth a visit.

Rick Bakker

I know we used to have the Arboretum Lightscape and the light show, and so we thought we got to go big or go home.

John Villa

So this is going to be major.

Rick Bakker

And the second thing that you know is really exciting for us is that LA 28, the Olympics, are returning to Santa Anita. They were here in 1984. And now we get all the equine disciplines in 2028 at Santa Anita Park.

Karen Mac Nair

Wow, there are so many questions I'm sure everyone out there has about that and I just want to say we're answering those questions as a community as we go, so there's not a lot of answers yet, but we'd have to bring you on maybe next year on the podcast again, and then we can have a few more steps forward correct right, little steps little baby steps, we're still three years out, so um lots to explore still, it's true, but we're so happy that the announcement has been made that we can officially say the planning has started it has started

Closing Remarks & Episode Wrap-up

Rick Bakker

and then we just go for the ride they're starting to get stressed, so it it has started oh yay, it's official, the stress has happened, right, that's so funny and that is so true.

Karen Mac Nair

I feel like that's with life, right? You plan anything. You're like, okay, I'm stressed. You're like, yay, it's officially happening. Well, rick, thank you for coming on the podcast with us. Thank you for you and your team being part of Taste of Arcadia. We're so excited to have you. So, thank you so much for being here.

Rick Bakker

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Karen Mac Nair

So everyone listening, make sure you buy your tickets, tasteofarcadia. com. We don't want you to miss out. We are learning about all these great foods and great exciting things that are happening, so get your tickets today. And, john, why don't you tell them what to do next?

John Villa

Thank you, Karen, for another great episode. You can hear us on YouTube. You can hear us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeart Radio. Don't forget, join us on September 13th at Santa Anita Park for Taste of Arcadia. You can get your tickets now at tasteofarcadia. com. Thanks again for joining us for Tasting Arcadia. We'll see you at the Taste.