Inside stories

Fights with Newport Beach city officials.

Living on the lam in Las Vegas.

“Don’t tell Nobody.”

“Never ask for salt on your steak.”

These are just a few of the memories of Sid Soffer recalled by those who attended a memorial celebration in his honor at The Blue Beet restaurant Sunday night in Newport Beach. Soffer, a restaurateur who had owned The Blue Beet and Sid’s Steakhouse, died Jan. 30 from complications due to fighting leukemia and diabetes. He was 74.

A well-known character among locals, Soffer earned local fame for his unyielding personality and self-description as a fugitive from the law.

Soffer bought The Blue Beet in the mid-1960s but held on to the property it sat on when he sold the restaurant to Steve Lewis in 1980.

When Soffer’s daughter Shima Soffer contacted Lewis about holding her father’s memorial at the restaurant, he was more than happy to oblige, feeling that no other venue would do justice to his memory. Soffer was an outstanding cook, and was as unwavering about his food as he was on his issues with the city, Lewis said.

Both Soffer’s culinary and political careers began at the restaurant. It was there, Lewis said, that he started serving food and fighting City Hall.

“We all heard about the fights he had with the city and government. This place is a testament to his positive influence,” Lewis said. “We’re all standing in one of the biggest positives of Sid Soffer.”

After the crowd had made its way along the buffet line, Shima Soffer, stood before a microphone, the first to share memories of her father. She told the crowd about the phone call that informed her of his death last week.

“It put me at peace,” she said. “I picture him in a white T-shirt and white cords, his feet kicked up and he’s sort of laughing at all of us.”

Her father hated funerals, so one was not held for him, she added.

“This is a celebration,” she said. “We’re all Sid’s friends here, we’re all family.”

Shima Soffer, 31, entered The Blue Beet with a recent photo of herself with her dad in one hand and a sign that read “Condemned” in the other.

The sign was representative of Sid’s Steakhouse, she said, recalling that the restaurant had no actual sign on its façade.

People crowded outside The Blue Beet waiting to gain entrance more than an hour before the doors opened.

Some could not resist retelling a few tales about the man who was as famous for his stroganoff and caramelized carrots as for his run from the law.

“Don’t tell Nobody,” Soffer’s motto that is infamous among those on the peninsula, seemed to be lost in translation Sunday night among the Sid-isms.

Among them, the man’s distaste and often brazen remarks to customers requesting salt or pepper on their meals.

Longtime patrons Roger Schwenk and his wife Joan, were sitting in a booth at The Blue Beet back in 1967 when they first met Soffer.

Schwenk had a cartoon in his coat pocket Sunday that deftly illustrated that detail of the man’s personality. The drawing, from Sunday’s Daily Pilot, showed God sitting before a meal, and Soffer’s voice booming from the background.

The voice screamed: “I don’t care who he says he is — No salt!!”