Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Updates and Info about Rocky Point.
Speaker: Welcome to Rocky
Point by the Numbers.
I'm Steve Schwab.
Today I'm here with John Fowler.
And John Fowler is one of the
co founders of JJ's Cantina.
How do you end up starting JJ's?
Speaker 2: Well, that was kind
of a funny story because it was
called Club De Pesca La Cholla, and
the license is still under that.
It was a fisherman's club for Cholla Bay.
Guys come in after fishing,
have a few beers, and go home.
And I picked up a couple Spanish
words that, from the lady who was
arguing with her brother about
sell, and a couple I won't mention.
And this lady was very nice.
She didn't curse, but she
was mad at the wedding.
I found Augustine Leon, who was
our chief of police out in Shoya.
I said, take me to Eva's house, and I
want to ask her what she wants to sell.
And she said, I'm going to sell the bar.
Because her brother was taking
advantage of her and she had enough.
And she sold it to me
right there on the spot.
I mean, she says, this
is what I want for it.
You know, the buildings,
we got the gas station.
Little building over one side.
It was it's quite a little bit of
stuff They're involved in it besides
the canteen the license and building.
Yeah, I told her I said I'll pay
you for it right now She said no.
No, I don't want it now I want it I want
payments on certain particular days and
when she said that I said well What's
the going to be the interest rate?
I said, you know an interest rate that
is pretty high She says if you pay me
on those days You There's no interest.
I thought I just died and went to heaven.
Yeah, I guess so.
And, and from then on
it, we changed the name.
We had to move into it earlier because
her brother got wind that she had sold it.
And to keep the license active,
we had to jump in there real quick
and take over and open it back
up to keep the license active.
And from then on, it's been JJ's Cantina.
Speaker: And JJ's ever since.
And now you had a partner,
and that's where the J.
J.
's comes from, that's
where the name comes from.
My
Speaker 2: partner was Johanna Clutto,
and he sold me kitchen cabinet doors.
And when I told him I bought the
bar, he says, I won't end because
everything you touch turns to go.
And it has been, it's been a,
it's been a great investment.
They've allowed us to live
here for 42 years now.
Okay.
So just sitting in there having a
beer one day and it just happened
to hear a conversation and
from then on, it's all history.
Speaker: Amazing.
So John, you ran the bar for a
while, and you had some firefighters
come in, and it leads to
something that's infamous for JJs.
Tell me about that.
These
Speaker 2: guys were
pretty regular customers.
They come in from Phoenix, from
the Phoenix Fire Department.
I don't know what it's a firehouse saying,
but, About every third word out of their
mouth was no sniveling and I just kind
of caught on to that and I went and Had
some signs made over at Florence street
signs for him I was gonna give it to him
and said no sniveling It was a three foot
street sign and I put him behind the bar
and sat him there and people came in They
looked at him and one of those things
And I said, it's a no sniveling sign.
He said, well, I want one.
Well, the first 10 I bought for these
firefighters ended up getting sold.
And after that, we, uh, turned it
into pretty good business on its own.
Right.
Just the word, no sniveling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It became a
household word to JJ's cantina.
Speaker: So you got the original 10.
Not necessarily to sell,
but just for these guys.
Yeah, just to give these
firefighters, yeah.
It was just, it was a joke.
And suddenly they're all gone, and
you're like, wait a minute, I better
put JJ's Cantina on these signs.
I put that
Speaker 2: on, from then on, we
bought the next bunch I bought, I
put JJ's Cantina, Cholla Bay, Mexico.
And if you ever see the sign, you'll see
no sniveling is centered in the sign.
And then JJ's Canteen at Cholla Bay,
Mexico, it kind of looked like an
afterthought across the bottom of it.
Yeah.
And that's what it is.
It was an afterthought.
So
Speaker: fun.
Where are some of the most
interesting places that you've
seen the no sniveling sign?
I'm going to start off
by saying I saw one.
in Istanbul, Turkey in the grand
market with JJ's canteen on it.
So that's, that's the one I've seen.
But what is the most interesting ones?
Speaker 2: I've actually seen one on TV.
It was called Bering sea gold.
There was a bar up there where
they filmed a lot of Bering sea
gold, where the people hung out and
there's one hanging on the wall.
My sister saw it and three Port Maria
and call me and says, turn on this
episode of Bering sea gold, your
signs hanging up in a flash bot.
Up in Alaska somewhere.
Speaker: Yeah, I've seen the show.
I didn't know that your name was on it.
I
Speaker 2: didn't know it either.
My sister saw it in Freeport,
Louisiana and called me and
said, yo, you gotta look at this.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
You know, something, John, that
I've always been impressed with
you about is your Santa Claus Club.
And I know a lot of people
don't know about it.
Can you tell a little bit about what
it does and maybe how it got started?
Speaker 2: But it got started,
Augustine Leon, he was a go getter,
and he came to me one Christmas and I
was down here by myself and he says,
What are you doing for Christmas?
And I said, Absolutely nothing, I'm just
going to be hanging out at the house.
He says, Why don't you come down to my
house and have Christmas with my family?
So that was Christmas Eve
when they do Christmas.
I went down there and the women were
cooking, the guys were drinking,
and typical Mexican celebration,
the men doing all of nothing and
the women working their ass off.
I went down to his house and during
the interim of the evening he
said, why don't you do a little
Christmas party for the kids?
I said, well, we could do that.
I said, we need cookies and candy.
He said, I'll go get
the cookies and candy.
I said, you go get
them, I'll pay for them.
I've got soda pops.
I've got popcorn.
I've got chips.
I've got hot dogs.
And we've got some kids
movies we'll put on for them.
And you go get some cookies and candy.
And we'll have a little Christmas party.
I said, you go tell the kids to be
here and I'll get it all together.
So we put it together.
We had 40 children that first
year, and it's grown over the
course of 42 years now to 20, 000.
We're right now we've expanded
it from just doing it on
Christmas day to doing it weekly.
So Christmas comes with me
every week out in the barrios.
I take out clothes and shoes and toys.
We go out there with bicycles.
household items, anything that's
functional, mostly non electric,
uh, food that's non perishable.
These people have no electricity,
no way to refrigerate anything.
They live in dirt floors, cardboard
box houses, pallet houses.
We try to help them a little bit.
We're not fixing their problem.
We're just making today a little better.
The Christmas of 83 was our second year.
First year I did it for
the sportsman's club.
And we had a little disagreement
on how it was going to get paid.
So I said, don't worry about it.
I'll pay for it myself
and I'll do it myself.
And off
Speaker: you
Speaker 2: went.
And off we went.
Speaker: How many people are
involved in the Santa Claus Club now?
Speaker 2: I don't even know how
to count them, but there's a lot
of people, a lot of businesses.
We've got thrift stores
that are involved with us.
We've got clothing stores,
people that give us stuff.
There's hundreds and hundreds of people.
Some people are just shuttle people.
Some people make donations, some
people are involved in tournaments
that we put on, the Cornhole
Tournament, Softball Tournament.
It's just all little bits and pieces.
And right now the best thing we've got
going is the Cornhole Tournament, which
we're doing the last full week in April
and the last full week in October.
And it's our best fundraiser.
But there are people who donate
money, far away as Michigan, New York.
Washington State, at one point in
time, I had donations from eight
different countries and all 50 states.
Wow.
So it's come in over the
years from everywhere.
Yeah.
It's really hard to count them.
I don't, I don't know how many
people are really involved.
Lots and lots, huh?
It's lots and lots of people, yeah.
But it's grown over the years
from just a little small
nucleus of people in Shoya Bay.
When I first got started, it was,
you know, Probably 10 of us that got
together and helped get it kicked off.
Skip Randall, when we first
helped us finance it to start
with, he gave us a wave runner.
He had Randall Marine up and Mesa, and
he gave us a wave runner to auction off.
And so that gave us our
nest egg to get started.
And from then on, it's
pretty much been on its own.
How do people reach out to you if they
Speaker: have something
they want to donate?
What would be a great
way to get ahold of you?
Speaker 2: They can call me at my
home in Phoenix at 602 840 1528.
You can call me on that number or you
can email me at Santa Claus Club spelled
S-A-N-T-A-C-L-A-U-S-C-L-U b@hotmail.com.
Speaker: What's your favorite memory
of one of the children that you've
helped in the Santa Claus Club?
Speaker 2: I've got a really neat
little story that it happened at jj.
We were doing approximately 2,500, 3000
kids out at the Cantina at that time.
This was back before I
moved it to doing it weekly.
And they came up to me and said, there's
a little kid that wants to talk to you.
I said, tell him I'm busy.
And he went back and told him.
I said, I'll talk to him.
He said, no, he wants to talk to you now.
So I stopped, went and
talked to this little kid.
And he was standing there with
both his hands up under his chin.
I didn't know what he had, but
he had something in his hand.
And he looked up at me when I
came with these big brown eyes and
looked up handed me a big pen that
has, I guess his dad had weaved.
Cantina JJ's on it.
So it took a little forethought to do
this because they just didn't have it.
They had to plan on this.
He reached up and handed it to me and told
me in perfect English, Merry Christmas.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker 2: just a puddle.
Yeah.
That's my best story for the, you know,
for the Santa Claus Club for years.
People ask me, why did you do it?
I do it for a 29 cent Bic pen.
Speaker: How did that
Bic pen make you feel?
What were the emotions?
Oh, it
Speaker 2: just puddled on the floor, man.
It just, it just got to you.
I mean, even telling the
story, I get chill bumps.
That little kid wanted
to give me something.
You know, and he had to plan on it.
I mean, it was not like
just He didn't just show up.
He had a plan on, he wanted to
give me something for Christmas.
Speaker: I love that.
On that.
John, what's in store
for you in the future?
I know that you've backed away from
JJ's a little bit, you know, you've
got another business running right now.
What's in your future?
You know,
Speaker 2: I've got a little hotel in
town and I'm not really into getting
back into full scale business anymore.
I spend all my time out there
dealing with the kids and trying
to provide for them and that's
all I really care about right now.
I don't need the money from JJ's,
and I don't need the money from
the hotel, and I retired because
I could come down here and live.
Yeah, and, and the Christmas Club
does still keep you pretty darn busy.
It does.
I, I put in about 80 hours a week.
Speaker: Yeah.
So you're taking this phone down.
Speaker 2: It's a full time job.
I tell people, they say, you need to
find somebody that will take over this.
I said, I'm not going to
find anybody that goofy.
It can be self sufficient, run back
and forth to Phoenix every week,
not have to worry about having to
make money and not having a job.
I don't know what's going to
happen if something happens to me.
I really don't know.
It takes a person that really
wants to be dedicated to get
out there and do what I do.
You know, I didn't
start it off to be this.
You know, with 40 children, whoever could
see in 40 years it'd be 20, 000 kids.
Yeah.
Who'd ever vision that?
You know, my wildest dreams.
I had no idea that I was
going to have 20, 000 kids.
Speaker: John, you've been such a pillar
of the community since I've been here.
I really appreciate
you coming on the show.
What a great conversation.
And a lot of interesting history about
an icon in this industry that a lot
of people don't know the history on.
So, thanks for coming
Speaker 2: on.
It's been fun.
I've enjoyed it.
I've liked to watch the people
who have spun off of what
we've done over the years.
When we got here, there were two bars.
I mean, there were a few restaurants
that had, could serve you a beer or
something, but it was really no bars and
restaurants and all this is a spinoff
with the Americans realizing that we
can come in here and do something.
You're
Speaker: a spinoff too.
I remember meeting you
as a very young man.
I came down here at 28 years old
and you were the established guy
on the ground making things happen.
Speaker 2: That was a
fun meeting that night.
You walked in with your ATO hat on.
Yeah.
Visions of grandeur.
Speaker: And that's something
that's actually I forgot to mention.
I had it written down here to discuss.
So, John, you and I have a common past.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker: In our fraternity.
Different schools,
Speaker 2: same fraternity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Alpha Tau Omega.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: That's really cool.
So John, thanks again so much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate coming
and I hope people enjoy listening.
Speaker: I'm sure they will
Life in a beach