Standing 6 feet, 9 inches tall, waiter Rick Jones cuts quite a figure at the old warhorse of oceanfront Orange County fine-dining establishments, the Villa Nova in Newport Beach.
“When they remodeled the Villa Nova in N94, they raised the roof a little bit, so thatNs helped me,” he jokes.
If you have the good fortune to be served by Jones, it wonNt be his height youNll most remember. It will be the excellent service he provides. And youNll be shocked to discover the 50-year-old has worked at the place for only a year and a half.
Jones seems to know the pricey Italian restaurant like one of its veteran workers—and keep in mind the head chef, maitre dN and general manager have worked there a combined 125 years.
“The waiters who have been there for years say the Villa Nova is where old waiters go to die,” Jones says with a laugh.
But when he got there, his co-workers accepted him right away.
“INve been around restaurants for a while, so it was easy to adapt,” he says. Veteran servers likely recognize “the restaurant business is in my blood.”
Growing up in Monterey Park, Jones bussed tables at his fatherNs Los Angeles restaurant, the Dutch Oven. “That was my first taste of the stress of restaurants,” he says.
He attended what was then Chapman College in Orange, later dabbling in manufacturing, construction (including hanging drywall) and appraising buildings. But he always returned to food service.
Among the places he waited were NickNs Fishmarket in Waikiki, Hawaii (“That was quite an experience”); the former John Dominis restaurant a couple of doors down from the Villa Nova; and, for its five years of existence, Turner New Zealand in the South Coast Metro area.
When the latter closed in early 2008, Jones was out of work and, for a waiter, long of tooth. Fortunately, unemployment did not last long.
“I took a week off, and the first place I applied to was the Villa Nova,” he says.
Two days later, he got a callback and was immediately hired. “I didnNt have to look anywhere else,” says Jones, the shock still evident in his voice. “For 50-ish waiters, there are not too many opportunities.”
He relishes it. “The people who come in are great,” he says. “ItNs been so consistent for so many years—you know what youNre going to get when you go there. ThatNs a good thing. The Villa Nova is an institution. We joke around that we should be institutionalized while working there, but itNs a great place.”
And the greatest thing about it is location, location, location. “Everyone loves to look out over the water,” Jones says. “It brings me back to a sailing class I took at the Orange Coast Windward Sailing Club. We sailed over to Catalina.”
A lifelong waterman, he has loved the beach since he began visiting his godmotherNs Huntington Beach home at age 6. Now, he lives in Surf City with his wife. His townNs greatest attraction, The Ocean, is also his No. 1 OC icon.
“I just love being out on the water,” he says. “When it gets warm, everyone heads to the beach to get that coolness of the ocean. ThatNs what drew me to Orange County, getting out on the water. That makes this different than anywhere else. In Monterey Park, maybe you can see the ocean, on a good day, 40 miles away. Here, itNs right in your back yard.”
Villa Nova Restaurant, 3131 W. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach, (949) 642-7880; www.villanovarestaurant.com.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.