The "King of Malibu"

A very sweet article was written about my dad recently in the Malibu Patch. I'm posting it here mainly so it will forever be in our family book but also because we are all so proud of him. Here is the (reprinted) article and some pictures that they printed. It speaks for itself:)

King of Malibu and the Snack Shack
By Dorothy Reinhold | May 28, 2011
John Sibert may be the mayor of Malibu, but if you walked around town and took a poll about who should be king of the city, the name mentioned most often would probably be John Paola.
John holds court at his modest castle—the Snack Shack in the town center, aka Bluffs Park. Day after day, he shows up to man the counter and wield his spatula at the outside grill, flipping burgers, turning hot dogs (all beef or impossibly long Dodger Dogs), or for the granola crowd, veggie burgers.
Kids queue up to the counter, finger their coins and eye the Slurpees, the Starburst candies, the salted sunflower seeds and the Corn Nuts. They ponder whether Gatorade is better than Sprite and agonize over the choice of a doughnut or a corn dog. After all, that fist full of money will go only so far, and these are important decisions!
It’s all the same to John. Kids like fast food and candy, and who better than he to understand and accept that. He has been catering to their whims for the better part of two decades.
He has run the Snack Shack for 18 years, through AYSO soccer seasons and Malibu Little League baseball seasons, and God willing, he may be there for another 18 years. He gets the season schedules from each league and drives down from his Simi Valley home to open and work the Shack on game days, like clockwork.
The proceeds from each sport go to that organization, he says, thus making it the ultimate exercise in fairness. So the families who purchase from him during baseball season benefit Malibu Little League; the customers who buy during soccer season fund AYSO. And so it goes.

It's his turf, and you’re welcome on it if only you observe his rules.

Wisecracking is not just a nicety, it is a necessity. The bigger the groaner, the better. A belly laugh is his calling card.
A hearty appetite is a good thing, especially in a kid.
Speaking of that, it’s all about the kids.
Kids (and parents) know him by name. He knows many of their orders before they even call them out. He seems to revel in the activity at the ballpark, keeping a mental note of who is winning, which team has had better days, which coach needs a little goose, which talented batter has hit one over the fence, and, of course, who needs a perfectly grilled burger to wipe that loss out of their mind.

"How ya been? I haven’t seen you for a while … you get married or something?" he asked a young customer the other day.

"No," answered the boy, a bit uncertain.

"Then no wonder you’re so happy," John shot back with a big grin on his face.

Of course that one’s a joke. John, 75, has been married to Rosie for "forty-tree"years.

Hali Norris, a seventh-grader at Malibu High School and a veteran softball player, bantered with John at his counter the other day. "Are you here again?" he asked her, his voice gruff with affection. "You’re like a bad hangover!"
Her assessment of him as she turned away to eat her burger? "He’s so great. Everything he does is about giving back to everyone else. He’s always there for us," she said.
Calling his domain a shack is apt. It's actually a large metal shed that long ago rusted and corroded. He vamped it by attaching wooden siding to shore it up and patch the holes. A rat infestation many years ago was dispatched and handled, never to be repeated, he says.
But he wants to upgrade. Like half of Malibu, he plans a remo. He'd like to pour a small concrete foundation or pad and actually build a small building, a real enclosure that has an authentic floor and honest-to-goodness walls. Is that asking for too much? Nah. He’ll make it happen.
You can't talk about John without also talking about the Malibu Kiwanis Club, where he has been a leader for many years, taking his turn as president more than once, and now serving as "event coordinator." After the ball seasons are over, he will spend the summer stationed outside Starbucks selling tickets for the Kiwanis car raffle, and then segue into preparing for and working the Kiwanis' big community festival—the Labor Day Chili Cook-Off. After that comes a full soccer season, and then he begins working on the Malibu Christmas tree lot—a fundraiser for the Malibu High athletic department. January is about his only slow month.
In his past life, John owned and ran four restaurants in the San Fernando Valley—steak houses, places where you could get a good meal for a fair price. He retired from that business to volunteering at the Snack Shack grill. Just for us, he’s happy to share his tips and hints about how to grill for a crowd.
He buys his burgers and dogs from Smart & Final, where he says he can get good quality for a good price.
He prefers the flavor of all-beef hot dogs, but says many of his customers prefer the faddish allure of the 10-inch Dodger Dog. "Suit yourself," he says with a gentle growl.
Because he can be swamped by a crowd, especially when a game ends, his trick is to grill the burgers and then set them in a tray of hot beef broth. When a customer orders a burger, he removes it from the broth and finishes it on the grill, adding a bun alongside on the grill. That way, the burgers can be made to order for the crowd.
As a favor, he allows frequent customers to run a tab. He’s a little bit "Mayberry RFD" in that way, a throwback to a time in this country's history when ambling was the mode, when the clock seemed to run a bit slower, and when a burger and a ballgame was the best kind of entertainment out there.
Most of all, he wants to make sure even if a kid forgot his money, he can still get a snack before the game.
For John Paola, it’s all about the kids, all the time.