The year was 1981. The U.S. economy was in recession. Interest rates were in double digits. Jim Dad, a tall, skinny shy young man, was shoveling snow off houseboats on Shasta Lake for minimum wage, then $2 an hour. His father had died the year before in Yuba City, where Dad was raised on a farm, learning the virtues of hard work by picking peaches, plums and walnuts. 

A few months later somebody suggested Dad apply for a job at a new restaurant in east Redding, Nello’s Place, founded by Nello Miele, a veteran of fine dining establishments in New York, Palm Beach, Las Vegas and San Francisco. Miele hired Dad as a dishwasher. “I went to work indoors, with air conditioning, regular hours and days off. I think I made the right choice,” Dad recalls.