Yet, he has during this lengthy period endured bum shoulders, dire predictions, burglaries, financial strain, bum knees, mob-connected investigations, and the latest and most daunting obstacle for a person in his industry, the Coronavirus Pandemic.

"When can I get out of this funk...when will it ever end?" asks Mr. Trani, speaking for himself and hundreds of thousands of other restaurateurs around the country. "It just goes on and on and on. The good news is that I'm sold out on my patio almost nightly. But just fourteen tables. The bad news is that I'm still losing money because my bar inside is closed to the public, as is everything else inside other than the kitchen. I've dropped about three hundred thousand dollars in the past seven months."

Phil Trani is seated behind a table in his dining room gloom of emptiness, as his inquisitor addresses him from six feet away, which is the Long Beach Health Department-mandated social distance separation.

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"Almost every restaurateur and realtor in town advised me not to go there---and that the location had a long history of failure dating back to when it was built in 1963," says Mr. Trani. "To be honest with you, I don't remember anyone coming up to me and saying, ‘You're going to knock them dead.’ Well, 31 years later, I'm still here, somehow. It certainly hasn't been easy."

But, oh, has there been many moments of gladness to offset the dark periods for Mr. Trani, who once actually had two men who passionately hated each other, fight promoters, Bob Arum and Don King, hold a joint press conference luncheon at his place, who once was actually being investigated by the Orange County Sheriff Organized Crime Unit because the one-time Underboss of the New York Columbo Crime Family, Dominic (Donnie Shacks) Montemarano, had become a regular customer, who once catered food for both the USC and UCLA football teams, who once had the UCLA basketball star, Jason Kapono, and the UCLA All-American quarterback, Cade McNown, training in his kitchen to become Sous-chefs, who always has been the quintessential saloonkeeper in the sacred tradition of Toots Shor mingling with his guests and, of course drinking with them in what long has been a nightly tableaux of conviviality.

"I gotta stop drinking," says Mr. Trani. "I'm 75. But how do I stop now? Probably too late for me. That train of sobriety long has passed me by I suspect. How do I tell people who come into my place, and expect to have a drink with me, that I stopped drinking? I guess it's one of the curses of my business, but, to be honest with you, it's also one of the pleasures of it."

"When are you going to retire?" he is asked.

Mr. Trani pauses with a grimace, and slowly shakes his head.

"You gotta be kidding me," he says. "What the hell would I do? What would I have to look forward to? Watching cartoons in the morning? Watching soap operas in the afternoon? Watching 'Dancing With The Stars'...and all those other silly network shows in the evening.

"I'd rather suffer here. Sure, it's tough. I'm still cooking twice a week. It's horrible on my legs. But I have to do it. No other choice. I still love talking to people. I'm still alive. I'm going to be dead soon enough---and I don't want to hurry the process by staying home and doing nothing."

Phil Trani says the remembrances of past events flood across his mental screen often these days and sometimes he even he is amazed at the eclectic company that has been in his midst across the decades.

"I never dreamed my all time coaching idol John Wooden would become a regular customer at my place, but that was the case the final 10 years of John's life," says Mr. Trani. "But it just wasn't John. There have been so many others. The great author, Gay Telese -- he wrote 'Honor Thy Father' -- spent an entire evening here drinking and relating tales of New York and the people he so often wrote about.

"And then there is Donnie Shacks, who still eats at my place. He's now 88, and looks great. He's long removed from his wild younger days in New York when he was a member of the Colombo crime family, and spent 13 years in prison for it because he wouldn't plea out to the feds. Guys from the Orange County Crime Unit actually talked to me about him. Please, I know Donnie as a customer whose best friend to this day is James Caan, and who talks to Raquel Welch and Elizabeth Hurley on a regular basis on the phone. He's always been respectful to me and to my customers..."

While Phil Trani admits these are difficult times for him, he also is philosophical about it.

"When I get too depressed, I always think to myself, 'I never should have been here in the first place,'" he says. "I was born when my dad was 55 and my mom was 45. They already had seven kids -- four boys and three girls. Let's face it, I was a mistake of nature being their eighth child. Now all that is left in my own family is my older brother John and me. I shouldn't complain too much for a kid who graduated in 1962 from Mary Star of the Sea in San Pedro and never went to college. I've had a helluva life, but it's been a harrowing roller coaster of a life with a lot of gleeful ups and a lot of agonizing downs along the way..."

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