SID SOFFER: 1932-2007

Former Newport Beach restaurateur Sid Soffer — a maverick who lived by his own codes, often not exactly the government’s — died Tuesday morning in Las Vegas after fighting leukemia and diabetes. He was 74.

Soffer had been a self-proclaimed “fugitive” since 1995, when he left California for Las Vegas to avoid being arrested for building-code violations. But he always intended to come back and finish the fight.

“I’m definitely coming back,” Soffer told the Daily Pilot in 2000. “It’s just a question of when.”

Known for his beef stroganoff and battles with city hall, Soffer at times owned two popular restaurants — Sid’s Steakhouse and the Blue Beet — in Newport Beach, and he appealed a dispute with the city of Costa Mesa over some classic cars in his yard all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Always outspoken, Soffer loved talking to people and hearing their stories, remembered his daughter, Shima Soffer.

“He was such a people person, and he always tried to make conversation with the waitress or the checkout person or just whoever was there,” Shima Soffer said, adding that it was important to her dad to know a few words in multiple languages so he could try to communicate with anyone.

But when it came to government, Soffer was a fighter, many who knew him said.

“Sid battled everybody and everything, and right up to the end he was battling the IRS and the city and everything, but cancer he couldn’t beat,” said Steve Lewis, who now owns the Blue Beet. “He could beat everybody else, almost.”

He was beating people at chess in the back room of the Blue Beet when John Coombe met him. Coombe, who knew Soffer since the mid-1970s and was his attorney for years, remembered him as a genius when it came to restaurants.

Sid’s Steakhouse had no lights or sign out front, but “you’d open up the big oaken door and the place was packed,” Coombe said.

Soffer bought the Blue Beet in the mid-1960s and continued to own the property even after he sold the business about two decades later. He was “a hell of a cook,” said Scott Lewis, son of Steve Lewis and general manager of the Blue Beet, but Soffer was as uncompromising about food as he was about city issues.

“If you’d try to get salt or pepper with your steak, he’d kick you out of the restaurant,” Lewis said.

In terms of his staff and customers, he wanted to accept everyone, Shima Soffer said. He employed black and Latino workers at the Blue Beet during the 1960s, even though some customers said they’d never come back because of it.

To friends and adversaries, Soffer had a colorful personality, an intelligent mind and an unquenchable desire to fight for the little guy.

“He drove all of us nuts at City Hall, but he was a very worthy opponent,” said Peter Buffa, who as a former mayor of Costa Mesa sparred with Soffer. Buffa is a columnist for the Daily Pilot.

For years, Soffer would offer his opinions at Newport Beach and Costa Mesa city council meetings, whether he was familiar with an issue or not, and he’d generally do it with humor. Dennis O’Neil, a former Newport Beach city attorney, remembered Soffer doing research in the city of Newport Beach’s law library on municipal issues he thought were wrong and needed correction.

Soffer’s own troubles with government were myriad. The city of Costa Mesa in 1995 charged him with building-code violations at several properties he owned. A warrant for his arrest was issued after he failed to show up for sentencing, and he fled to Las Vegas, where he remained.

In 2000, he tangled with the Orange County health department, keeping Sid’s Steakhouse open even after he was ordered to close it for health-code violations.

He demanded a hearing on the violations, telling the Daily Pilot at the time, “I want to know when’s the last time somebody died from a cockroach?”

“He was very strong in his beliefs in less government and leaving people alone,” said former Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan, who ran Soffer’s steakhouse from 1996 to 1997. “But at the same time he had trouble recognizing authority, and he would get himself in trouble that way too.”

Soffer called himself “the fugitive,” and he continued to keep up on local issues even after he fled to Las Vegas. In recent years, some friends said, they stopped hearing from him, but they knew he was ill. His daughter said he was on his third round of chemotherapy and was tired of fighting.

But he still had planned to vindicate himself in Costa Mesa, and Shima Soffer might take up his fight.

“I plan on carrying the torch and fighting as hard as he did,” she said, adding that she may handle it differently than her father had in the past.

Soffer’s wife, Michiko, remembered him as a big-hearted eccentric and a hard worker. Others said even though they didn’t always agree with him, they appreciated his individualism.

“You don’t see guys like that anymore,” said Dan Marcheano, president of the Newport Beach Restaurant Assn. “He worked. He wasn’t like the new restaurateurs with a suit and tie and, ‘What time do we play golf?’ He was hands-on. He could cook with the best of them.”

Shima Soffer said a memorial service will be held locally, but no details are available yet.