After 50 years in dining biz, El Gaucho honcho calls for the check

Originally published September 19, 2014 at 12:30 PM | Page modified September 19, 2014 at 3:14 PM

Every few minutes, while Paul Mackay was back in the pantry of Seattles old Aero Club putting together Caesar salad trays and shrimp cocktails, the swinging door to the dining room would fly open and it would all hit.

The tinkling piano and the oozing saxophone. The skeins of laughter and the clinking glasses. Corks popping. Cutlery clattering. Waitresses in gold lam whooshing past.

It was all out there, Mackay recalled the other day. All the excitement was out in the dining room.

That was 1957, when he was just a 16. Mackay would go on to work at pancake houses, fish for king crab in Alaska and even teach flying but he could never forget what he remembered as the romance of fine dining.

Forty years later, The Silver Fox who has seen the Seattle dining scene explode and change and at least at his beloved El Gaucho steak house stay the very same, is grabbing his last pack of toothpicks and retiring.

I used to come in at 10 a.m. and stay through dinner, he said in a private dining room at the place he calls The Gaucho. He didnt mind. He loved it, in fact. The feel of the place, the people.

But then, My hearing started getting bad and my sight was not good, he said. I didnt feel comfortable in a dark restaurant, working.

Its a wonder that he lasted this long. At 73, Mackay is a bit of an ironman. Not only has he worked in the restaurant business his whole life, but he has opened and managed El Gaucho, 13 Coins, Lafittes, Elliotts Oyster House, The Metropolitan Grill and Yarrow Bay Grill & Beach Cafe. In 1995, he partnered with Chef Christine Keff to open Flying Fish.

Along the way, he collected tips, paychecks and a philosophy of how to do things.

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After 50 years in dining biz, El Gaucho honcho calls for the check