Last night, in the evocative, old Spanish-style library of Barlow Hospital the Echo Park Historical Society members and friends gathered to hear the story of the restaurant/landmark/nightspot Taix. Michael Taix (pronounced Tex), who is the grandson of the founder, told a colorful tale not just of L.A.'s oldest French restaurant but of his family. Complete with dozens of cool old pix. As Michael Taix tells it, the family came to L.A. from the upper French alps in the 1880s. (Hard to breathe and make a living in the high altitudes.) They pronounced the X before they even crossed the pond. Michael grew up in Los Feliz and Silver Lake and lives in La Crescenta now.

Greatgrandpa lived in what then was L.A.'s French quarter, bought lots of real estate, sent his son back to France for an education in pharmacology. According to Michael this is the way Taix became a restaurant: one of his grandpa's tenants, who ran a French restaurant, was serving liquor openly during prohibition.

The G-men told Grandpa his tenant had to stop. Tenant threw down his keys and walked out (who ever heard of a French restaurant without alcool?!) And so Grandpa Taix took over the country-style French restaurant -- then in the 300 block of Commercial Street downtown -- and renamed it Taix. In the back room, the same G-men came in for Brandy served more acceptably in coffee cups. What's more, since Grandpa Taix was a pharmacist he had access to legal liquor, which was available for "medicinal purposes." (Sound familiar?) In this way he was able to medicate his restaurant patrons. With onion soup, too.

In the '60s, the restaurant's site was eminent-domained for what eventually became a parking lot. So Taix moved to Echo Park, because Frenchmen love duck hunting, which they did at Echo Park Lake and at the river. (Noooo!) Then there were the mariachis, it being the '60s and all. ... Well, that's Michael's story, and I'm sticking to it.