Blue Water Grill remembers longtime employee

Mathis Winkler

Parkinson’s disease might have slowed Ella Souza down a little. But

until her illness finally forced her to retire a couple of years ago, she

kept colleagues at the Blue Water Grill on their toes.

“She could still shuck oysters faster than the boys, proving that it

was technique rather than strength” that counted, said Mike Doheny, a

manager at the restaurant.

Souza, 82, died June 25, and together with restaurant employees and

some of Souza’s family members, Doheny remembered her as a wonderful

woman who played an instrumental role in the restaurant’s success.

“An awful lot of people came just to see Ella,” Doheny said. “Rarely

does a week go by that someone doesn’t ask about her.”

Born Ella Olson, Souza left her native Wisconsin in the 1930s and

followed her brothers to California. For more than three decades, she

worked as a waitress in her brother Ralph’s restaurant in Los Angeles.

When that establishment closed, she moved to Newport Beach and soon began

working for Delaney’s restaurant, the Blue Water Grill’s predecessor.

“I never saw her mad,” said Guillermo Vasquez, who met Souza when he

first started at Delaney’s as a cleaner. “She always had a smile on her

face.”

Vasquez, now the chef at Blue Water Grill, said Souza was also the

only waitress who shared tips with dishwashers.

Souza and her husband, Donald, who died in 1975, had no children. But

she raised her half-brother, Henry, and showered her nieces and nephew

with affection.

“She loved being around people, even when she was failing in health,”

said Souza’s niece, Peggy Robino, who had come to the restaurant with her

sister, Joyce Marzlo; Joyce’s husband, John; and her brother, Jim Olson.

Robino added that she remembered helping Souza count coin tips as a

child and always looked forward to her aunt’s Christmas presents.

While Souza loved her cats -- they all came to her as stray ones and

she usually had one at a time -- her job meant everything to her, Robino

said.

“She didn’t want to take vacations,” she said. “She loved having a

purpose.”

After a toast “to Ella,” the quartet dug into Oysters Rockefeller,

“Ella” style. That’s what they’re called on the restaurant’s menu, and

owner Jim Ulcickas explained that Souza prepared them with Hollandaise

sauce instead of cheese.

“She was a legend,” he said, adding that he plans to put Souza’s

photograph on the wall above the oyster bar.