Boise, ID/Bakersfield, CA, USA. The historic building erected in 1940, by Benito Ysursa, immigrant from Iurreta, as the site of the Valencia Basque boarding house [Ysursa had previously run the Modern Hotel] will soon begin preparations for the opening of a restaurant in the upper part, and a game room below. The building is now owned by the Barclay Group and it remained empty as the pandemic interfered with previous plans. Over the years, it was also the headquarters of other Basque businesses, such as the Oñati restaurant, by Jesus Alcelay, or the Old Basque Inn Restaurant, which opened in Boise as its namesake in Jordan Valley, Oregon.
The Ysursas are a well-known Basque family in Boise and the United States.
Born in 1895, at the Iturburu house in Iurreta, Bizkaia, Benito Ysursa came to Boise in 1915. He met Asuncion Camporredondo in the Idaho capital. She was born in Trapagaran, Bizkaia and they were married in 1919. In 1920, Ramon (Ray) was born and in 1924, Evangelina (Ruby), their two children. Ramon Ysursa would take over for his parents at the Valencia. Recently deceased, Benedicto Goitiandia Lecona, also ran the Valencia for a time.
The Noriega in Bakersfield
In Bakersfield, the Noriega centennial and emblematic Basque hotel, closed permanently a year ago, sparking a whole movement that could not face all of the factors against it, topped off by the Coronavirus. Noriega’s, now reopens this coming Friday, under the same name, at 4809 Stockdale Highway, with new owners, assuming a kind of continuity. The original Noriega bar is missing, with its kantxa and its hardly reproducible atmosphere, precisely in recent dates like at the end of May where it would have been a “meeting point” for the Kern County Basque Club Basque Festival. But on a new Noriega's poster, we don’t even see the reference “Basque,” which was an unequivocal hallmark of the original Noriega. In other places, they do advertise that they serve “traditional Basque family-style food.”
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