`Mac' Manza, Owned Poodle Dog Restaurant

FIFE, Pierce County - Rocco "Mac" Manza, creator of the landmark Poodle Dog restaurant here, has died at age 94.

Mr. Manza, who became rich in the construction business but still worked six-day weeks at his beloved restaurant, died Wednesday (March 31) at St. Claire Hospital in Lakewood, Pierce County.

He opened the restaurant on Highway 99 with partner E.J. "Jimmy" Zarelli in 1933. The place quickly became a Tacoma-area institution.

"Mac was one of the great pioneers of our area," said lifelong friend Stan Naccarato. "Mac knew everybody. He loved to sit and talk with everybody."

Mr. Manza was born in 1904 in an Italian farming village. The family ultimately settled in Tacoma, where his parents ran a grocery, and Mr. Manza quit school in the sixth grade to hawk newspapers, peddle fruit, jerk sodas, sell cigars and run pool halls.

"Everybody called me Mac," Mr. Manza said in a 1989 interview. "My dad once paid $50 to this school to teach my brother Ralph to be a mechanic. I used to visit Ralph over at mechanic's school, so they started calling me `Little Mechanic.' Then it became Mac. Simple."

Mr. Manza and childhood friend Zarelli saved their money and borrowed $500 from Mr. Manza's father to buy a Fife hamburger stand called The Blue Jay. Originally, they called it "The Mayflower" - the name on a neon sign they had bought from a miniature golf course for $95.

Mr. Manza hated the name, however, and renamed it The Poodle Dog, after an eatery in San Francisco. It was an instant hit.

In 1934, the pair built the Century Ballroom next door. Bandleader Guy Lombardo opened the place, and big-name entertainers made frequent stops. Tommy Dorsey and his band attracted 4,752 people one night in 1940.

Mr. Manza and Zarelli closed the Century in 1956 to concentrate on their construction firm, Merit Co., which later built the Villa Plaza mall in Lakewood and the Tacoma Dome.

Zarelli died in 1985, but Mr. Manza kept working at The Poodle Dog every day but Sunday.

"His real pride," said his daughter, Jan Blatt, "was taking care of people."

Mr. Manza, whose wife of 56 years, Loma, died in 1992, is survived by two daughters, two sons and two sisters. The family plans to keep The Poodle Dog in operation the way Mr. Manza liked it.