Paul Dobson, amateur bullfighter, English literature and opera lover, and, above all, San Diego’s consummate host to San Diego’s movers and shakers for more nearly 60 years, has died. He was 82. From his perch at the front door of Dobson’s bar and restaurant in the Spreckels Theatre Building o n Broadway Circle, he greeted the high and mighty as well as walk-in tourists and locals. Opened in 1983, it featured a traditional fare, led by Dobson’s signature mussel bisque. He believed martinis should be “cold, cold, cold” and sports-bar TVs were distracting. “This is a talking bar where you have to talk to people,” he said, according to long-time investor Marcos  Luciano who succeeded Dobson as manager in 2014.  World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma was prodded to visit after a concert. Muhammad Ali posed for photos outside. Oprah Winfrey once ordered eight dinners-to-go for her private jet and pre-presidential Donald Trump, in between court depositions in 2010, lunched on a hamburger and the bisque, a rich cream soup topped with puff pastry, which he endorsed with a thumbs up. Lawyers, politicians,  stockbrokers and builders hammered out deals at Dobson’s. It’s decorated with photos of Dobson as matador and dozens of brass plaques honoring his most devoted patrons. Dobson died on Jan. 5 at Sharp Memorial Hospital after a head injury, leaving two daughters who lived with him at their EastLake townhouse. Mayor Todd Gloria, who as a 10-year-old runner-up for a “Mayor for a Day” contest first visited Dobson’s in 1989, called him a “vibrant presence in our downtown community.” “Through his restaurant, he helped shape the cultural and civic life of San Diego for decades, creating a welcoming place where relationships were forged and important decisions took shape. His legacy will live on in the lasting connections and conversations that began around these tables.” Since his death became public, long-time friends and customers have returned to Dobson’s to reminisce at the “power booth” just beyond the bar. Previously it was the Press Room, a watering hole for San Diego Union-Tribune journalists when the newspaper plant was located across the street.  Paul Dobson and his wife Carol on a scouting trip to Spain in 1985 in advance of opening La Gran Tapa in 1986. (Deborah Schneider) The reflection in the bar’s mirror of a “backward” clock still reminds patrons when it’s was time to get back to work — or go home.  “He was always at the restaurant,” said Mary Pappas, owner of nearby Athens Market Tavern. “It becomes part of your life. When you love something, it’s not work, it’s pleasure.” Dobson was born Oct. 3, 1943, in La Crescenta in Los Angeles County, and hung out with what his brother Douglas called “the rough crowd” — the “Wantons.” His grandparents enrolled him at the Flintridge parochial school to “straighten him out.”  Dobson’s parents separated around 1959, and his mother moved with him and his three siblings to San Diego County, where she worked for her in-laws. After graduating from San Dieguito High School, he majored in English literature — a lifelong interest — at San Diego State University and graduated in the class of 1967. The College of Arts and Letters awarded him a distinguished alumnus award in 1988.  After college, he began traveling frequently to Europe, especially to Spain and France.  Meanwhile, he had begun busing tables and by 1968,  took over management of the Bratskellar in La Jolla, home today of George’s at the Cove.  In 1979, he opened the Andalucia restaurant near UC San Diego. It received an “OnIon” a few months later for what architects considered a poor representation of a Spanish inn. But San Diego Union architecture critic James Britton II disagreed with the assessment when it came to the menu. “I found the owner, Paul Dobson, had already awarded himself, 1,000 onions, which were hanging from the ceiling for decoration!” Britton wrote.  “I suspect Dobson’s impossible dreamland palace is going to survive all onions and become popular even with the lofty types of UCSD.”      A management shakeup forced him out a year later and three years after that, he took over and remodeled the Press Room with investors’ backing. By 1985, he and his wife Carol appeared on the cover of Restaurant News weekly as part of a series on American cities. “The little stepchild of Los Angeles is shaking off its image as a sleepy community of a conservative bent,” the West Coast editor wrote, “emerging as one of the nation’s great high-tech manufacturing centers.” In 1986, Dobson opened La Gran Tapa at Sixth Avenue and B streets. The Union’s restaurant critic described a “high-spirited sensuousness about the place that ‘Papa’ (Ernest)  Hemingway himself would have liked.” Dobson visited Cuba several times over the years, accompanied by patrons and friends, and showed them El Floridita, Hemingway’s favorite bar and restaurant. A photo of Hemingway and a bullfighter hangs on Dobson’s wall.  He followed up in 1989 with the French-themed St. James Bar (later renamed briefly Triangles) in the Plaza at La Jolla Village, Cerveceria Santa Fe, a Mexican seafood restaurant across from the Santa Fe Depot, in 1994, and Casa Dobson in Tijuana in 1999. But his focus remained at Dobson’s, where regulars mixed with the glitterati. However, Dobson refused to document them photographically to preserve their privacy. He took “Iberia” author James Michener on an auto tour of San Diego and introduced San Diego Symphony conductor David Atherton to the Tijuana scene. In 1986, he testified at the trial over City Councilmember Uvaldo Martinez’s illegal spending of public funds (he ultimately pleaded guilty and resigned) and witnessed the heady days of downtown redevelopment, followed by recession in the 1990s and decline over the past five years.  Deborah Schneider was a chef for Dobson for 14 years, starting in 1984, and recalled the night Dobson’s stayed open an extra two hours so he could treat Yo-Yo Ma after a performance. “He was star-struck by Yo-Yo Ma — he was excited by everybody,” she said. Dobson’s other passion was bullfighting, introduced to the sport by his grandfather, despite his short stature (about 5 feet 6 inches). He dressed in the “suit of lights” and by all accounts acquitted himself well into his 50s, despite being tossed, injured and losing one eye.  “They saved the meanest bulls for him so they could laugh at him,” Schneider said.  Dobson’s matador persona inspired a 2018 short story, “Pablito,” by the late political consultant Wayne Raffesberger. Husband and wife attorneys Jan Ronis and Gretchen von Helms became Dobson’s close friends and legal advisers in the last 25 years. She called Dobson a “raconteur” who was popular with women. Newspaper columnists followed Dobson’s exploits over the years, and reporters turned to him for comments on trends in the food and restaurant business, from the rise in wine and beer over cocktails to indoor smoking bans. “I don’t go home smelling like smoke anymore,” he said in 1998. When patrons failed to cancel dinner reservations, he would snap his pencil in half and say in frustration,  “I hate ’em.” His secret to success in the restaurant business, he declared in 1995:  “(Servers and bartenders) will give you extra-attentive service when you are pleasant. As for the obnoxious diner, well, I try to kill them with kindness, give them no reason to be upset and put my ego away. I tell the staff, ‘Anything the customer wants, the customer gets.’ You stay out of trouble that way.” Dobson is survived by his daughters, Juliette and Lizabette; his brother Douglas of Hawaii; and his sister Debbie, last known to be living in the Mt. Palomar area. Another sister, Sharon, had died earlier.  A celebration of life is scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Jan. 30 at Dobson’s, 956 Broadway Circle. Roger Showley is a freelance writer for the U-T. ...read more read less