By Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 21, 2002
A few weeks ago, a waitress at Dad's Cafe and Steakhouse in Poway noticed a middle-aged couple taking pictures in front of the restaurant, like tourists posing in front of Niagara Falls.
The couple said they were visiting from New York and had been following David Westerfield's murder trial on television. They wanted everyone back home to know they'd made a trip to the famous nightspot.
"People come here just to gawk," said Patrick Lipe, the co-owner of Dad's, as he sat in one of the bar's burgundy vinyl booths. "Our phone has rung so many times from people asking directions to this place."
Dad's is a magnet for strangers these days. They come from all parts of San Diego and beyond. On Friday night, the crowd included a woman from Maine who traveled across the country just to visit Dad's and several other locales that have become notorious in the case of Westerfield, 50, who is accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
Some people walk in, look around and walk out. Not long ago, one guy prowled around the parking lot snapping photos of the restaurant from several angles, telling Lipe he was taking the pictures for posterity.
Some stay long enough to order a beer or a meal, and pepper the staff with questions about where Danielle's mother, Brenda, was dancing, and which barstool Westerfield was sitting on, and where Barbara and Denise were playing pool on the last night the second-grader was seen alive.
Lipe usually obliges by giving what he wearily describes as "the 5-cent tour." Here's the spot where van Dam and Westerfield may or may not have shared a dance. In the corner is where Barbara Easton stuck her hand down Yvette Wetli's blouse. In front is the smoking lounge where Duane the fisherman spotted Keith and Rich looking drunk and stoned on the night of Feb. 1.
Lipe, a burly man with graying red hair, says he's happy for the extra business but uneasy about the reasons for it. He understands that the restaurant is now linked in the public consciousness with a child's horrifying death.
He also worries that the Westerfield trial – with its soap-opera-like testimony about marijuana smoking, wife-swapping, vodka-swilling and dirty dancing – has created a misperception about the bar.
Lipe wants people to understand that Dad's is a family place, the kind of homey nightspot where the staff has been known to hand out fresh-baked cookies on Friday and Saturday nights. The restaurant sponsors two Little League teams.
Lipe has gone so far as to cancel the weekly swing-dance lessons to avoid subjecting the establishment to further ridicule.
"The publicity is a good thing," he said. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But that little girl is never coming back."