At 18, she found a pot of hot dogs at the end of the rainbow
CONCORD, CA (May 22, 2022) — On April 15, Lisa V’s celebrated 40 years since it opened its doors. Since then, locals say not much has changed about the place that serves hot dogs, tacos and burritos in the Vineyard Shopping Center.
“It’s the same as I remember it from when I was a kid,” said Melissa Hines, who has been eating at Lisa V’s for more than 35 years. Another loyal customer, Victoria Hines, said simply: “It feels like home when you walk in.”
A long journey
That sense of connection and community is mainly due to the restaurant’s longtime owner, Lisa Von Felden. She started working at the restaurant while in high school and needed to fulfill a “work experience” class requirement. She remembered it wasn’t the smoothest ride early on.
“The older lady that was working with me apparently wanted to get me fired because she wanted her daughter to work here,” Von Felden said in a recent interview.
After she told her boss she wouldn’t be able to graduate without the work credits, the two came to an agreement: Von Felden would work unpaid for a week at another restaurant the woman owned.
But in the end, she made herself so useful that she split her work days between both places. “I kind of became her right arm,” she recalled.
When the owner later was interested in selling the business, Von Felden asked what it would take for her to run it.
“We literally sat down and on a napkin she wrote out and explained to me what gross sales meant and what my different expenses might be,” she said. “I didn’t even have a checkbook. I was 18.”
A sign from the heavens
Her decision was a pretty intuitive one. Von Felden went home and talked to her parents about it. “They thought I was crazy,” she remembered. But “in my mind I was like, ‘I’m gonna do this.’ ”
Her parents took out a loan against their home to support her venture. And from Day 1, Von Felden felt her destiny couldn’t have been clearer.
As she drove to pick up the keys, she came upon “the biggest, brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen” directly over the store. Recalling the moment with tears in her eyes, she added: “I knew God was telling me, ‘That’s your path.’ I knew I was doing the right thing.”
Her work hours were long, but business was good. Von Felden’s younger sister, Dayna Guillory, also started working at the restaurant when she was 18. She said Von Felden regularly worked 60-70 hours a week in the beginning.
“She probably had four to five days off in her first few years,” Guillory said.
As a result of her labor, Von Felden paid off her parents’ loan within five years – and the rest is culinary history.
Generations of customers
Anne Holt has been a loyal customer since Von Felden opened, with four generations of her family eating at the restaurant over the years.
“It’s a big deal to come and have Lisa’s hot dogs when I pick up my grandchildren from school,” Holt said. “It truly is part of the community.”
For Guillory, it’s those deep connections with customers that matter most.
“Families have been coming in for so many years, and then having kids, and then their kids have kids … those are the ones that touch us,” she said.
After four decades of providing food – and friendship – for the community, Von Felden said it’s been worth the journey.
“People identify food with a lot of memories,” Von Felden said. “I wouldn’t change anything for the world. I’m really thankful.”
Cassandra Shoneru
Cassandra Shoneru is a recent high school graduate and upcoming journalist. She is born and raised in the Bay Area and has a passion for helping her community. In her free time she enjoys spending time with family and friends, exploring new cities, and reading. She is looking forward to bringing awareness to important topics in her community.