This Vintage California-Based Fine Dining Chain Had Real Turtle Soup On Its Menu

In this day and age where fast food and fast casual dining can be found just about everywhere, it's hardly surprising those of a certain age will reminisce about an earlier era of fine dining. One vintage California-based fine dining chain with its share of fans online (and pages on Facebook devoted to different defunct locations to prove it) even had real turtle soup on its menu: The Velvet Turtle.

The turtle soup that The Velvet Turtle served was a version of a once-popular soup now banned in the U.S., but it originally was connected to the 4th of July. The Velvet Turtle used "farmed raised Louisiana turtle" rather than the sea turtle meat that has been banned since 1973, when the Endangered Species Act was enacted. Despite the obvious connection to the restaurant name — and the different ways to prepare it, including in steak form — turtle soup was the only turtle dish on the restaurant's menu, which included other fine dining staples such as oysters on the half shell, beef Wellington, filet mignon, rack of lamb, and lobster tail. It was a fancy and elegant restaurant often reserved for special occasions, such as birthdays, anniversaries, fancy date nights, proposals, and weddings. For many diners, it was their first dining experience as a child.

The Velvet Turtle was founded in 1964 by Wally Botello and at one point, there were 21 locations throughout California, including in Los Angeles, Redondo Beach, Fresno, Pasadena, Hacienda Heights, Thousand Oaks, Covina, and more. Botello sold the chain to Saga Corp in the 1970s. Shortly after Marriott Corp. purchase Saga Corp in 1986, it sold its restaurant chains, including The Velvet Turtle to a private investor group, which closed The Velvet Turtle chain in 1992.

After Botello sold the chain, he moved to the desert in Coachella Valley and opened Wally's Desert Turtle in Rancho Mirage, which is still open to this day, and now run by Botello's granddaughter, Madalyn Botello. There is no turtle soup on the menu — soup options include French onion and wild mushroom — though you can get fine dining classics such as  escargot, caviar, rack of lamb, and prime filet of beef. Turtle soup can still be found on the menus of restaurants in Louisiana, including such big names as Galatoire's, Brennan's, and Commander's Palace, which uses farmed snapping turtles. Or there's always mock turtle soup.