I found this KMGQ business card in my garage the other day. For those of you who don’t know about life before Google, Yelp, or Instagram, phone lines were a common way to get updated restaurant information. I assume it was a recording but it must have been pretty long to provide information about lunch, dinner, and brunch for all of Santa Barbara in one phone call. I tried calling the Santa Barbara restaurant hotline and you now get a fax machine, another bygone technology. Google AI says KMGQ was once the highest ranked smooth jazz radio station in the United States and was owned by James Olerich, J. Patt Wardlaw, Burke Kaplan, and Alex Sheftel, who also owned KIST/Santa Barbara.
Those were the days. I remember my parents listening to Magic 106.
Magic 106.3 – now that brings back some ‘90s memories!
I remember those days well Restaurant Guy, KMGQ was a cool station to work for in the 80’s. Santa Barbara was quite fun when we had a Soap Opera that went worldwide and a President drinking with Yeltsin and Gorbachov up at the ranch. Sam Donaldson hanging at Joe’s, White House Spokesman Larry Speaks (good name for the job) cooking Cajun at the Palace and the Secret Service working the room at the Chili Factory with the Patty Kistner band playing the hits.
So glad camera phones weren’t a thing then.
Good times!