This old steakhouse turns into SoCal’s hottest salsa dancing hub by night

In a working-class downtown business district, where cars roll down the highways and the Citadel Outlets tower looms over neighborhoods, there’s a steakhouse called Steven’s. During the day, this is a classic and charming old restaurant where working people go for a quiet, hearty meal.

But every Sunday night the outside world disappears.

As waiters move in starched button-ups, couples lead each other by the hand to the dance floor in the restaurant’s ballroom, where Stevens’ Salsa Sands tradition has been bringing the community together for 73 years.

Every Sunday at 7 p.m., introductory lessons begin at Stevens Steakhouse.

(Emil Ravello/For The Times)

An eight-piece band plays brass, electric guitar, bongos and timbles, filling the room with music as the dancers move in a lively array. One participant, 29-year-old Amy Hernandez, greets a few familiar faces before she takes to the dance floor, walking in confident steps with a wide smile on her face.

Hernandez is part of a renaissance that young people love about salsa music — and goes to Stevens. She grew up watching her father dance salsa but began diving into the genre herself to find solace during the LA wildfires earlier this year. He credits Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” for rekindling his interest.

“It was very healing for me,” he says of the album, which combines old-school Puerto Rican boricua samples with Latin dance and reggaeton influences for an emotional visualization of Puerto Rican identity.

For decades, Stevens has brought friends, couples, and families together for live music and dancing.

(Email Ravello/For The Times)

When college friends suggested Stevens as an affordable place to dance, Hernandez mentioned it in passing to his father. “He laughed and said, ‘I remember that place. I danced there too,'” Hernandez says.

A growing number of original artists return to the tradition of the Latin fusion genre reggaeton. Along with the music of Bad Bunny, who will headline the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, you can find classic salsa references on reggaeton star Rao Alejandro’s latest album, “Cosa Nostra,” and Colombian pop star Carol G on her multi-genre summer album, “Tropicocuta,” which will be at the center of her coach.

“You can feel the youthful energy,” says longtime Stevens salsa instructor Jennifer Aguirre. “It makes me really happy that a younger generation is taking up salsa. Because I was worried about something. I don’t know how salsa will continue.”

Los Angeles has a special connection to salsa, an Afro-Caribbean dance born from the Cuban mambo. In cities like Miami and New York, salsa arrived with Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants. Instead, L.A.’s salsa influence came from Golden Age Hollywood, where Latin dancing in movies created a singular, flashy Angelino style, characterized by quick turns and theatrical movement, according to salsa historian Juliette McManus.

The 1990s were another high point for the genre, when West Coast pioneers such as the Vazquez brothers and their first-ever dance team salsa brava created a local dance craze. The Vazquezes introduced the “on-1” step and innovated a bright, dramatic style of salsa in LA that brought crowds to competitions and conventions throughout the 2000s. The legendary late promoter Albert Torres founded the LA Salsa Congress in 1999, the first congress on the West Coast, attracting a worldwide audience to Angelino Salsa.

Opened by Steven Phillips in 1952 (and located in Stevens Place), Stevens in Business became a local center for Latin music. “The interesting part was that the area wasn’t Latino,” says Jim Philippin, Steven’s grandson and now the restaurant’s third-generation owner. “My grandfather foresaw that this genre would be the future.”

Jim Phillippe remembers his childhood growing up in a restaurant. “We’ll have hundreds of people on Sunday,” he says. “The ballroom, the restaurant, everyone was dancing salsa, and it was incredible. My dad took it over in the ’70s, and I ran it with him in the ’90s.”

Yet by the 2010s it was clear that another genre was taking over the Latin dance scene: bachata, popularized by New York stars such as Prince Rhys and Romeo Santos. Salsa quickly went from being hip to old fashioned.

During Stevens’ dance lesson, guests learn how to sizzle on the dance floor.

(Emil Ravello/For The Times)

Aguirre, Stevens’ salsa teacher, witnessed first-hand why people lost interest in the genre. “It was like an instant switch,” Aguirre says. “Salsa wasn’t that popular then, and people would go to the other side of the restaurant to take bachata lessons.”

The pandemic also dealt a major blow to local salsa clubs, as partners in the longtime dance club industry reeled from low attendance rates and rising rents. And in the past year, two historical sites, the Kanga House and the Mayan, were closed permanently.

Steven had almost the same fate. The financial burden during the pandemic forced Gym Philippines to close for good. Yet he can’t help but consider the responsibility of his family’s legacy and the special place Stevens holds for local dancers.

“It’s very emotional for me because I have four generations in this restaurant, and now my daughter works here,” he says.

When Stevens reopened, the community came back in droves, ushering in a new era of passion for salsa.

These days, at the beginning of each class, dance teacher Miguel “Migolito” Aguirre announces the same rule.

“Forget what happened today, forget your week, forget all the bad stuff, leave it at the door,” he says. “It’ll be good because we’re dancing salsa.”

Dance instructor Miguel Aguirre, right, mans the DJ booth with DJ Pechanga, another longtime Stevens employee. Every weekend, they bring Latin music to the top of the venue.

(Email Ravello/For The Times)

Aguirre has taught salsa in Stevens for 30 years. In many ways, Steakhouse shaped his life. This is where she found her love for teaching dance and more.

“I started coming here in the ’90s, sneaking in the back door. I was a teenager, so I wasn’t old enough to show my ID, but one day, Jim just said, ‘You guys can’t come in the back anymore. You can come in the front,'” Aguirre says. And then one day he said, ‘Hey, we’re losing teachers. They don’t come. Can you guys teach the class?’ And I’m still here.”

Jennifer Aguirre, an associate dance instructor at Stevens, is his wife. She met him one day at Stevens’ annual Halloween party.

“He asked me to join his class because they ‘need more girls,'” says Jennifer, laughing.

Now Jennifer teaches a beginner class, while Miguel is in intermediate. But once it’s 10 p.m., it’s social dancing time. The whole class comes together and a familiar community comes together. If the participants are lucky, they might catch Jennifer and Miguel, a gentle dancing couple, who easily skip, step and dive.

On a recent Sunday night, the low-light environment of the restaurant met the purple lights of the dance floor, where people sat around to watch the show move. The smell of butter and potatoes cooking in the kitchen wafted through the air, as the dance floor came alive with women in dresses and men in shiny shoes moving to the rhythm of the music. Miguel Aguirre manned the DJ stand, asked the two singers if they knew each other and encouraged them to dance.

Gregorio Saenz was one of the solo dancers on the floor, passing partners with ease under Miguel’s prodding. Years ago, a friend of his, who attended Stevens, drove Sains to dance socials, telling him it would be a great way to meet people and open up.

As someone who started out with anxiety to dance in front of others, Sains now performs on the Stevens Dance Show. He says that constantly returning to the historic Steakhouse floor and immersing himself in a supportive community not only changed his dance game, but brought him out of his shell.

“I tell everybody, if you’re afraid to dance, you should go there,” says Sains. “There is a community waiting for you.”