THE MALIBU
LA SALSA MEXICAN MAN
By: Jax Burgess, Shen Realty | Photo By: Jens Lucking | www.shenrealty.com
At 22 feet tall located just off Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway stands the "La Salsa Mexican Man". The statue was built in the late 1960s by a local fiberglass company where it was originally designed and dressed as a classic muffler man holding a cheeseburger for a local Malibu fast-food burger restaurant.
In 1988, the restaurant was bought and changed to the La Salsa Mexican Restaurant. La Salsa was set with a great building and an unbelievable location just off Malibu's PCH, but there was only one problem. The massive statue outside the building did not go with the Mexican restaurant theme. So the owner hired artist Bob Wade to take the statue and convert it to the modern-day sombrero-wearing mustachioed Mexican man we see today.
Utilizing the fiberglass that was already there, Bob took the top bun of the cheeseburger and shaped it into the man's sombrero, while the bottom bun was used as a plate of chips. He then added a mustache, huarache style sandals, a serape style sash, and darkened the man's skin. The project was a success and still stands tall today!
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