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Capistrano Dispatch
San Juan
Capistrano, CA, USA
Friday, 11
January 2008
Infamous Swallows Inn
Loses Longtime Bouncer
Friends and family mourn loss of
‘bear of a man’
The Mission
bells tolled solemnly at 1 p.m. on Wednesday to mark the passing
of Kenny McMinn, 68, a big man with an even bigger heart known
to hundreds as the bouncer at Swallow’s Inn but to even
 more
as a friend.
McMinn died on January 8.
“For him, really a stranger was just a friend he hadn’t met
yet,” Kenny’s brother, Manny McMinn, said Thursday morning.
Manny was in Swallow’s Inn, where dozens of photographs of his
brother dot the walls. A makeshift memorial had been set up in
McMinn’s honor, with a flower lei on his chair in the center of
the tavern. A handwritten sign proclaimed, “We Lost the
Swallow’s Legend.”
McMinn was a bear of a man, but really “just a teddy bear,”
Swallow’s barkeep Carmen Phillips said. Her phone was ringing
off the hook as locals and longtime residents called to find out
when services would be. McMinn was a bartender most of his life.
His regular spot at Swallow’s was on a chair just outside the
backdoor. He never had any trouble, his size and a strong voice
ensured that.
“He got his way,” Phillips said. “And everybody loved him.”
McMinn was born and raised in Capistrano, only leaving for a few
years while he lived up in Oregon. Aside from his brother,
Manny, he leaves behind his longtime girlfriend, Susie Fimbers.
And lots of friends.
“He was the best friend you could have,” Raul “Ralphie” Malfavon
said. “He knew everybody and everything about town…I knew him as
long as I can remember.”
Details on McMinn’s services will be announced next week. They
will include Old Capistrano’s most reverent honor, reserved for
longtime families: a Mass at Mission Basilica, followed by the
traditional procession up Ortega Highway to the Old Mission
Cemetery.
Those ceremonies will be followed by a gathering at Swallow’s
Inn.
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