E’s has been part of Red Bluff since 1984—a family business that became a landmark, burned down, and came back.
1968
The family roots
Elmer “Big E” and Babs met in 1968, when Elmer was working at Diamond Lands and Babs was finishing her senior year at Red Bluff High. Their courtship survived Elmer's draft and two years of service in Vietnam, from which he came home decorated with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
Back in Red Bluff, Elmer went to work at the local mill and Babs became a legal secretary. They raised two children, Elmer III and Elena, and helped a young pizza parlor find its feet along the way.
1984
E's Locker Room begins
In 1984 the couple bought The Locker Room from the Twitchell family and renamed it E's Locker Room. For more than three decades they ran it alongside their day jobs, with family and friends pitching in.
The dough was the heart of it: a handcrafted recipe handed down from another local pizzeria and kept close ever since. Elmer passed away unexpectedly in June 2017, and Babs and Elmer III kept the place going before deciding it was time to pass the torch.
2020
Preserving the restaurant
E's sat on the market for six long months. The only serious offer came from a buyer who intended to close it for good — which would have erased both a family legacy and Red Bluff's only riverside eatery.
Elena, a Red Bluff High math teacher, wasn't willing to let that happen. She and her partner Ethan rallied friends Paul and Ryan, and in May 2020 the four partners purchased the business from Babs. They expanded the patio, added a lawn, brought in new dishes beside the classics like the E-6, and turned E's into a second home for the community.
July 2022
The fire
On a sweltering July day in 2022, an electrical fire tore through the restaurant. Decades of memories and memorabilia were lost, and the town grieved the sudden loss of its favorite riverside hangout.
2024
The rebuild and return
The ownership group locked arms and started over. With a local architect and contractor, they worked through roughly 20 months of setbacks and permits and construction to bring E's back — arriving, fittingly, in the restaurant's 40th anniversary year.
Today
The continuing legacy
E's Locker Room is once again Red Bluff's riverfront gathering place: pizza out of the kitchen, cold drinks on the patio, the Sacramento River right there in front of you.
The next chapter gets written every time someone decides to put themselves at E's.