Sure looks like a cherry. Do they have a stone or pit?

Check out the pic with fruit and stones in hand. It is pretty close to a cherry stone but the odd thing is they don't taste at all like a cherry!

Those are so huge they fooled me.

Please stop eating them until they are properly identified. Not all Prunus are edible. Indeed some can make you very ill. And the bark, leaves and fruit in racemes tell us they are definitely not Prunus cerasus, orchard cherries. Is the tree evergreen?

If you don't get an id here you could try the Trees Forum.

I was getting google photo searches bringing me to plum and prune but nothing definitive. There were some almost perfect fruit relica photos but in this case I was hunting for the bark pattern. I had forgotton a lot of those stones are poisonous with cyanide type chemistry.

The fruit isn't any kind of plum. Note that it is growing in racemes. There are plenty of 'cherries' which exhibit this trait e.g. Prunus lusitanica, Prunus virginiana, Prunus serotina, Prunus caroliniana, Prunus padus, etc. I really do recommend asking on the Tree Forum. There are knowledgeable people there who know their North American tree species. Google image search isn't a reliable way of doing it.

It isn't just the stones which are poisonous. Prunus laurocerasus fruit, for example, are toxic in their entirety.

Thanks for looking and the concern! We didn't ingest the fruit at all yet. We only tasted so we are safe. My research so far leads me to cherry variety as well but nothing definitive yet. UC idea is a good one and I'll post on the tree forum too. Also posted on a few other forums so if I find out I'll post back.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/4855913/m=23/what-tree-fruit-is-this

Prunus ilicifolia
ssp. lyonii

Catalina Cherry is a native tree that grows in Southern and Central
California, primarily in the Channel Islands region. though with some
specimens in the coastal Southern California mainland.

Very cool! Those were apparently important in native diets, but I have tried them several times and I agree that they are pretty bitter. I'm sure there was some processing involved to eat them in quantity...