Waterfront Bet: Surf Club renews two old buildings for new venture
by Garth Meyer
California Surf Club, the most ambitious development in King Harbor since the ill-fated CenterCal proposal 10 years ago, is set to open May 8, just after this year’s BeachLife Festival.
“After launching BeachLife in 2019, we kept hearing from the community about ‘how we can live this experience year-round?’” BeachLife co-founder Allen Sanford said. “California Surf Club is our answer. While it’s members-only, we designed the membership tiers to be inclusive. Just as important, we took an adaptive-reuse approach, led by locals, to create something that feels authentic to Redondo’s spirit, at a time when so many coastal communities are fighting to retain their identity.”
In late March, Sanford worked on the Surf Club’s look-and-feel details, while others finished hiring 200 employees to staff it and its public restaurant.
The California Surf Club revamps two long-shuttered King Harbor buildings, the former Ruby’s hamburgers, and the former Pancho’s and Wong’s/Chillers/On The Rocks restaurant and bar. The Ruby’s building is now the Surf Club restaurant. The former On The Rocks is the private club.
Initiation fees for membership are $6,000 to $10,000, with monthly dues of $350, of which $100 is a food and beverage credit.
The club’s 450 founding memberships went to families, couples and individuals.
“We resent the whole idea of exclusivity,” Sanford said. “The word we use is tribe. A collection of families who have the same social and cultural interest. Our love is the ocean, the beach.”
“An architecturally-distinct gathering space for those who value community over clout,” states the official Surf Club press release, prepared by Wicked public relations, of Hermosa Beach.
Architect Stephen Jones designed the 22,000 square-foot space, connecting the two buildings at the perimeter of Seaside Lagoon.
The cost caught Sanford by surprise. The project went 35% over budget, after he found out the two buildings were in worse shape than previously thought.
Discussions are now underway at Redondo Beach city hall whether to honor Sanford’s request for an extended lease – from the original 10.5 years – to allow more time to recover the project’s cost.
Features of the c California Surf Club include The Paddle Perch – an area for Club-owned stand-up, and prone paddleboards; outrigger canoes and kayaks, with board valet service and showers. The Lookout Bar and Lounge faces King Harbor. The Fireside Lounge is the site of the Club’s speaker series, “Fireside Chats.” The cedar-walled Green Room will host meetings and dinners.
A side door in the Green Room leads to the Wrensilva Performance Lounge, named for its Wrensilva turntable console. The stage-ready room has an audio/visual system with a large format screen for watching sports, surf movies and live music.
Like the other TV’s in the Club, when turned off, it looks like a painting.
The Kona Aloha Garden, a partnership with Kona Brewing, is billed as a 300-plus capacity outdoor venue for live music, yoga, pilates “and member-driven events.”
“It’s been awesome. This is probably the most difficult project I’ve ever done,” said Sanford, a veteran of 15-plus restaurant openings, and a former owner and manager of music venue Saint Rocke (and still a minority owner).
California Surf Club is advertised as a place for members to “work, train, unwind, and connect with their coastal lifestyle.”
“People who have joined have said, ‘Hey, we’re excited, but what is it exactly?’” said Chris Brown, director of memberships and programming. “We’ve purposefully defined it very broadly. The project is multi-faceted. It’s music, philanthropy, food and beverage, health and wellness, education, we’ll have an interview series.”
Brown, a Hermosa Beach native, is also the president of California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA) and owner of CampSurf.
“The overall vision of the club is to create community in that area (of the Redondo waterfront), where it hasn’t been in so long. There have been just boarded-up buildings, a complete eyesore.”
The courtyard connecting the Surf Club restaurant and the private area was previously an unused, tree root-knotted stretch of dirt. Landscapers raised the ground level to cover much of the roots and create a level patio.
“This area is going to be a gleaming centerpiece of the South Bay again, like it was when I was a kid,” Brown said.
Brown recalled the Cuervo World Championship volleyball tournaments events held in Seaside Lagoon from 1978-88, pre-dating the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals). A photograph on a shelf in the Club’s entry hall shows a 1982 match.
“It is extremely likely we’ll have pro volleyball again in the Lagoon,” Brown said. “The opportunities that are popping up for this place are pretty insane.”
Outrigger Canoe Club of Honolulu, Hawaii was an inspiration to the Redondo club, in its longevity and programming.
“We want this to be a brand. We have aspirations to do the same thing as they have,” Brown said. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the logo.”
He anticipates the Surf Club will admit more members after seeing how people use it.
Guest access depends on the level of membership. Cost for day rates have yet to be decided.
“If there is availability, you can come down and hang out like you’re a member,” Brown said. “We want people to be down here. We don’t want to keep people out. The success of the business is predicated on food and beverage.”
Past and future
Along with Sanford, 47, and business partner Rob Lissner, 52, California Surf Club is run by President Jeff Jones, of Quality Seafood, and Jerry Garbus, chief operating officer, who opened the M.B. Post and Fishing with Dynamite restaurants in Manhattan Beach.
Founding partners and advisors for the Surf Club include Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, musician Donovan Frankenreiter, professional surfer Chris Frohoff, pro outrigger canoe paddler Danny Ching of Lanakila; Redondo Beach Unified School District Superintendent Nikki Wesley; and former Redondo Police Chief Keith Kauffman.
“We’re going to have a heavy dose of philanthropy, we’ll have a charitable partner for all of our big events,” Brown said.
Next week, April 30, the Club will host the annual pre-BeachLife non-profit gala, “Evening by the Sea.” Tickets are available to the public. Grammy-winning singer Rick Springfield (“Jessie’s Girl”) will perform. Tickets are $200.
The private club section of California Surf Club is on the property’s south end, in the former On the Rocks. The Surf Club’s public restaurant is in the former Ruby’s.
The interior design for both are by Steven Jones, a former Quiksilver director of merchandising, who runs the real estate development company, Bettershelter.
“I’ve been here for months and I’m still noticing things,” Brown said.
A hand-painted tile outside the club’s entry has the names of all 450 original memberships.
“Part of the value was recognizing the people who believed in this. The tribe. Instead of a brass plaque, we have a mosaic,” Sanford said.
Artist Sandow Birk, of Long Beach, created the feature, and another inside, in the “Cove Room,” accessed by a bookcase that opens like a secret door.
“As adults you lose your Huck Finn a little,” Sanford said. “It was just a gentle way to say, we’ve still got a kid in us.”
An open house was held April 13 for members, and two days later, a Boys & Girls Club of Carson gala breakfast marked the first charitable event at the Club.
The Club’s 200 employees have just finished two weeks of classroom training, held on site.
BeachLife 2025 is coming to the Seaside Lagoon May 2-4.
After two years of Surf Club work, when does everyone get a collective vacation? May 9?
“Ask Allen,” Brown said. “It’s been a series of once-we-get-through the next thing. The latest is, as soon as we get open and get through the Festival.”
Sanford’s mother, Galen, walked by in the club’s courtyard, with Allen’s wife, Colleen.
“Your son is a badass,” Brown said to her.
“We knew that a long time ago,” Galen answered.
Surf Club Executive Chef Dennis Horton, who also runs the BeachLife Grotto restaurant – opened last year in Riviera Village – said the Grotto is “very seafood-focused, upscale casual, while the Surf Club is more relaxed, more family-focused. Pricewise, it’s definitely approachable, nothing high-end.”
Featured dishes at the new venture include tri-tip and tomahawk steaks, whole grilled fish and rotisserie chicken.
Snag
As construction of the Surf Club neared the finish, a late development was the repaving of the parking lot, needing to be redesigned for ADA-compliance before the club could open.
“It’s a city responsibility. I realized they hadn’t started it and I ended up helping. Because I couldn’t open otherwise,” Sanford said.
As for structural construction, because of the two buildings’ condition at the start, Sanford is seeking relief from the city.
“We realized the buildings were about to fall down. Cities aren’t normally landlords. It turned into a complete rebuild versus a renovation,” he said. “But I was in, kind of like the point of no return.”
“On the Rocks was worse than Allen believed,” said Redondo Beach Mayor Jim Light. “A lot of this is (city council) closed session so I can’t get into those negotiations.”
Transition years
As the CenterCal matter came to a close, the city had already begun its waterfront amenities working group, in 2021, its aim to revitalize the area without fundamentally changing it.
Two years later, Sanford, who had leased the On the Rocks building for BeachLife, began talking to Jeff Jones of Quality Seafood, who leased the former Ruby’s, with plans to open a new restaurant.
They decided to join forces and approach the city for a lease to create California Surf Club.
“It’s exciting,” said Greg Kapovich, Redondo Beach waterfront & economic development director. “When we focused on the (waterfront) amenities plan, we were hoping that private investment would follow. I think this is the first domino to fall. We’re hoping for a lot more.”
“We are the first real investment in that area,” Sanford said. “It was a much more complex and difficult project than both us and the city anticipated.”
He noted that the Surf Club only has nine years remaining on the original 10.5-years, which began in August 2023.
“We want to be there forever,” Sanford said.”… With our new mayor and the change in the city council, we’re really hopeful they support us. The fact is, one of the buildings should have been condemned. It was unsafe for humans to be in. That’s our impression.”
If Sanford had known, he said, “We would have negotiated the lease differently.”
“We need more time, to recapture the additional investment required to bring it up to code. We don’t see any reason why such a significant investment shouldn’t trigger a long-term lease. Ten years at least.”
Sanford said his architects had to create as-built plans for the two buildings because the city did not have the original plans. He noted oversized rebar and thicker concrete in the Ruby’s building since it was built following the Northridge earthquake.
“Basically like a fort,” Sanford said, explaining that it took much longer than expected to re-do plumbing for the new restaurant’s bathrooms.
“Normally when you’d get a building, we’d have a set of plans to go from. But we had such passion for the project, we thought, how bad could it be?” Sanford said. “It was worse than the worst-case scenario.”
Then the parking lot work came at the end.
“We are planning on being reimbursed for that,” he said. “That is the hope.”
“I think Allen was unaware this was a requirement. We were also tackling the issue,” Kapovich said, noting that the city was approaching a switch to electronic pay stations for the waterfront lot.
“Allen saw it as an opportunity; let’s combine our efforts and make sure this gets done before the Club’s opening.”
Kapovich said the city will cover the cost.
“We have the money in our C.I.P. (Capital Improvement Project) funds, Allen wants it in rent credits,” he said.
The condition of the south building?
“He had total control of it for a couple years,” Kapovich said.
Was it unsafe?
“I don’t know about that. It’s up, it’s standing. It wasn’t red-tagged or anything,” said Kapovich.
The lease extension Sanford seeks?
“We’re not saying no. We’re saying, let’s get this open and we’ll talk.”
Conditions
Dave Coyle of Coyle Construction (Orange County) acted as the Surf Club general contractor.
Work began in January 2024.
“The south building (On the Rocks) was remodeled 5-6 times before us. They kept adding to it, and it wasn’t done properly, even for the codes back then,” Coyle said. “They cut a beam, it had a load on it, but it wasn’t supported. The building was crooked and leaned.”
He suggested it could have been a teardown-and-start-over, but that would cause delays in the form of the required Coastal Commission review of a new building.
Was the structure unsafe?
“In its then-current state, yeah,” Coyle said. “But that’s not my professional expertise. It was a building that required renovation. That’s not uncommon. Once the demolition occurred, we discovered that we had to upgrade the entire structure of the south building. The decking was completely redone because of termite damage and water rot.”
The city’s final inspection was April 8.
Coyle joined the project after Sanford applied for the original permits. He worked with the city on “revision bulletins” – changes to the first plans.
“The whole city, Redondo Beach, I think it’s one of the best cities to work with,” Coyle said. “Lorena (Soules, building official), Steve (Shiang, senior plan check engineer), everyone was very attentive. And I’ve been to cities with a can’t-do attitude. Redondo has a can-do attitude.”
Decisions
The Surf Club’s virtually new buildings contain new floor plans,.
“Thousands of hours,” Sanford said of what went into the creation of the layouts. “Tons and tons and tons of meetings.”
He credited Ron Newman, owner of Sharkeez in Hermosa Beach, as a mentor. Sanford was a 21-year-old busser at Patrick Molloy’s in 1999 when he noticed Sharkeez was always busier. Newman told him, “You create small spaces so it always feels comfortable and busy.”
Overall, Sanford suggests the time has come for this project on the Redondo Beach waterfront.
“I believe that we need to tend our own garden. The only thing getting in the way is 40 years of city councils not doing anything,” he said. “Or people not prioritizing it.”
“This is definitely a labor of love.”
Now that the Club is on the cusp, will Sanford be the no. 1-seed in the first California Surf Club ping pong tournament?
“That’s a great question. I will definitely be a competitor,” he said. “I’m not taking it light on anybody. I’ll just happily be competing.” ER
