2001 to 2010: Restaurants have high hopes modest successes

Gene Shook’s Brix@1601 in Hermosa Beach was arguably the most ambitions restaurant in South Bay history. The wine selection was huge, the staff-to-customer ratio unparalleled, and celebrity chefs and bakers were at the ready for the world to pour through the doors. But it had a fatal flaw – timing. It opened in 2008, just as the recession began ravaging the economy. Photo by Tom Sanders (tomsandersphoto.com) As 2001 dawned, the hype in the South Bay dining scene was our elegant future. Restaurants such as Legacy in Redondo and Beluga in Manhattan Beach offered caviar and haute cuisine, while Soleil, Francesca’s, and XinhDoi offered items so eclectic they were adrift from ethnicity. The restaurateurs who opened these places were confident that locals and visitors would favor their high-priced establishments far into the future, and they were ready to make a bundle. None of those restaurants are still around. Eateries that opened with less fanfare and offered customers food they could recognize were more successful. Hermosa’s Fritto Misto, Poulet du Jour, Crème de la Crepe and Manhattan Beach’s Back Home in Lahaina celebrate tenth anniversaries this year and are still going strong…

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