by Kevin Cody
In another sign of downtown Hermosa Beach trending away from nightlife, and in the direction of fine dining, the Waterman’s Safe House for Surfers sign came down last Wednesday, August 27. Former AVP volleyball player, and surfer, Jeff Bellandi opened Waterman’s in 2008 as a night spot for the local surf community.
Waterman’s will be replaced by Brick and Mortar, whose theme will tap into the 100 year old, Pier Plaza building’s art deco architecture.
“We’ll have more of a Roaring ‘20s, Palm Springs, tropical vibe than a beach vibe,” Brick and Mortar owner Justin Safier said.
Safier also owns Vista, across Pier Plaza from Brick and Mortar.
Brick and Mortar’s chef, Andrew Adams, who is also Vista’s chef, plans a California cuisine menu that will change quarterly, based on the availability of seasonal produce. Vista is known for successful, but unusual flavor combinations, such as crab guacamole, and scallops and pork belly.
Safier described Brick and Mortar as “food forward,” and targeting a crowd that’s older than most other Pier Plaza night spots. He hopes to open the renovated restaurant by the end of September.
Brick and Mortar will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, and brunch on weekends.
The new restaurant follows Hermosa’s trend toward chef-driven, high price-point restaurants that started inauspiciously in 2018 when Hermosa Brewing Company on Hermosa Avenue, opened with chef Aaron DuBois, who had appeared on Chopped TV and previously worked at the Westside Rustic Canyon and Melisse restaurants. Easy Reader restaurant writer Richard Foss, headlined his review of the restaurant “Secretly Brilliant.”
The trend accelerated during COVID, when chef Darren Weiss left his eponymous downtown Manhattan Beach restaurant to partner with his brother Seth, in 2021, in Fox and Farrow, located upstairs from Hermosa Brewing. The following year, two more chef-driven, Manhattan Beach offshoots, RYLA and Slay Hermosa, opened on Hermosa Avenue.
This year, the trend became the convention with the opening of the Michelin Guide recognized VinFolk, along with Atta Girl, Stecca Taverna and Surfer Girl.
Hermosa has always had aspirational restaurants, dating back to the ‘70s with the endearing, and enduring Bottle Inn; and the quirky Albanian restaurant, Ajeti’s, which specialized in lamb. Chez Melange founders Michael Frank and Chef Robert Bell opened the Caribbean influenced Descanso in the ’90s. More recent, notable restaurants included Chef Melba’s, which opened in 2007; Palmilla, which opened in 2011; Dia Del Campo, which opened in 2014, Barans 2239, which opened in 2016; and Radici’s which opened in 2018, But those openings spanned decades and lacked the critical mass to rival Manhattan’s celebrity chefs reputation.
Restaurant broker and consultant Tony Cordi, of the Innate Group, compares the upscale shift in Hermosa restaurants to the shift that began in Manhattan Beach in 2011, when chef Neal Fraser opened The Strand House, and chef David LeFevre opened Manhattan Beach Post. LeFevre subsequently opened Fishing with Dynamite, in 2013, and The Arthur J, in 2015, all in downtown Manhattan Beach. The chef-owners of RYLA, and Atta Girl in Hermosa Beach are LeFevre proteges.
Chef David Slay reinforced downtown Manhattan Beach’s culinary reputation with his rapid fire openings of Slay Steak and Fish in 2019, Slay Italian, in 2020, and Fete Bistro by Slay, in 2023. Like LeFevre, Slay expanded his influence to Hermosa Beach with Slay Hermosa in 2022.
Joining Brick and Mortar on the list of future, chef-driven Hermosa restaurants are Coni’ Seafood, whose Inglewood location earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand award; Tiki Kai in the former Brews Hall on Pier Plaza; and Los Angeles Ale Works in the former Rok Sushi location, at Pier and Hermosa avenues.
Hermosa’s City Council, historically, has been reluctant to permit new restaurants with full liquor licenses, for fear they will turn into bars, a fear borne out by experience.
But full liquor licenses are critical to the success of expensive restaurants.
Cordi said he has convinced the Hermosa council to make an exception for high end, chef driven restaurants by arguing they are better run, and enjoy greater longevity than bars.
He said high end restaurants have also eased council fears about them becoming late night bars by agreeing to earlier closing times, in exchange for full liquor licenses.
Hermosa Beach restaurants that have recently received full liquor licenses, after years of almost no new liquor licenses being approved in downtown Hermosa Beach, include, Surfer Girl, Panelas HB, Coastal, Rockefeller and Hook and Plow.
Cordi attributes Hermosa’s shift to higher end restaurants largely to economic and demographic changes.
“Restaurant prices have been flatlining. But rents, and food, and labor costs, keep rising. So restaurants have to raise prices,” he said.
Additionally, he noted, the median home price in Hermosa Beach is $2.2 million.
“Hermosa homeowners aren’t 25 year olds who drink on Pier Plaza on Saturday night,” he said.
Cordi said he anticipates recent ownership transfers of two, large Pier Plaza properties will result in several more high-end restaurant openings.
The former Bank of America building at the corner of Pier Avenue and Hermosa Avenue recently sold and is being divided into four parcels. Cordi expects at least one to become a restaurant.
Harold Roth, owner of the Fishbar in north Manhattan Beach, and Manhattan Beach Creamery in downtown Manhattan, recently bought the Pier and Strand property that had been planned for a hotel, and is now Vista, along with several other contiguous properties. Roth has indicated he plans to remodel rather than rebuild on the properties. ER
Well as someone who frequented Hermosa beach because of the nightlife, I hope this doesn’t replace the nightlife completely. I live in Marina del Rey where my rent is over $6K and I remember always going to Hermosa because of their nightlife. Recently, I went back and it was pretty bad so we ended up going driving all the way to Venice beach whose nightlife is picking up.