Hennessey’s at 40: How Paul Hennessey took a dingy pub and launched a thirsty empire

When I asked Paul Hennessey what set his bar apart from the rest of the eating and drinking establishments in Hermosa back when he opened, he started with a history lesson. In just a few words  he set the scene of a neighborhood very different from the upscale playground we see now.

“In 1976 Hermosa was very depressed, and there were five or six vacant storefronts in the first block of Pier Avenue and a lot of bikers hanging around. We used to call it “Where the debris met the sea.” When I bought a bar two doors from the beach it was called Mr. C’s. It was what we used to call a 6 a.m. bar, a place that sold lots of drinks first thing in the morning because the Mermaid didn’t open until 7. There aren’t any of those left now…

My biggest innovation was cutting windows in the front of the place. Back then all the restaurants and bars were dark and dingy, and some people said, “Who wants to be sitting in a place where you can see outside?” It was just the opposite — people who were outside wanted to see what was inside. I talked the landlord into lending me some money to put the windows in after we had been open for six months, and as soon as I did that it started to get a more regular clientele. After that other people started doing it.”

He rechristened the place Hennessey’s on September 23, 1976, and it became the first of sixteen restaurants he now owns. The painted plywood sign from those days hangs inside the Hermosa Beach location now, and it’s one of the few things that Paul didn’t make himself.

“A sign painter who is long out of business did it and I hung it up. I did make all the cocktail tables and the bar top…  I went to Home Depot and got some wood, cut it, stained the pieces, and put them on table bases. I still have one or two in my office, but they’re pretty worn out.”

It was a remarkable evolution for an East Coast native who had little experience working in bars and none owning them.

“I was an over-the-counter stock trader when I was back in New York. The market went bad in the beginning of the 70s, and I decided I’d take off for a couple of years,” Hennessey recalled. “I went to San Francisco and applied to be a bartender at some restaurants there, and they immediately saw my potential and made me a busboy. After long enough to meet my wife and get married there I came here, and here I still am.”

The newly christened Hennessey’s was not an overnight success, and for a while Paul kept a punishing schedule.

“I was the only employee for about six months, and I worked day and night. In the early days I was the only bartender in miles who was squeezing my juices fresh while everybody else was using bottled stuff. Heck, one guy, every time somebody ordered a screwdriver he was just using Tang, because he didn’t think anybody could tell the difference. I remember one busy night when some guys had come in from another place and ordered screwdrivers in the middle of the rush, because they thought it would be funny to tie me up for eight or nine minutes squeezing oranges. I served them and they came up afterward and said, ‘That’s the best screwdriver I’ve ever had!’ Of course it was – when you order a screwdriver the main thing you taste is the juice.”

The craft drinks before craft was a thing, along with the windows that made the place more inviting, paid off. Paul was able to bring in more staff.

“After about six months I could afford to hire a bartender and then a waitress. The place had no food but a popcorn machine, so I added a kitchen and trained some kids to run it. We started with just a couple hamburgers, then added breakfast and dinner items. As the years went on we progressed with our food operation. About ten years after we opened I expanded into the former Bill’s Tacoburrito House on the corner of the Strand, and then we started building upstairs. This happened while the neighborhood slowly turned over, with the scruffy bars becoming better restaurants, and it evolved over the last forty years. Back then you could buy a house on the Strand for a couple hundred thousand – now it’s around fifteen million.”

In 1978 Hennessey looked further afield, to another sleepy location that he believed was ready to go upscale.

“Riviera Village was kinda like Hermosa,” he said. “There wasn’t much there but shops and hairdressers in this great location with lots of homes around, and also easy access to Palos Verdes.”

Riviera Village was also where Hennessey opened his first place with a different concept, the HT Grill, in 1992. This upscale bistro started in a space next door to the original, then moved to a spot that had once been the original Velvet Turtle steakhouse. In its place Paul first tried a casual seafood joint called Mickie Finnz, which did not do well here but spawned a successful offshoot in Las Vegas. He opened Rebel Republic Social House in that space this year, taking a foray into modern mixology and contemporary cuisine.

Asked whether he was concerned about having three restaurants in the same block where a street closure or other traffic obstruction could affect them all, Hennessey was unworried.

“It hasn’t happened, and I don’t think it will,” he said. “It’s easy to manage things when you have three places that close together, so if they run out of a product at one of my restaurants they can run next door to get it.”

Hennessey’s three Riviera Village restaurants have helped shape the dining scene in the area, and as Redondo Beach Mayor Steve Aspel notes, they have shaped the culture and economy of the area.

“When he moved into Riviera Village there were a few restaurants and dive bars, but nothing you’d call upscale,” Aspel said. “It certainly wasn’t a destination like it is now. Now there are a lot of great restaurants and places to hang out, because it is funky and clean and family friendly. It’s not funky in a Venice way, and it’s certainly not Beverly Hills or Manhattan Beach. Hennessey has done more than any person I recall to shape that character. Paul Hennessey is also probably the largest employer in Redondo Beach south of Torrance Boulevard. I just think he’s done a great job down there, and he and his wife Jennifer are some of the nicest people I’ve met in my life. They have given more in contributions to Little Leagues, AYSO, and Redondo schools than anybody else I can think of. He has never complained about being asked, and he contributes thousands of dollars to charitable events. ”

Asked later if he had any idea how much he has contributed to charity over the last forty years, Paul was silent for a moment and then said, “I wouldn’t want to think about that, I’d wind up with a heart attack. We support mainly the schools and the hospitals. The community has been very good to me, and I like to give back.”

Between the HT Grill and Rebel Republic there were other openings – The Wine Bistro in Dana Point and Brass Lounge and LVCS in Las Vegas. Paul also bought The Lighthouse, the famous Hermosa jazz club that has existed since the 1940’s, and delighted preservationists by keeping it a music venue and retaining its character. Meanwhile, that original Hennessey’s and the one in Redondo became the template first for locations in Manhattan Beach (2001), then for seven other Hennessey’s Taverns that include Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, and Las Vegas.

Hennessey still bartends at his restaurants occasionally “to show them how it’s done,” and also uses his judgment in tinkering with the food.

“I have experimented with the menu over the years, and there have been hits and misses. One hit I didn’t expect was the Irish nachos, potato slices topped with cheese, bacon, and scallions with sour cream. I put those on the menu as a daily special, and had to keep them because they are popular. They have stayed on my menus, and other restaurants have copied them.”

He apparently didn’t know it at the time of our interview, but it has gone a lot wider than that. A check of the internet shows at least twenty different recipes on cooking sites that are all variants of his original recipe, including one vegan version on the PETA website and a version on Frito-Lay’s website using Ruffles chips. Hennessey hasn’t created any other items that have had quite the same reception, but he continues to not only experiment with flavors, but to analyze what sells best at his different locations.

“Now I have ten Hennessey’s in California and Nevada, and I have looked to see if there are dining preferences I could identify based on the different culture and lifestyle in places like Dana Point, Las Vegas, Seal Beach, and the South Bay,” he said. “The surprising thing is that there really aren’t — the same things sell well at all of them. There’s a little preference for fried food in Las Vegas, but that’s probably something I should have expected.”

Hennessey now has hundreds of employees in the South Bay, including one who has been with the company since the first year in Hermosa. They will join two generations of customers in celebrating the 40th anniversary in Hermosa this Friday beginning at 4 p.m. Tuxedos and cocktail dresses will be worn (and just imagine how out of place those would have been in the days when Paul first bought it), complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served, and two bands will play over the course of the evening. It will be a joyous commemoration of how far you can get by making good drinks and good food, plus knowing a bit about the psychology of light and architecture. ER