Seal Beach : City OKs Pier Cafe in Anticlimactic Finale

It was an anticlimactic ending to the contentious debate that, since late April, divided Seal Beach over the future of its pier restaurant.

Only five people were in the audience Monday night when the City Council voted unanimously to approve a 15-year lease with Ruby’s Diner, a Newport Beach firm with 1940s-style restaurants on the Balboa Pier and in a Mission Viejo shopping center. Another Ruby’s is to open soon in the new Crystal Court wing of South Coast Plaza.

In April, when the council was considering an agreement with a Seattle restaurant operator, about 150 people attended the meeting, most of them to voice protests.

Opponents rejected the plan proposed by Hal Griffith for an upscale steak house, saying it was too fancy, too expensive and would alter the ambiance of the 77-year-old wooden pier. The pier was destroyed by storms in 1983 and the old restaurant damaged. Both were rebuilt.

The diner, which probably will be called Ruby’s Jewel Cafe, is expected to open by August, Assistant City Manager Daniel P. Joseph said.

Chief objections to Griffith’s proposed Fisherman’s Restaurant were the expansion in seating and the addition of a concession stand--neither of which is planned for the Ruby’s enterprise.