DANA POINT : Michael’s Supper Club Returns to Harbor

Michael’s Supper Club is back in Dana Point Harbor, replacing Charley Brown’s, which closed last month.

Owner Michael Zanetis said he hopes the second incarnation of his club will be the solution for the troubled building, which has housed four previous restaurants since its construction in 1983. It also had sat vacant for nearly five years.

Zanetis, a San Juan Capistrano resident, has held a sublease on the 13,000-square-foot building at 24399 Dana Drive since 1988. The lease is held by a retirement trust of the Plumbing, Heating and Piping Industry of Southern California, according to a county official.

The first restaurant on the site, the Crown Point Restaurant, lasted only nine months. The retirement trust wound up with the lease in a foreclosure with the Crown Point owners, said Mike Hentzen, an official with the county’s General Services Agency.

Zanetis purchased the sublease in August, 1988, and opened the first Michael’s Supper Club.

About three years ago he entered into an agreement that allowed Irvine-based Family Restaurants Inc. to operate a Reuben’s restaurant and later, a Charley Brown’s restaurant, there.

But Charley Brown’s closed Jan. 28. Michael’s Supper Club opened Feb. 1, Zanetis said.

Part of the problem has been the difficulty in finding the location, Zanetis said. It sits at the end of Dana Drive on an island inside the harbor.