Nocturnal Nibblers

In popular parlance, the hours from midnight to dawn are sinister: the graveyard shift, the witching hour, the dead of night. But for many people, waking up as the majority of the population is falling asleep is the norm. Among them are college students studying late, workers on third shift, habitual night owls, chronic insomniacs. In a series of Monday stories, Times staff writers and photographers visit spots in Orange County that are the domain of those up all night.

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After the late-evening strollers have gone home and patrons of the neighborhood taverns have called it a night, Seaside Donuts Bakery in Newport Beach comes into its own.

The shop at the foot of the Newport Pier is a magnet for those who find themselves at the beach after midnight: party-goers leaving friends’ homes late, tourists curious to see the waves in the wee hours, the fishermen of the city’s famous dory fleet, police officers on patrol.

Jerry White of the Newport Beach Police Department knows all the jokes about cops and doughnuts, so on a recent night he opts for a muffin instead.

“I don’t eat doughnuts,” he says. “Besides, this isn’t the best all-night doughnut place.”

That may or may not be true, but the shop has other attributes: It’s at the beach, it’s always open, and it serves what patrons say are Orange County’s best ham-and-cheese croissants.

The baker, who starts his shift at 10 p.m., confirms that the croissants are a big draw for customers.

“Most of them know me,” says Somkeit Tritosakosee, 40, “and lots of them have been coming for a long time. Sometimes when I run out of ham-and-cheese croissants, they come in and shout at me.”

Working with an assistant, he prepares the pastries in the back while keeping an eye open for customers out front.

Kong Eap, a Long Beach businessman who owns the Seaside, says he decided 10 years ago not to close at night. “The baker had to stay up to bake anyway,” he says, “so I just decided to open it up for people who wanted coffee and doughnuts.”

There turned out to be lots of them. From midnight to 8 a.m., Eap says, the bakery averages 200 customers--twice as many as during the rest of the day, when it has competition from the other eateries along the beach.

Business is fairly steady from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Then the customers really start arriving, sometimes in boisterous groups, other times alone or in pairs.

Lili Pham of Anaheim strolls in with a friend. They have been out for the evening and aren’t ready to go home yet.

“I come here every summer,” says Pham, 21, as she sips steaming coffee. “It’s someplace you can go in the middle of the night and hang out. The thing is, you know that it’s always open.”

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That word has gotten around to the adventurous, like Brandy Matheson, 19, and Rich Jones, 22, who drop by during a moonlight motorcycle tour of Orange County.

“I’m pretty nocturnal,” says Jones, a Marine from Garden Grove. “I don’t eat doughnuts, though, I just drink chocolate. I’ve been cold all night.”

A more substantial snack would have suited him. “I wish the pizza place was open,” he says. But it isn’t--so hot chocolate will have to do.

At 2:30 a.m., the fishermen begin arriving.

“This is the coffee shack for the dory fleet,” says Charles Godfrey, 44.

They wander in one at a time for a jolt of caffeine before heading out in their boats. They will return before dawn to sell their catch at the open-air market near the pier.

Says one of the younger fisherman, 29-year-old Jason Fain: “The coffee is a wake-up call. That’s how you get out of bed at 2 a.m.”

The stillness after the departure of the fleet is palpable, as if the night has deepened. The air seems colder, though the temperature hasn’t dropped much. The sidewalk seems darker, though the street lights haven’t dimmed. And regulars confide that after 3 a.m., the scene sometimes gets bizarre.

Three young men are standing in the parking lot by the sand when one of them suddenly strips to his boxer shorts and runs screaming into the sea. His companions watch, dumbfounded.

Shivering and wet, Bruce Hulcher, 28, later explains. The three friends are vacationing from New York, he says, and “it was the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean. I had to get in it.”

So how was the water? “It tastes different than the Atlantic.”

Another car pulls up, this one carrying a young couple in a decidedly different mood. Without a word, they crank up the car stereo and begin dancing on the pavement, hip to hip in the moonlight. Doughnuts are not on their menu.

But the next arrivals are pastry customers. Climbing out of four cars, a dozen young people swarm the shop, laughing and joking as they load up on doughnuts and bagels. They camp on the sidewalk, some of them wrapped in blankets, to share an impromptu picnic.

“We’ve been cruising all night with a friend from Nebraska,” says Quaang Nguyen, 18, of Anaheim. “We came for the doughnuts.”

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Finally, the shop becomes a haven for a family locked out of its car.

Nancy Rodriquez comes in to ask if anyone has a coat hanger. It’s nearly 4 a.m., and her family, out for a walk on the beach, just discovered that they locked their keys in the car. Rather than rouse relatives, they turn to baker Tritosakosee for help.

He offers a coat hanger, but that doesn’t work. So he gives Rodriquez the key to his own car--and, amazingly, it fits.

“Imagine if they’d been closed,” Rodriquez says, returning the key to the baker, who has been busy in the back of the shop. “We’d be in big trouble.”

At this hour, no one seems surprised by the strange turn of events. A certain unreality, after all, is part of the scene. Tritosakosee shakes his head as the family tells him the story. “Have another doughnut?” he asks.