Beach-side manner

SINGLES wishing for intimate conversations move tables and chairs to the quiet side yard of this Craftsman bungalow. Parents, meanwhile, pram 14 toddlers to the center of the outdoor-only restaurant for an impromptu birthday party. The pugs in hats and poodles with French manicures stationed at their owners’ sides don’t raise an ear. There’s room to spare at Madison Square & Garden Cafe, where anything goes as long as it’s polite. A short walk up Coast Highway from Laguna’s Main Beach Park, the lushly landscaped cafe is a place Lagunites escape to when city sidewalks get too crowded. Jon Madison has had one rule since he opened his restaurant in 1998: “Be respectful. Everything works if people work together,” says the jovial host who makes visitors feel as if they’ve been invited to a madcap pancake breakfast at his home. “Crossword-playing adults share tables, the kids behave and calm down the dogs and the dogs clean up the egg scraps left by the kids.” Madison has even taught locals to accept out-of-towners: “If you share this cafe with tourists in July and August,” he tells regulars who don Burberry scarves that match their coiffed pooches’ Burberry collars, “it will be all yours the other 10 months of the year.” Relaxing for hours underneath shady pepper trees, red bougainvilleas and a stoic date palm, “all so California,” Madison says, is offered at no extra charge.

-- Janet Eastman