With 40 years under its belt, Cappy’s Cafe to celebrate anniversary with special 40-cent menu
With its bright blue walls and a large sign that touts its “fresh, friendly and local” food, Cappy’s Cafe has been a Pacific Coast Highway institution for Newport Beach residents and visitors since 1982.
Owners Tim and Sheryl Campbell hope it’ll be there for years to come as they gear up to celebrate the cafe’s 40th anniversary this Saturday.
Planning for the celebration started in the summer, according to Tim Campbell.
“My wife and I decided we really wanted to give back to the local community that’s really supported Cappy’s over the last 40 years. We thought we should pick a date, sometime in the fall, when we could invite the community back in to celebrate,” Campbell said. “We wanted to pick a Saturday where people had the day off and people could come.”
Campbell said the anniversary celebration this Saturday will kick off at 8 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting that’ll include local dignitaries to celebrate the 40 years. Classic cars will be parked out in front of the restaurant as to mark the celebration as well.
But most significantly, Cappy’s will offer a special menu of four items: its pancakes, cinnamon swirl French toast, traditional eggs Benedict and the breakfast burrito. All for the low price of 40 cents.
“Why 40? Forty years,” Campbell said.
The story on how the café started isn’t entirely clear, but Tim Campbell said he believes its history began with a couple who moved west from Las Vegas and were inspired by the buffets and large portions they’d enjoyed there.
“[Cappy’s] really served these large portions for 40 years, which is really incredible,” Campbell said. He said he and his wife are the fourth owners.
The Campbells were in the commercial real estate field until briefly relocating to Hawaii to run a seafood wholesale company in 2015. They came back to the mainland in 2018 and purchased Cappy’s.
“We were looking for a restaurant that was really well known. One that was profitable, had a great staff and lots of parking — I didn’t know how important parking would be with this pandemic that followed us,” Campbell said. “This restaurant had been standing for 36 years and was really well established, so we wanted to take it to the next level.”
The Campbells haven’t changed any of the menu items, but they’ve updated its operations and look with new technology and retouches to the murals both inside and outside. They’ve also added booths and have been serving customers on an outdoor patio that Campbell jokingly calls “dog beach.”
Campbell said the café serves roughly 10,000 people monthly and that Cappy’s has retained its staff, which he said was also a factor when they considered purchasing the place.
“When customers come in, they’re asking for their favorite waitress. The waitress shows up: She knows the family, knows the individual and whatever they want, whether that’s coffee or an iced tea,” said Campbell. “People love that. It’s a family-run business. It’s not corporate.”
The fact that Cappy’s is still locally owned is part of the reason that Lindsey Neville’s been working there since 2010.
Neville, a regional manager at the café, said Cappy’s was her first job after moving to Orange County from Fresno. She’s been with the restaurant through at least three changes in ownership to date, she said.
“Definitely been through hardest times of my life working here, and the staff and the customers just become like family, you know? It’s one of those places you kind of get stuck but in a good way. I’ve had so many other jobs while I worked here, but this was always my main thing,” said Neville. “You never wake up feeling like you’re going to work.
“Especially with the pandemic more than ever, people want to see more of the small businesses, the mom-and-pop places, come back and be the ones that are thriving rather than the corporate restaurants,” Neville continued. “Places like Cappy’s ... that’s where people want to take their family and do their celebrations, especially when people that are the type of people who go to restaurants a lot and become regulars.”
Huntington Beach resident Tom Welch said he’s been visiting Cappy’s for at least the last six years and said his favorite dish is the eggs Benedict.
Welch said the environment reminded him of “going down to your kitchen. He said it quickly became a tradition for his family to eat at Cappy’s.
“As Huntington Beach keeps growing, that little portion of Newport to me is like going to a small town,” said Welch. “When he was able to add that outdoor patio, you couldn’t … go find something like that anywhere in Orange County. It’s very hard. And if you do, it’s very expensive. For 40 years, to be in that location; it’s amazing. I hope it’s there another 40.”
Campbell described his family as the “custodians of Cappy’s.”
“It’s multigenerational. We see families with grandfathers who have been coming in since they were young; their sons and daughters, now their grandchildren,” Campbell said. “So, it’s a really special place.”
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