Side Street Cafe bids farewell to Costa Mesa community after over 32 years of welcoming friends, family and ‘cheapskates’
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The words “Cheapskates Welcome” have been prominently displayed on Side Street Cafe’s front window for decades. Inside, the clatter of plates, the scent of freshly brewed coffee and laughter filled its tiny dining room in Costa Mesa Wednesday.
Three generations of women working at the family-owned business gracefully maneuvered around each other as they delivered plates of fluffy pancakes, sizzling bacon, omelets and other short-order staples to patient regulars, often pausing to catch up on fresh gossip and reminisce about how the neighborhood has evolved since the restaurant opened its doors in August of 1992.
The latest local development was a tough one to swallow for many longtime patrons, even with healthy doses of syrup and butter on the side. In February, owner Diane Beach announced the cafe would be closing its doors for good. Their last day serving breakfast and lunch will be Sunday, March 16.
“This has always been a place to go,” said Ron Keilwitz, a local who has been stopping by Side Street since it opened over 32 years ago. “You get a real piece of meat that’s breaded like chicken fried steaks are supposed to be, not this mush that they sell ya that they dip in a deep fryer. It’s just real food.”
He’s just one of many faithful customers who, over the years, have gotten to know Beach and the cafe’s staff, which include her daughters Kelly Trettin and Christine Costlow, as well as her granddaughter, Gracie Costlow. Other employees who have been with the restaurant for decades include cook Renee Hernandez and server Annie Hatfield.
“We care,” Beach said. “We’re not just punching in and punching out. We get to know all of our customers. Look, those are my kids. And they work here and talk to everybody. We can tell you almost everybody’s name... we know a lot of people who come in here personally and we’ve watched their kids grow up.”
Her relatives say working at the restaurant has given them the chance to become closer with their community and form cherished memories. But they each have their own professional aspirations outside of the family business, and weren’t able to step in for Beach when she decided she wanted to retire about two years ago.
Beach said she opened the restaurant out of necessity. She had been working in construction, laying tile for about five years when her knees started to give out at the age of 37. She had to make a dramatic pivot in her career in order to support her family.
“I was a single parent,” Beach said. “I had four kids I had to feed. I had to find something lucrative enough to keep us housed. And I liked the restaurant industry. I had waited tables. I had bussed, I had done pretty much everything.”
Beach started taking classes at Orange Coast College to learn how to manage a restaurant and initially planned on working in a corporate establishment after graduating. But things changed one night after hosting a dinner party with friends.
“My friends were going ‘God you’re such a good cook; you should own a restaurant,” Beach said. “And I said ‘I’d love to but I don’t have any money.’ And this guy said, ‘Well, I do.’ And he became my silent partner.”
At the time she was making ends meet by working as a server at what used to be Charlie’s Chili, just down the street from where she wound up starting her own business on Newport Boulevard. About two months before it opened, Beach’s employer learned about her plans and fired her.
With about $25,000 invested by her silent partner, Beach scrambled to put together a functioning kitchen. She managed to score deals at restaurant auctions by sharing her story and befriending other restaurateurs who mostly opted not to bid against her.
Side Street Cafe wound up being a hit once it opened. They sold out of every item on the menu on its first day of business, Beach said.
“The highlight for me, business-wise, was when we had to buy a new cash register because the old one couldn’t hold all the money,” she said.
The relationships her staff have built with her customers were key to the restaurant’s success, and Beach said they’ve help build her business in many ways. Tradesmen stopping by for a cup of coffee have often taken a moment to troubleshoot a faulty piece of kitchen equipment. The cafe’s menus were designed and illustrated at a discount by an artist who used to come by for lunch and noticed they had been using hand-written versions Beach had made herself.
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Her first cook had a heart attack the night before their second day in business, so Beach filled in while they were in recovery.
Since Side Street was as much a community meeting space as it was a cafe, the pandemic and associated prohibitions on indoor dining put huge strain on an establishment. Beach found herself maxing out all her lines of credit in order to keep the business going, and found herself asking how much longer she wanted to keep operating the eatery.
She said she’s going to miss the community she’s been a part of for most of her life, but at the age of 72 she’s ready to move on. She’ll be relocating to Colorado, living near one of her four children.
Beach will definitely be coming back to Orange County to visit; by Wednesday an RSVP list circulating during Side Street’s final days had garnered the signatures of about 50 friends interested in joining her for a barbecue later this year.
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