Huntington Beach Pier eatery can start construction after delays
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A restaurant on the Huntington Beach Pier, in the works for nearly five years, is now poised to begin construction.
The Huntington Beach City Council Tuesday night approved a $1.3-million completion bond for Huntington’s On The Pier, a restaurant and bar that will feature both indoor and outdoor dining and be located about halfway down the pier.
The concept was first backed by the council in 2021, at the spot which had previously long housed the bait shop Let’s Go Fishing. A 19-year lease, with options for three 10-year extensions, was approved by the council for Surf City Partners, LLC in October 2024.
The completion bond is a guarantee the eatery will be finished, even if its developers default on the project. It was a necessary step before construction could begin, Huntington Beach economic development manager Kriss Casanova told the council.
Former Huntington Beach Mayor Keith Bohr, the project’s applicant along with business partner Jeff Bergsma, entertained questions from the council Tuesday night.
“It’s been a long journey,” Bohr said in an interview with the Daily Pilot on Wednesday. “We’re excited to finally be at the construction starting line and look forward to bringing Huntington’s On The Pier, created for locals, by locals, your West Coast ‘Cheers,’ [to Huntington Beach] in summer of ’26.”
The restaurant will be located at 21 Main Street, with a remodeled restroom building across the pier at 22 Main Street. There will also be Ella’s Snack Shack, Bohr said, which will have coffee, candy, snacks and bait. The name honors the late Ella Christensen, who owned three shops on the pier with her husband Carl for decades.
Construction of the Huntington’s On The Pier project has yet to begin, despite the lease being approved more than a year ago, which drew the questioning of some council members Tuesday.
The panel backed the completion bond in a 4-3 vote, with Mayor Casey McKeon, Mayor Pro Tem Butch Twining and Councilmembers Gracey Van Der Mark and Pat Burns voting in favor.
The dissenters — Councilmembers Chad Williams, Don Kennedy and Andrew Gruel — sought to table the item and bring it back at the next council meeting, directing the city manager to provide an alignment report to ensure the work stays on track. Williams’ motion to table the item failed by the same 4-3 vote.
“This locks in a 50-year agreement,” Williams said. “We’ll all be dead by the time this comes up again. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime, generational contract. So I’m just suggesting [we] pump the brakes; let’s table this so we can take a look.”
Twining responded that a delay on the completion bond vote would mean more construction delays.
“This council is going to determine whether he’s in default or not ... and [Bohr] is standing right there,” Twining said. “Ask him questions. Let’s find out what his plan is.”
Williams tried to share his notes on the project’s timeline during the discussion, but was shot down by McKeon.
“It’s dangerous when you put up something that’s not been agendized to the public,” McKeon told Williams, who responded that the notes were germane to the project.
Even Burns noted that the project had been “stumbling along.”
“I’m just wondering if there’s supposed to be some kind of deadline or something ... on the life of this bond,” Burns said.
Surf City Partners, LLC has not been charged rent since the lease was approved, as part of a 15-month rent abatement period described in the property’s lease. But that period is ending. Base rent is $5,500 per month, with 3% annual increases, according to the agreement.
The lease also provides rent credit of $300,000 for restroom improvements and waives up to $50,000 in city fees.
Bohr said the project required approvals from a variety of city and state agencies, including sign off from the California Coastal Commission. He told the council that there was plenty of blame to go around for the delay.
“I’m not here to play the blame game, but it’s more blame out there than on us,” he said. “Probably 90-10 ... We wish we were open last summer. There’s no games going on here. Let us go; we’re finally here.”
Huntington’s On The Pier launched a temporary pop-up location last summer, which has been open on weekends since Labor Day, Bohr said. He said Wednesday the updated construction schedule calls for the demolition of the old Let’s Go Fishing building in early February, with the goal of having the new restaurant ready by August.
That timeline would coincide with the U.S. Open of Surfing, held annually on the south side of the pier in late July and early August and drawing hundreds of thousands of people over its nine-day duration.
