The long awaited Ellwood restaurant at Goleta Beach is finally set to open in late January, replacing the former Beachside Bar-Cafe.
The developers say they are hopeful for a Jan. 22 opening and are excited to bring a modern coastal dining experience to Goleta.
The Ellwood was approved as the new concessionaire by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in 2021. The board approved a 10-year lease with Omar Khashen and Joe “Diggs” Dies to operate the restaurant at Goleta Beach.
“It was a pipe dream for us, and then it turned into a reality,” said Chris Jow, director of operations. “For me personally, it’s a way that I can see building a legacy here in Santa Barbara, and being able to make this my forever place.”
Jow, Khashen, Diggs and Brian Escalera are the four partners behind the restaurant. Jow has been involved in the project since the beginning and has spent 20 years working in restaurants throughout Santa Barbara. His wife, Vienna, was also involved in the project for two years, helping to decide on the style and ambiance of the space.
“What we were trying to bring is a more modern feel to the coastal dining experience, not a typical tourist trap restaurant that has a very unimaginative menu at unreasonable prices,” Jow said. “We look at this as more of a spot where we want to be a local legacy with a new dining experience for Goleta that it is looking forward, more similarly to places in bigger cities and a dining style that other places frequent.”
It’s been a long road to get to the opening as much of the construction progress was delayed by issues caused by storms in January 2023.
Builder and partner Brian Escalera said large waves crashed through the restaurant, flooding the dining room. They originally planned to have a sunken dining room, but the storm made them realize they needed to have everything at one level.
Escalera said they built back the space with a seawall, a concrete wall with windows, and a foundation with caissons and grade beams to withstand storms.
“Now we have two barriers to help us allow this not to happen again,” Escalera said. “It doesn’t mean the waves aren’t going to come, but we’re better prepared than we were for that.”
Escalera said he sought out local subcontractors and mostly hired local workers to build the restaurant.
“I wanted local people to help me build this restaurant, and we accomplished that,” Escalera said. “I wanted people who will frequent this place, people who have lived here, their generations of families, so they can say this is part of their legacy, and their grandchildren can someday say the same thing.”
Escalera said his family has been in Santa Barbara for over 100 years and that this restaurant was his way of giving something back to the community.
“I was able to give back to the community, build something back, hopefully bigger, better than it was, that people are going to come to and enjoy again,” Escalera said. “That was my passion and the drive that I had to be able to put this together.”
Also behind the Ellwood is Omar Khashen, who Escalera said is the mastermind behind the project. Khashen will still be involved in the day-to-day operations after opening and helping to build up the future event space.
Antonio Gerli will be the restaurant’s general manager, bringing his experience from his previous job as the general manager of Lilac Patisserie in Montecito and Santa Barbara. Lauren Plumley will be the assistant general manager after previously working at Rare Society in Santa Barbara.
The chef will be Craig Riker, who previously worked at Alisal Ranch. Jow explained that the menu will be seafood forward, with locally sourced produce. The menu will also have an Italian flair thanks to chef Riker’s love of pasta. A separate bar menu will consist of burger and steak options. There will also be an extensive cocktail and wine menu featuring Santa Barbara County wines.
The Ellwood will just be offering dinner service for the first few weeks. Once the staff is comfortable with dinner, they will roll out lunch service and eventually add brunch on the weekends.
The developers have other ambitious goals for the future.
To replace the former snack shack, Jow said the plan is to open “The Coop” in roughly six months. The Coop will consist of coffee and doughnuts in the morning, and sandwiches, salads, barbecue and pizzas in the afternoon and evening.
On the other side of the pier there will eventually be an event space for concerts, weddings, comedy shows and business parties. The event space will also serve as a dining area for The Coop.
The developers also want to add string lights up and down the pier to illuminate it at night and are in talks with the county to do so.
Jow said the patio looking out onto the ocean is his favorite part of the space. The patio has an outside bar, fireplace and a roof that will allow for outdoor dining even when it’s raining.
“You really can’t duplicate it anywhere,” Jow said. “It’s as close to the ocean as you can get without being in the ocean.”
Escalera said his favorite part of the restaurant is the bar. The bar is darker than the rest of the restaurant and includes multiple half-circle booths surrounding a large bar in the center of the room. The bar area will also include a piano and serve as a space for people to hang out and order drinks into the night after dinner service has ended.
After three years of work, Jow and Escalera said they’re ready to open the doors to the community.
“I think it’s going to be a special place,” Jow said. “We all believe in the concept, we all believe in the vision, and we believe that our team that we brought together is something special and it’s something that we’re very excited to show the rest of Santa Barbara.”
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