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Plans to bring 2 major restaurants to Seaport Village were OK’d 3 years ago. They’re not close to opening

Nearly three years after San Diego port commissioners cleared the way to bring two well-known restaurants to San Diego’s Seaport Village, the waterfront venues have yet to open, nor has construction even begun.

Changes, however, could be coming soon as owners of the two Southern California restaurant brands — Gladstone’s and Shorebird — indicate they’re prepared to finally start building out their new spaces within the next couple of months after years of delays.

Gladstone’s, a restaurant brand widely known for its premier oceanfront location in Pacific Palisades, is supposed to be taking over the still operating Edgewater Grill in Seaport. And Shorebird, which has locations in Newport Beach, Palm Desert and Sedona, Ariz., is moving into the now shuttered Pier Cafe, a unique two-story structure that sits on the bay.

Both restaurateurs say their city building permits have been approved, and they are hoping to begin construction soon, although an opening date is still far off.

When the Port OK’d leases with the two operators in September of 2021, it was expected that the restaurants would open by late 2022.

“The permitting at the city just took forever, like two years,” said Heinrich Stasiuk, founder and chairman of Orange-based Wild Thyme Restaurant Group, whose portfolio of dining venues includes Shorebird, known for its coastal flavors and fresh seafood. “The process is very delayed over there. But our construction crew is mobilizing and we plan to start construction May 14.”

Stasiuk said his company plans to invest $3 million in a makeover of the former two-level Pier Cafe, which has been closed almost two years. The 4,000-square-foot site — including patio space — will be updated with a new color palette of charcoal and white accents. Stasiuk, who hopes to open the restaurant by the end of the year, said Shorebird Seaport Village will have an indoor-outdoor design with plenty of patio dining and unobstructed bay views.

In addition, plans call for repairing the pylons that allow the restaurant to be suspended over the water, as well as replacing damaged wood and anchors, according to the building permit application, which has been approved pending the payment of required fees. The city permits just haven’t been pulled yet, although Wild Thyme has been allowed to take possession of the Pier Cafe site, port spokesperson Brianne Page said Wednesday.

“We like the look and design of the building,” Stasiuk said. “It’s been there forever and is a centerpoint of Seaport Village, so we want to keep existing bones but are updating it to a fresher look. My love for Seaport Village began with our first visit in 2005. Captivated by its charm and vibrancy, I knew it was the ideal place for Shorebird.”

Meanwhile, restaurateur John Sangmeister, who operates a Gladstone’s restaurant in Long Beach, has had approval of his building permits for several months but it wasn’t until late Wednesday afternoon that they were issued by the city following payment of the fees. Sharon Cloward, president of the port tenants group, the San Diego Working Waterfront, said that Sangmeister had indicated this week that he intends to start construction by June 1.

In an interview earlier this month, Sangmeister had said he was eager to begin work on transforming the still operating Edgewater Grill into a new Gladstone’s but had expressed concerns, like Stasiuk, about the length of time it had taken to get permit approval from the city, which had eaten into his 10-year lease granted in 2021. Both Gladstone’s and Shorebird have options to extend their leases by five additional years, Page said.

“We’d like to start work tomorrow,” said Sangmeister, whose San Diego ties date back to his sailing days with the 1987 America’s Cup team helmed by Dennis Connor. “But we should start within 60 days. I don’t see any other delays. It took forever to approve our plans. I can’t explain why it took so long, other than our story is not unique. Malibu farms (in Seaport Village) had the same experience.”

City of San Diego spokesperson Nicole Darling said the city takes issue with claims by the two restaurateurs that its permitting process was largely to blame for the “extended permit time frame.” Most of the delay, she said, was due to “the amount of time the applicants took to provide necessary plan corrections and to submit invoice payment.”

Sangmeister had been seeking some specific changes to his original lease but declined to reveal what they were. Earlier this month, he received a letter from the Port of San Diego stating that the port would not be accepting Sangmeistser’s proposed amendments to his lease and advised him that “Gladstone’s must perform under their existing Lease. The District continues to incur losses as a result of Gladstone’s delays.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, port officials said Sangmeister had yet to formally notify them by mail that he had secured his permits and was ready to take possession of the Edgewater Grill site.

“Once they do receive all necessary approvals required by the lease, they are required to submit final copies of permits and any other necessary approvals to the Port within five days,” the port said in a statement to the Union-Tribune. “The premises can only be delivered to Gladstone’s once we have what’s required by the lease.”

Sangmeister declined to divulge how much he will be investing in the new Gladstone’s, calling it a “multi-million-dollar’ project. The decor, he said, will be a contemporary Cape Cod look, and a lot more outdoor seating will be added. In addition, the bar will be relocated to a more central spot in the restaurant, under an existing atrium.

“We are going to bring our menu from Gladstone’s Long Beach, which is California American seafood,” he added.

Michael Fry, a co-owner of Water View Restaurants, which includes the Edgewater Grill, says the Seaport Village venue has been in limbo ever since the lease with Gladstone’s was signed in 2021. Edgewater has operated at Seaport since 1990.

“So we’ve just been going along, month to month, business as normal, just waiting to see what happens,” said Fry. “Overall, from our standpoint, business has been good. Seaport Village is a unique place and it’s always been busiest during the summer when people are traveling and also when conventions are in town. We knew when the leases were signed, it would just be a matter of time.”

The planned Gladstone’s is among a growing portfolio of foodie-friendly dining venues that have been coming to Seaport over the past several years ever since the Port of San Diego took over management of the tourist destination in hopes of raising its profile among travelers and locals. One of the more ambitious restaurants to open most recently was Malibu Farms, a $7.5 million project that took over the former Harbor House.

It opened last September, nearly three years after Port of San Diego Commissioners approved a 10-year lease agreement for the new restaurant. The co-owner, John Stockwell, told the Union-Tribune at the time that the restaurant’s opening was delayed in part because of pandemic-related supply chain and labor challenges.

Still looming is a mega project that proposes to demolish the waterfront center should the port give final approval to what’s known as Seaport San Diego. The $3.6 billion development proposes to remake 105 acres of land and water in the Central Embarcadero region with 2.7 million square feet of mixed-use development, including a 500-foot observation tower at the foot of Pacific Highway where Seaport Village is today.

In November of 2022, following years of negotiations, the developer got the green light from port commissioners to move into the environmental review phase, which is expected to take at least two years.