The Sand Café will offer more space and a better view of the ocean than the old snack bar, which was located with public restrooms at the base of the Aliso Pier. The pier, built in 1971, was so severely damaged in the 1997 La Nina storms, county officials voted to demolish it in 1997 with vague references to rebuilding it if financing could be found.
Many longtime residents, including City Councilwoman Verna Rollinger, then the city clerk, could remember Aliso Beach without the pier and preferred it that way.
In any case, plans to rebuild the pier never materialized, and county officials decided in 2007 to tear down the dilapidated restrooms and the snack bar, which had been out of operation since 2006. Repairs would have had to meet the costly standards of the American Disabilities Act.
The Board of Supervisors voted in May 2007 to award $855,000 for the construction of the restrooms. Construction started in July in the new location near the bluff.
Ten stalls were built, two of them wheelchair accessible.
The restrooms are adjacent to the Sand Café, according to Rich Adler, manager of Orange County Parks’ real estate, which handles commercial enterprises on county parks and beaches.
A small enclosed area has been set aside to store rental items such as skim boards, beach chairs and umbrellas, which the county required the concessionaire to provide, Adler said.
It has been about 18 months since bids were submitted to the county by hopeful concessionaires.
“I was sitting at the market at Monarch Beach eating a sandwich and reading the classified ads when I saw an RFP [request for proposal],” said Weiss, a Dana Point resident whose family used to own a home on Lombardy Lane. “I come down [here] all the time with my kids.”
“Jeez,” he thought, “that’s interesting, so I called and found out the bids were due in 13 days.”
