The Ellwood, coming to 905 Sandspit Road in Goleta, the former home of Beachside Bar-Café, will undoubtedly be the South Coast’s biggest restaurant opening in 2025. Late January is the current target date. Today The Restaurant Guy sat down with two principals involved with the project: Omar Khashen (founder and operating partner) and Brian Escalera (builder and partner).

TRG: What can you tell me about The Ellwood? It is amazing what you have done with this space.

Khashen: We tried to build something special here for the community and make sure that this feels like a local spot and represents Goleta more than anything. The area has always kind of been the afterthought. It’s a no-brainer how beautiful the space is so we wanted to make sure what we built was reflective of something that would be kind of a landmark for the next 40 years, the same way Beachside Bar-Café was for all those years before us. We came in expecting the project to be more small scale in terms of the remodel, a lot of just surface-level furniture and flooring and that sort of thing, but it turned into a much bigger project along the way. There was a lot of repair that needed to be done here, not ground up, but pretty close to it in terms of the structure of the building.

TRG: How did the ocean flooding in January 2023 affect you?

Khashen: The ocean flooding set us back quite a ways. We had to redesign a lot of the front area and make sure that, should it happen again, we’re prepared for it. We now have the space that we want and a space that will last us the next hundred years. We added a sea wall here that’s as strong as could be and we’re doing a nice glass wind screen around the space. We did all permeable pavers outside so should water reach this area it’s got a place to drain. We have a lot of drainage around the space and pumps to be able to get everything out. So, we’re prepared now and if it happens again, it will not to be an impactful thing. In the long term, the silver lining is that we have got a beautiful restaurant that [builder and partner] Brian Escalera built that is unmatched in this area, for sure.

TRG: What can you tell me about the menu?

Khashen: So, on our end we’re trying to do our best to complement this location with the right menu and the right quality of food and doing service to the local ingredients we have here that are as good as they get. Produce-wise, we’re 30-minutes from some of the best produce in the country so we want to make sure on our cocktail list and our food menu that we’re representing that. The same thing with our seafood, locally here it’s as good as it gets, so we want make sure that we’re doing our best to pay respect to those ingredients and serve them correctly. So, the focus of our concept, food and drink-wise, is high quality ingredients prepared simply but well, instead of trying to over-manipulate stuff and make things too complicated. That was our approach when we built the menus. We also have one other partner.

Khashen: Partner Joe Diggs, who is a former UCSB soccer player, has been with us from the beginning. We have a great group of investors too. One of our investors owns a farm property in Buellton and he has offered to let us grow some produce and specific things for the restaurant on that property. It’s definitely a unique and cool thing for us to be able to give him a wish list of things we want to see and then his team up there is going help grow it. It’s not going to be right off the bat. It will take a while to get that program in place but we’ll be able to pull some of that produce and use it in our food here, which is exciting.

Khashen: The menu is “seafood forward,” meaning a good chunk of the menu is seafood, but it’s not a seafood restaurant by any means. We balance out a lot of stuff. We have steaks on the menu and chicken dishes and a lot of different vegetable dishes. But the heavy lifting is seafood. Some of it leans towards Italian, too, but it’s kind of all cultures. It’s an influence of myself and our chef and different dishes that we enjoy. It’s family style dining and dinner, so a lot of shared plates. The proteins are larger format meant to be shared by two to four people. The idea is that you’re going be able to taste through the menu. You’re not just getting one entrée-composed dish. You can try an appetizer, perhaps some seafood at the start, share a protein, then get a couple of vegetables.

TRG: How will you be rolling out your food service?

Khashen: When we first open, we’re doing just dinner service until we get the staff in the kitchen up to speed. For lunch service we’re going be opening at 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., hopefully within six weeks or so. We’ll have food in the in-between hours just at the bars, so if someone did come in from 3 to 5 p.m. we’ll have some offerings. We’ll do a happy hour during the week from 3 to 6 p.m. On the weekends we’re going to be adding brunch – Saturday and Sunday. Once the lunch service opens, the brunch will come along with that. Breakfast during the week will mainly come out of The Coop [next door] once that’s open. We’ll have donuts and coffee and pastries. We may add a full breakfast down the line if we see a demand for it but at the beginning, I think this area could use a little pastry doughnut kind of coffee shop. There are a lot of morning people here at the beach and that’s geared towards them.

TRG: What about the bar inside The Ellwood?

Khashen: The bar will be open a little bit later in the evening than the restaurant. It’s a different look than the rest of the restaurants in town, a little bit of moodier, darker restaurant bar. Dinner service runs until about 10 p.m. and the bar will be open until 12 or so based on the crowd. We’ll have live piano in there.

TRG: Will there be a private dining area?

Khashen: Within the restaurant we built a private dining room that’s about 12 to 14 seats. It’s a side room. We want that to be used for special occasions and for people to be able to look out. We’re going to be doing some good fundraising in there for UCSB and the athletic department and that’s kind of what [our builder and partner] Brian Escalera does. He’s a special guy in the community. Well connected for sure, but he also does a lot for people and it was important to him to make sure that this place was built the right way, to last, and be a landmark, so he definitely was an anchor to this project and he has worked harder than anybody.

Escalera: We met out here on a handshake and I said, okay, let’s do this project. I love [Khashen] like a brother. I’d do anything for him and his family. But the best part is giving back to the community. It’s all about that for me. I didn’t need to do this. I did it because I wanted something that our community can be proud of and we got to be a part of. It’s all about giving back. And this is what we’re going to do. So many people are waiting for this. When I see those happy people and their faces and excitement that we’re open, all the pain is all gain. All the pain and the tough times we went through for whatever, it’s all good.

TRG: How big is the restaurant?

Khashen: It’s a really unique space. It’s large. We have about 350 seats here, but it’s chopped up pretty well in that you never feel like you’re in one giant room. This outside patio is the largest area with about 85 seats.

TRG: Will you be encouraging people to come out here on their lunch break?

Khashen: There are many businesses and offices in Goleta and we wanted them to be able to come and enjoy it. When we open The Coop, the sandwich menu there, that we’re going do in the afternoons, you’ll be able to order online and have it ready by the time you show up. If you are on a time crunch, you could come grab a sandwich. It’s easy to park here, much easier than a lot of different areas.

TRG: What is happening with the property located on the other side of the Goleta Pier? I saw that is in the early stages of construction.

Khashen: There is a phase-two to the project and that side of the property is called “The Break.” What we’re now adding (that wasn’t here before) is a big outdoor events venue. We’ll be able to use it for weddings or corporate parties or concerts. It was used as a storage shed before, so when we leased the space, we negotiated to have that area included. Once this restaurant is open, we’ll turn our attention to rebuilding that side.

TRG: What will happened to the snack shack that was next to the pier?

Khashen: We are going to rebuild that shack. We’ll have three concepts in total: the Ellwood, which is meant to be more of a special, celebratory space where you come here for date night or a birthday or just a night out on the town. “The Coop” [short for Ellwood Cooper] will be the replacement for the snack shack that was there before. That will be operating in the morning. We’ll do donuts and coffee out of there. It’ll have a sandwich menu in the afternoon, sandwiches and salads. We hope to open it within a few months. And we’ll have The Break

TRG: And “The Break” will be the event space?

Khashen: Yeah, and those two are connected to each other.

TRG: Will “The Break” be a flat grassy area?

Khashen: We’re going to hardscape it so if someone’s doing a nicer event, people can wear heels and treat it that way, so it’s a little cozier, but we’ll have some grass around the space. We’ll have a stage so we can do live music and a full food menu and cocktail menu in there as well.

TRG: Have you been getting feedback from the public during construction?

Khashen: Hopefully the community falls in love with it the way we have. Brian and I have spent countless hours here over the last three years trying to get this project done but we’re ready to share it. We’ve been ready to share it for a while. The amount of support we get from people that walk by every day, this is at least 25 or 30 people a day, that poke their head in or check in with us and a lot of people that walk, even multiple times a day, down the pier. We’ve gotten to learn a lot of the faces of the people around here. There’s definitely a level of buzz and excitement for the opening and hopefully we do the city right and the community right.

TRG: How did you choose the name “The Ellwood?”

Khashen: We realized that this place needed to represent Santa Barbara, and Goleta a little bit closer to home, and this area is super special to me. I’ve lived up here previously, but the last three years I’ve been living here again and so we wanted the restaurant to feel a connection to local. So obviously the name Ellwood is around a lot with the school and the butterfly preserve and more. Those areas are named after a gentleman named Ellwood Cooper, who was kind of one of the founders of the area. We did a little bit of research on that. There is some really cool Goleta history websites around that give the breakdown and history of him, and his family, and history of the city. We thought it was a cool name to kind of pay homage to that. Our logo itself is a representative of the Ellwood Queen. It’s a tree. The Ellwood Queen is the tallest tree in Santa Barbara County, and it’s located up on his property up off of Cathedral Oaks. It’s a lemon-scented gum tree. It’s huge and dwarfs the palm tree that’s right next to this restaurant. So at the entrance of the restaurant is a big picture of Ellwood Queen, with a little history of the tree itself. Then there’s a picture right behind the host stand of the Goleta slough, from the 1930s, of this family that used to live over here, and spend some summers here. [In the photo] they are getting in a couple of rowboats at the back of the slough. It’s a cool, old picture we found online that we hung up. We wanted the name to feel a connection to the city of Goleta, and that’s how we came up with that. And [the up and coming snack bar] “The Coop” is actually a play on Cooper.

TRG: The Ellwood is such a great addition to the beach here.

Khashen: When we negotiated our contract at the beginning, there’s a percent of our rent that goes into a fund that’s kept here in the park for improvements. So we’re able to work with the county on different art projects, on redoing some of the picnic areas, or add new signage.

TRG: So, a percentage of your rent beautifies the area around you.

Khashen: Exactly and that was important to us to make sure that it didn’t just get lost in the county’s general fund because we hope and plan to raise a lot of rent revenue for the county, but we wanted to make sure that part of that stayed here in the park and was able to assist the rangers and doing what they need to do and help with a lot of improvements and beautification. The county repaved the parking lot and put a ton of work in this area. They redid all the picnic areas and they are redoing new pathways, and they’ve really put a lot energy into that. They’re going to do some improvements and repairs to the pier pretty soon, so it’ll be a long-term project for everyone.

TRG: The Ellwood is really a local project through and through.

Escalera: The construction and building of this was with our local contractors. It was built by people who have lived in this community with their families for a long time. It’s generations building up. That was important to me. We stayed as locally as we can, including the suppliers for building materials. The subcontractors they had were amazing. They all worked with us, and in every facet of what we were doing. I’m happy to say that it’s built by our community. Them giving back and being a part of it is what it’s all about. And I’ll get to enjoy it with their families that come.

Khashen: We had a strong team. Our sub-contractors and the people that help with this project did a great job, most of them all as local as we can get them, and kind of anchors in the community as well. When this is done being built and we turn it over to the restaurant team, they’re the same thing. It’s bigger than all of us. It’s not a project about me, it’s a project for everyone.