Gladstone's restaurant closing; Wolfgang Puck, Frank Gehry plan redo

A couple walk toward the beach next to a wooden restaurant deck holding tables and striped umbrellas.

Aug. 21, 2023 4:27 PM PT

After more than 50 years in service, iconic oceanfront restaurant Gladstone’s is slated to close within the next year, making way for a long-anticipated restaurant from some of L.A.’s most recognizable names.

In 2024, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck expects to break ground on a new, Frank Gehry-designed, two-pronged project that will rise in its place.

Gladstone’s opened in 1972 in Santa Monica Canyon before moving to the scenic intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway in 1981, where the seafood-focused restaurant has drawn locals and tourists with its bowls of chowder and ocean views. The Pacific Palisades establishment perches over Will Rogers State Beach on a nearly three-acre site owned by Los Angeles County, which oversees its operations arrangements.

The most recent owner of Gladstone’s was former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. When Riordan died in April, his long-running concessions agreement passed to his estate; according to Los Angeles County officials, Riordan’s arrangement with Gladstone’s will end Sept. 15. The restaurant will cease operations under his ownership, but should the county find an interim restaurant operator, it could continue to operate as Gladstone’s until Puck and his partners break ground.

A second Gladstone’s, under separate ownership, continues to operate in Long Beach.

“We are working to make sure that there is no break in operations, if possible,” said Nicole Mooradian, a representative of the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors.

The department has overseen the restaurant’s lease since at least the 1990s.

In 2017, the county issued a request for proposals to improve the Gladstone’s site with a new restaurant. In 2018, Puck — the well-known chef and operator of L.A. restaurants Spago, Cut and Merois — and his wife, Gelila Assefa, formed a partnership with developer Tom Tellefsen and proposed plans for a building designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, eventually beating three other proposals for the site.

Wolfgang Puck wears a white chef's coat and holds a glass of wine at a table.

Puck’s new project is slated to include one full-service restaurant, which has yet to be named, and will sit alongside a separate deck dedicated to public use. Currently, the Gladstone’s restaurant deck acts as a shared space for customers and non-customers. Puck’s separate deck will offer some sort of food and beverage outlet for those simply visiting the beach.

“The location is so iconic that really, for me, it’s the last iconic place I will do,” Puck said in 2018 shortly after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to authorize negotiations on the chef’s plans.

Puck, Assefa and Tellefsen entered an option agreement with the county, which, should all conditions be met, will be signed into a 50-year concessions arrangement, per county officials. A report from Deadline, which first announced the closure of Gladstone’s, said “a competitive bidding process is expected to open soon for the site.” Tellefsen said the report was inaccurate, which Mooradian confirmed. Representatives of Gladstone’s could not be reached for comment.

Puck has yet to determine the menu or broader cuisine focus of his new restaurant, which will have a smaller footprint and fewer seats than Gladstone’s currently offers, though still “a meaningful number,” his business partner said. The Gladstone’s parking lot is slated for demolition, with a portion to serve as a Big Blue Bus stop for the public in an effort to provide more access to the state beach.

“We think it’ll relieve a lot of traffic as well as be more economical for people to get there,” said Tellefsen, who says the owners are planning to subsidize bus fare for their employees.

The new operators plan to break ground in early to mid 2024 and expect at least 18 months of construction before a 2025 debut.

“We’re anticipating a very, very exciting replacement for Gladstone’s,” Tellefsen said. “There’s a lot of memory with Gladstone’s but it’s a tired memory, or people are now disappointed with the existing Gladstone’s relative to what it was.

“So what Wolfgang and I contemplated is replacing a tired memory with the brand new memory,” he said. “That’s what our intent is.”