The ambitious plans to re-envision and remodel the popular Beachside Cafe at Goleta Beach and reopen as The Ellwood became far more complicated once owner Omar Khashen and his team started work on the 80-year-old building.
“When we started doing some discovery and pulling back drywall and opening up the floors, we found a ton of rot in the building and many structural things that needed to be addressed,” said Khashen. “We took on that larger scope of work. It doubled the whole budget.” That required a search for more investors, which they have since secured.
In the meantime, the County of Santa Barbara, which owns the property, is replacing the roof and an old sewer line that serves the entire park. Those upgrades are very much welcomed by Khashe — “the county has been a good partner to us,” he said — but they made it difficult to work directly on the restaurant itself for about six weeks.