A Southern California Culture Clash? Not Here
As you go down Pacific Coast Highway towards what is called “the peninsula,” past luxury car dealers and boat yards filled with yachts, you know you’re in a high-rent district of Southern California.
And the next thing you know you’re having a beer in a dive bar.
This is Newport Beach, CA, which can be both rich and rich in character.
Dive bars are a part of the long-standing character of Newport Beach, spots like Blackie’s By The Sea, Mutt Lynch’s, Cassidy’s and Beach Ball – open at 6 a.m.!
So, too, are the yachts. Look out into the harbor and they are either sitting at a dock or slowly making their way across the water. John Wayne’s old yacht, the Wild Goose is here, and you can even get on it for a cruise and a few cocktails.
One of the old legendary haunts, Woody’s Wharf, even combines the two. This wooden, somewhat nautical bar – long known as one of the top pickup places among singles in Newport – has its own dock. Boats pull up, people pile out and go into the bar.
Or, they stay on the boat and a waitress comes out to deliver cocktails to them on board.
This is the only place in greater Los Angeles where there’s such a merging of the two, not in Dana Point to the south, in Long Beach and certainly not in Marina del Rey, which needs such a scene.
Dive bars and yachts may seem to be an odd combination of things to exist together, but in Newport Beach they blend as perfectly as rum and orange juice. Yes, a boat drink!
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