For Immediate Release: August 22, 2005

Life’s a Beach at Surf City USA™ Cabanas

Surf City USA concession owners serve up beachside flavors, recreational fun and personality plus.

        HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. – A New York City-trained pastry chef. A Holy Land tourism expert. A local boy who inherited his father’s visionary business. All three individuals are so different, yet they share the surf’s pull; because on the sand in Huntington Beach, the beach cabana is part nostalgia and part powerful personality.

        Huntington Beach is famous for its consistent surf and luxury beachside accommodations, but the concession stands along The Huntington Beach Ocean Strand are legendary too. The low-slung buildings dot the landscape – 8.5 miles of the widest sandy beach in Southern California – every few hundred feet, providing beach goers with everything from hamburgers and fries to surfboard and umbrella rentals.

        The Surf City USA™ tradition started in 1932 when oil worker Dwight Clapp decided to rent a tiny portion of the city’s first lifeguard station. Huntington Beach’s first on-the-beach concession stand, Dwight’s had only one door and one window. Located just south of the city’s famous pier, Dwight and his wife Fae rented umbrellas and sold ten-cent hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream bars.

        Rebuilt and relocated right along the strand in 1967, Dwight’s is the city’s most famous beach cabana, boasting a gift shop, equipment rentals, soft-serve ice cream, hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, grilled chicken sandwiches and even veggie burgers.

        Dwight’s son, 75-year-old Jack Clapp, says he still enjoys running his father’s beachside business. “I like the people, the challenge and the open air,” he says smiling.

        Clapp says, however, that his father is most famous for “Dwight’s strips.” In fact, generations of Huntington Beach’s visitors have relished eating Dwight’s fried tortilla chips, smothered in cheese and Dwight Clapp’s original recipe “strip sauce.” The secret sauce is indeed so popular that Dwight’s now sells the spicy condiment by the quart ($3.75) and the gallon ($12).

        Dwight’s is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. during summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day) and on the weekends during the off-season.

        The Huntington Beach cabanas may look like theme park snack bars, but behind the chip displays and soda fountains of the Hilton Waterfront Beach Cabana you'll find one of the most acclaimed pastry chefs in Southern California. Right on the sand is where pastry chef extraordinaire Wonyee Tom busily bakes and decorates some of the region’s most fanciful wedding cakes and unique desserts.

        Tom leases the cabana from The Waterfront Hilton Beach Resort (www.waterfrontresort.com), a AAA-Four Diamond property perched just across the sand on Pacific Coast Highway. The soft-spoken Tom is one of the strand’s newest concession operators, providing tourists with coffee, cookies, soda, pizza and ice cream.

        Standing in her humble beachside digs, you’d never know that she has held super star chef positions at New York’s prestigious Gotham Bar and Grill and downtown Los Angeles’ acclaimed Water Grill. Or, that she has been awarded critical accolades from the Los Angeles Times, Gourmet Magazine and the New York Times.

        Tomgirl Baking Company (www.tomgirlbaking.com), which she runs out of the cabana’s kitchen, is Wonyee Tom’s first foray as an independent business owner. Her creativity is fueled by turning custom-made, old-fashioned recipes into uniquely beautiful and decadently delicious works of contemporary culinary art for local restaurants, hotels, weddings, bridal showers and parties.

        She casually smiles as she looks out over the strand, the white sand, the pounding surf and the blue water. “I feel lucky to be here, especially in the cool foggy mornings and in the evenings when the sun sets and the bonfires light up the sky,” she says.

        The Waterfront Beach Cabana is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the summer months and on the weekends during winter. Looking for one of Wonyee’s sweet treats? Beach goers can walk, ride or skate up to her cabana’s window to buy freshly baked banana bread, pound cake, brownies and cookies.

        Jerusalem-born Mike Ali got his start in the hospitality business as a boy selling postcards to international tourists visiting the Holy Land. At his two Huntington Beach locations – Zack’s Pier Plaza and Zack’s Too – the ever-smiling Ali still caters to vacationers.

        For many years, he operated an Irish pub on Main Street, but the brick building was torn down in 1990 to make way for the city’s new downtown district. That’s when he made a handshake deal with a retiring concession owner to take over Zack’s Beach Catering and Concessions (www.beachfoodfun.com).

        Ali’s flagship operation, Zack’s Pier Plaza, is located north of the pier. Tourists line up at Zack’s windows to buy refreshments and souvenirs or to rent recreation equipment or to sign up for private surfing lessons. Both Zack’s and Ali are institutions in this laid-back town. A board director on the Huntington Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ali is a true believer in the city as a tourist destination and he makes it his mission to chat and listen to his cabana customers.

        “I ask my customers about their day at Huntington Beach and many say that this was the best day of their vacation,” says Ali. “They say that they had more fun here than at Disneyland because there’s no waiting and everything is so close and family friendly.”

        Zack’s seaside patio has one of the best pierside Pacific Ocean views anywhere. So this is where Ali hosts barbeques on the weekends, grilling chicken, burgers, ribs and shish kebabs. Zack’s is also famous for throwing themed parties right on the sand from family picnics to company parties to casual weddings.

        Zach’s Beach Catering and Concessions is the only Huntington Beach stand open 365 days a year (except during exceptionally windy and rainy days) from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Zack’s Too, located south of the pier, is open seasonally.

To learn more about Huntington Beach, visit www.surfcityusa.com or call 800-729-6232 and request a free visitors guide. Surf City USA™ is a trademark of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau. All rights reserved.