Laguna Landmark Tortilla Flats for Sale
By SANDI CAIN
Tortilla Flats, the landmark Laguna Beach eatery, is up for sale at an asking price of $4.75 million.
The Mexican restaurant on South Coast Highway closed at the end of the summer with plans to reopen early this year as the Laguna Prime Steak House & Martini Bar. But the restaurant’s owners said fallout from Sept. 11 scuttled the remodeling plan.
“We had our loan and had started construction,” said co-owner Steve Levinson. “After that (the terrorist attacks), the bank pulled the loan.”
Gloria Jewell Davis and John Stanaland of Laguna Seaside Realty are representing Tortilla Flats’ owners in marketing the restaurant for sale. The 8,000-square-foot facility sits on roughly half an acre on the corner of Agate Street and South Coast Highway, just south of the Surf & Sand Hotel.
Tortilla Flats has been a Laguna Beach fixture since 1947. Levinson and wife Ellen bought it in 1974.
Levinson said he’d still like to proceed with the remake if he can put together a new group of investors. Meanwhile, he said he’s entertaining offers for the property.
“Of course, it’s very disappointing,” he said.
The restaurant was doing reasonably well, according to Levinson, but faced competition from an increasing number of Mexican restaurants in Laguna Beach. That sparked the plan to go in a different direction.
“There were only a couple (of Mexican restaurants) in the ’80s,” Levinson said. “But every new one dilutes the concept.”
Contractors commissioned to work on the restaurant’s remodeling have been left in limbo, though all had received deposits for their work, according to Levinson. One of them, Laguna Beach glassblower John Barber, had completed about half the glasswork required for the new steak house, he said.
In 1998, Tortilla Flats successfully defended its trademark of the phrase “Taco Tuesday” against use by what is now Long Beach-based El Torito Restaurants Inc., Del Taco Inc. of Laguna Hills and Margaritaville in Newport Beach, among others.
The Levinsons operate another Tortilla Flats in Mission Viejo, which remains open.
Levinson said there are no plans to close that restaurant or convert it to a steak house.
“It’s very profitable,” he said.
