Fine dining’s never in short supply at South Coast Plaza, but 2019 is seeing the luxe mall pull out all the stops to keep its shoppers happy, and full.
“This is the year of food at South Coast Plaza,” Anton Segerstrom told the Business Journal, speaking last week in the backyard of the Segerstrom family’s Home Ranch property along Fairview Road.
To back up that boast, the family’s historic home was the backdrop of an intimate dining event last Wednesday that featured Anton, his wife Jennifer, and South Coast executive director Debra Gunn Downing, among others, to show off two of the more eagerly-awaited food options coming this year.
Tony Esnault and Yassmin Sarmadi, the power couple behinds LA’s Church & State, are getting close to opening Knife Pleat, which will take the former spot of another famed French restaurant, Marché Moderne, at the mall.
Vaca and Broadway chef Amar Santana and his business partner Ahmed Labbate, meanwhile, are a few months from opening their Hall Global Eatery, a nearly 8,000 SF collection of food and drink spots where the mall’s Z’Tejas used to be.
The Segerstrom family got its start in Costa Mesa as lima bean farmers; SCP opened in 1967. “52 years later we’re still talking about food,” Downing said.
Lord of the Rings fans quipped that last week’s unveiling of the first-ever black hole photo—an astounding achievement—reminded them of the Eye of Sauron.
If you need a medical diagnosis of a giant eye in space, you could do worse than call on Jim Mazzo, one of the ophthalmic industry’s best-known execs, and whose lengthy professional bio counts this factoid: he serves on NASA’s Mission to Mars Committee. Mazzo said he’s the only committee member he knows of with OC ties.
More recently and a few light years closer to home, Mazzo was appointed to the board of Avellino Labs; the firm specializes in personalized medicine for eye care, and has offices in Menlo Park and Asia.
The Avellino appointment comes a few months after Mazzo was named chair of OCTANe; the group’s upcoming Ophthalmology Technology Summit in Fashion Island hotel will feature a panel with both Mazzo and Staar Surgical CEO Caren Mason among others. Asia’s influence on OC’s eye care market continues to grow—see our page 4 story on Staar Surgical.
David Janes Sr., founder of Irvine’s investment banking firm Janes Capital Partners, retired two-star Admiral, and Board of Trustees Chairman Emeritus at Chapman University, passed away on April 7 at age 81.
Janes “was a man of many interests, exceptional talent and tremendous success,” said Chapman president Daniele Struppa in an email to the community.
