Table Of Content
- Restaurant features in Huntington Beach
- Orchids, and a true master, on display at South Coast Plaza’s Spring Garden Show
- Slapfish founder Andrew Gruel starts over again with another restaurant
- Events schedule released for 2024 Seafood Expo North America
- Prominent GOP donor Buck Johns lists Newport Beach property for $25 million
Andrew and Lauren Gruel realized that vision with Calico Fish House, which opened in Huntington Beach in January 2023. Calico Fish House serves up at least seven different types seafood daily, focusing on items that are locally available, fresh, and in-season. Current featured menu items include Baja Fish Tacos, Lobster Deviled Eggs, All-American Crab Cake, as well as oysters, tuna poke, fish and chips, and jumbo roasted sea scallops. Guests who camp, rent cabins, bunk house or mini bunkhouse receive free admission into the town. During special event weekends, camping guests also receive free admission to the event weekend for up to four persons per site. Additional persons per site will be charged the individual admission price.
Restaurant features in Huntington Beach
Along with its history and attractions, Calico Ghost Town has shops, restaurants and offers camping, hiking and off-roading. “At the end of the day, our goal is to get people to eat more [sustainable] seafood,” he added. The Gruels knew that whichever dining concept they opened next, it would be a full-service seafood restaurant designed to grow beyond its current flagship.
Orchids, and a true master, on display at South Coast Plaza’s Spring Garden Show
Calico’s trails provide scenic panoramic views with unique geologic formations. The Mini-Bunkhouse sleeps six, is heated/air conditioned and has a private bathroom/shower and kitchenette. For more information, check out @calicofishhouse on Instagram.
Slapfish founder Andrew Gruel starts over again with another restaurant
Doug and Vickie Miller, who live in downtown Huntington Beach, came by the restaurant recently for lunch. The local theme doesn’t stop there, with Calico featuring jidori free-range chicken raised at farms in California and vegetables sourced from Melissa’s Produce. Calico Fish House, a full-service restaurant in Sunset Beach, had a soft opening last month. A grand opening is expected in the coming weeks, Lauren Gruel said.
Raw Bar
The seafood at Calico Fish House is locally and responsibly sourced, the meats come from small farms, and the produce is from Melissa’s Produce, a wholesaler based in Los Angeles. Calico only serves farmed seafood that has been certified sustainable by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. In recent years, the husband-and-wife restaurateurs have continued opening new concepts such as New Jersey-style pizza joint Big Parm and Two Birds, a fried chicken sandwich spot in Irvine.
Events schedule released for 2024 Seafood Expo North America
Calico Fish House took the spot of the former Fish Camp location on Pacific Coast Highway, and the concept was born only about a day after Gruel announced his departure from Slapfish. “The world has come so far in terms of sustainable seafood. We have our philosophy on sustainability, which is more about offering people different options, letting them decide, and offering full transparency,” Gruel said. Don't forget to try good oysters, fish and lobster rolls at this restaurant.
Admission Fees
Calico House is a full-service restaurant serving up breakfast, lunch and dinner. Specializing in basic meals enjoyed by the townspeople in the late 1880’s Calico House serves up stews, pot pies, shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, and the famous Buffalo Burger. It also offers the finest in home-made barbecue, chicken, salads, desserts and more. With ample seating in the dining room or out on the back porch with views of the Calico & Odessa Railway, the Calico House Restaurant is great for a lunch or dinner in town; or the place to hold your party or event. Calico Fish House features a menu of local seafood, meat and produce with a capacity of around 150 people, including indoor and outdoor space. Calico is an oceanfront diner / a seafood chophouse celebrating all things land and sea - A study of local produce, meat, seafood, and shellfish.
Prominent GOP donor Buck Johns lists Newport Beach property for $25 million
The bacon-wrapped lobster dog has also been an early favorite for customers. Our Kids Menu features eight pages of activities, including temporary tattoos and stamps. Your kids will want to bring the cup home with them too! We don't ever reuse Kids Menus, and we recycle all of our crayons after one use.
O.C. Fair officials reduce fee hike at Equestrian Center, to be renamed the Ranch
Gruel said through that process, he realized he wanted more sway in sourcing decisions. The hope is to build brand recognition, just like the Slapfish food truck did in its early days, before eventually opening more brick-and-mortar locations in Orange County. The full-service, full-bar eatery is also a departure from more than a decade of experience in the fast-casual space with Slapfish and their other new concepts. Andrew Gruel said he sees the restaurant as a fun, whimsical seafood spot with a lot of different meats and vegetables that will constantly change. A unique West Coast seafood experience, the Dungeness Crab are known for their sweet and delectable meat.
Get today’s need-to-know restaurant industry intelligence. Sign up to receive texts from Restaurant Business on news and insights that matter to your brand. Gruel said his company’s turnover is very low, in part because they pay well.
Craig Jacobs, the owner of OC Wild, has been a commercial fisherman for over 25 years, and he sells the restaurant spiny lobster, halibut, calico bass, California box crab, and other local specialties. Calico, a new seafood and chop house in Huntington Beach, is in some ways a return to form for local chef and restauranteur Andrew Gruel and his wife and business partner, Lauren. At Calico we commit to helping those in need of a meal as well as our military men and women, past and present.
They shared a seafood cocktail — featuring scallops, shrimp and calamari — and an “angry lobster pocket” before splitting a large fish sandwich. Each site is restricted to 1 vehicle, 1 tent and 4 people. Each additional vehicle is $10 per night, each tent is $5 per night and each additional person over 4 is $8 per night. $160/night – No minimum night required except on festival weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), which requires a two-night minimum.
Hourly workers can make $25 to $30 per hour, for example, but those higher labor costs are offset by higher retention rates. It’s designed to be a flagship for Gruel’s American Gravy Restaurant Group, which includes a growing portfolio of brands the chef plans to scale—including Calico. Part of Gruel’s education around sustainable sourcing is that it doesn’t just have all the benefits of ensuring an ocean’s growing population, it’s also about knowing that sustainable food tastes better too. But the space, which wasn’t changed much physically except for the interior, was too good to pass up and within a few months they were up and running. The Gruels hope to expand the Calico brand in the next couple of years.
The flavors in all of our dishes stem from our specialty brines and seasonings. The menu is a “best of” Chef Gruel’s dishes from the past 2 decades of cooking all over America - from burgers to chops and oysters to the perfect fish sandwich. Andrew will return to doing what he’s best known for, which is creating amazing dishes out of sustainable seafood, while taking the menu to the next level with steaks, sandwiches, burgers and brunch service.
