Collection: The End Cafe

As the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1985, “The End Cafe, the landmark Huntington Beach restaurant destroyed two years ago by treacherous winter rainstorms, will reopen with a splash on Saturday. Although under the same ownership, the cafe at the end of the city’s 1,830-foot pier will be a far different diner from its 44-year-old predecessor, which sold hot soup to chilled fishermen and hot dogs to hungry surfers.

But the End Cafe is more than an end in itself.

To many Huntington Beach merchants, it represents a municipal tourist attraction, second only to the sand and sea. Not all visitors eat at the cafe, but over the years its presence has evolved into a focal point that gives tourists a reason to visit the city. At night, when tourist traffic commonly nose-dives, hundreds of people still parade to the end of the pier.

So important is this tiny cafe to the city that some merchants call it the key link to the city’s ambitious redevelopment plans. City fathers, too, realize the restaurant’s impact and spent months bitterly debating its redesign.”

It really was that legendary. Opened in the 1970s, The End Cafe was the former long-time business of the Gustafson Family that included Alice and John. John Gustafson was a local legend, an ambassador of sorts to Huntington Beach who rode up and down the pier on a 3-wheel bicycle. He passed away back in the late 1980s.

Alice Gustafson and her daughter, Mary Beth, operated the Alice's Breakfast in the Park Café for many years. Today, John Jr. runs Gustafson Brothers Automotive, a business just about 50 years old, maintaining the proud family legacy in town and we are proud to offer these items with his blessing.