Dolphin Restaurant, damaged in December storm surge, awaits its fate on Santa Cruz Wharf

The Dolphin Restaurant has stood at the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, a half-mile from the coast, for more than 60 years. The diner serves breakfast, lunch and dinner to locals and tourists, who crowd the 900-square-foot restaurant in the summer months to enjoy baskets of fried calamari, fish and chips and homemade chowder surrounded by sweeping views of Monterey Bay. 

But the Dolphin has been closed since Dec. 28, when a storm surge damaged pilings under the restaurant. The City of Santa Cruz, which owns the wharf, is still assessing the extent of the damage. It’s unclear when the Dolphin will be able to reopen. 

Owner Mark Gilbert was at the Dolphin about an hour before the piling broke, to see how the little restaurant was faring in the storm. But he said he became concerned for his safety and left soon after. 

“[The waves] were coming up high. They were breaking over the sidewalk,” Gilbert said. He has worked on the wharf since the 1980s, and owns two other restaurants, Firefish Grill and Woodies Cafe. He said he’s become accustomed to experiencing severe weather as it hits the wharf’s wooden structure: “You get kind of used to it. Down [at Firefish Grill], you can hear the waves coming as they hit the pilings.” 

At around 9 a.m. on Dec. 28, a wave broke a weak piling, which then damaged several other pilings. When the pilings fell, the horizontal piling cap – essentially a large, wooden beam – previously supported by those pilings sagged, leading to a partial collapse of the decking in that area, said Travis Beck, Santa Cruz’s superintendent of parks, in an email to Lookout. It also damaged the western wall of the restaurant, creating a crease under the restaurant. 

“That crease goes all the way underneath my dining room at the Dolphin,” said Gilbert. “You can’t see it because the floor is still framed, but if you bounce on it, it’ll move.” The Dolphin’s saving grace was the fact that the other pilings supporting it were fixed as recently as a year and a half ago, are in good condition and held despite the storm. 

The city hasn’t yet determined the best course of action to repair the wharf. It is waiting on proposals for both short-term stabilization and permanent repair, and expects to receive the report this week, Beck said.

If it can be fixed, the Dolphin will need to close for a couple of months to complete the repairs. If the damage is more extensive, the restaurant will have to be demolished to create greater access to the damaged pilings. In that case, Gilbert said he intends to rebuild the restaurant, which he estimates could take three to four years. 

Either way, Gilbert plans to reopen the Dolphin as soon as possible. He purchased the restaurant in 2008 and improved it by adding an outdoor patio and updating its menu. “I got rid of the freezers and did fresh fish every day. I bought a steam kettle and started making clam chowder 30 gallons at a time,” he said. “It’s really good.”

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