Sammy Hagar christens his Cabo Wabo Beach Club in Huntington Beach
Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Sammy Hagar stood behind the white bar at his new flagship Cabo Wabo Beach Club at The Waterfront Beach Resort, a Hilton Hotel, in Huntington Beach on Wednesday, May 3, dressed in a red T-shirt with the restaurant’s name printed on his left chest and wearing reflective aviator sunglasses. The 75-year-old musician and restaurateur still looks comfortable in front of an audience. His tousled sandy blonde hair resembles a surfer who spent the morning at the beach.
And if you ask Hagar, that’s exactly where he loves to spend his time. As he mixed a few cocktails behind the bar with the hotel’s resident mixologist, Hagar reflected on his time in Orange County and how he eventually decided to open this new restaurant in Huntington Beach.
“My whole lifestyle is about the beach all day and at night, have a place to party and music,” Hagar said, pointing out to the azure hotel pool and the view of the Pacific Ocean across PCH.. “This is the perfect place.”
The 11,000-square-foot Cabo Wabo Beach Club is the newest addition to The Waterfront Beach Resort and evokes an open-air getaway ambience. But, this place isn’t intended only for tourists. The goal is for the bar area to become a regular watering hole for local residents too.
With a notable footprint consisting of indoor and outdoor dining, lounge seating and bars, Cabo Wabo Beach Club’s indoor 132-seat dining room includes 19 seats in the bar and 20 in the lounge. The outdoor dining room seats 64 people and offers an additional 22 seats in the bar and 20 seats in the lounge area. Ideation Design Group designed Cabo Wabo Beach Club’s outdoor bar to resemble a Mexican palapa with a coastal color palette highlighted with sea-blue tones and sandy hues. Subtle rock ‘n’ roll nods are peppered throughout the space.
This Huntington Beach location is an elevated take on Hagar’s world-famous Cabo Wabo Cantina in southern Baja California. The menu showcases coastal Mexican cuisine such as seared scallops served atop chile relleno and garnished with plantain chips.
“It’s a full menu — breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Hagar said. “It’s versatile. A lot of seafood like Cabo. But none of my restaurants are cookie cutters. So this one is indigenous to the area. You’ve got Chino around here, Ventura, all the local areas with great vegetables. Fish from the ocean, caught just right here. It’s as close to farm-to-table as we can get.”
The menu includes kid-friendly churro waffles and chilaquiles with eggs for breakfast. The CW tequila shrimp with chile butter sauce, lime and toasted Bolillo bread is a popular must try starter and Hagar highly recommends the crudo.
“I was so proud of what they’re doing here,” he says. “The crudo is hamachi, which is yellowtail, and it was sliced like sashimi. It had a blood orange drizzle and a fruit salsa with a squeeze of lime. Even in Cabo, you see the fish still jumping, it’s so fresh. But, this one is the best I’ve ever had!”
He also recommends the “churro waffles for breakfast.”
Hagar is best known as the frontman of bands such as Montrose, Van Halen, Chickenfoot, and Sammy Hagar & The Circle. (He’s currently planning a tour with The Circle.) But he’s also famous for his line of award-winning spirits.
Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Tequila brand sold for $100 million. He partnered with his friend and TV personality Guy Fieri and master distiller Juan Eduardo Nuñez to create Santo brand Tequila Blanco and Mezquila distilled in Jalisco, Mexico.
Hagar first visited Tequila, Mexico, decades ago. He tasted handmade tequila, and it changed his life. During that time, he visited several small distillers and honed his palate. The families let him sample their personal small batches.
“If I didn’t do that, I probably wouldn’t have tasted all that tequila,” he says of his tutelage. “Going down and having that full experience was so romantic.” He returned every three months to learn more.
That passion continues today.
“When I walk into a bar or a restaurant or a store and I see one of my brands on the shelf, it’s just like getting in a car and turning on the radio and hearing yourself sing,” he says. “For me, it’s the exact same experience. I get the same thrill.”
Beyond the excitement of seeing his brands, Hagar also takes the time to meet the distillers, growers and learns about the process that goes into creating these spirits.
“The only way to have a great drink is to have great ingredients. Just like a meal,” he says. “You have to use good ingredients and that’s the secret of anything good in a culinary sense.”
The cocktail list at Cabo Wabo Beach Club includes Hagar’s own spirits: Santo Tequila Blanco, Mezquila, and Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum made from pure cane sugar. The bar also houses a selection of more than 50 tequilas and mezcals, along with a focused list of beer and wine.
But beyond good food and cocktails, Hagar is focused on doing good, too. As with his other dining concepts, there is a philanthropic mission intertwined with Cabo Wabo Beach Club.
“I can do anything I want but I want to go out and be proud of this,” he says.
Hagar opened his original Cabo Wabo Cantina in 1990 and is the Honorary Ambassador of Los Cabos, Mexico. He turned his lifelong passion for food, music and spirits into his namesake lifestyle brand. He gardens, growing tomatoes and cilantro at home. He walks on the beach with his wife each day.
In 2008, Hagar and his wife, Kari, created The Hagar Family Foundation. To date, the fund has given more than $4 million to charities. A majority of Hagar’s personal net-proceeds from the Cabo Wabo Beach Club at The Waterfront Beach Resort will be donated to Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC).
“At CHOC, the idea is we’re starting a fund,” he says. “If someone has a child and they need hospitalization for 2 to 3 months at a time and the parents need to stay with them. Some people can’t afford to do that, so that’s what this fund does. It pays for food, lodging and transportation while they’re there with their sick child. If there’s any extra money we’ll donate to Tilly’s Life Center. … I like to keep it local, in your backyard.”
Cabo Wabo Beach Club is working with CHOC’s Social Service Department to support children and their families. Donations will be sent to CHOC Foundation on a regular basis in perpetuity as long as Cabo Wabo Beach Club in Huntington Beach remains open.