Cannery to Pack Memories, Shut Doors for Good

The late John Wayne, who lived nearby, was always seated at the same corner table overlooking Newport Bay. Actor Dudley Moore celebrated his 50th birthday by dancing on the tabletops. A then-unknown comic named David Letterman once got needled by a heckler when he performed his stand-up routine in the upstairs bar.

A host of household names have passed through the doors of the Cannery restaurant in Newport Beach over the last quarter-century, but it has been a loyal customer base of local residents and tourists who have made the seafood restaurant a landmark on the Balboa Peninsula.

But the Cannery--modeled after the original fish cannery that operated for more than half a century on the same site--will close on Sept. 12, owner Bill Hamilton said Monday.

Also closing is Snug Harbor, a 48-year-old bar and restaurant across the street from the Cannery and a place where workers at the fish packing plant would stop in after work.

The closures mark the end of an era for the area known as “Cannery Village,” a district of shops, restaurants and bars that sprang up near the cannery that opened in 1921. The new owners of the Cannery site, Waterfront Homes LLC, hope to have the area rezoned so they can construct some single-family homes there, city officials said.

Newport Beach Mayor Dennis D. O’Neil is a bit wistful.

“There may be others who feel it’s progress and in the best interests of the future of the area, but I don’t agree with that personally,” O’Neil said. “I’m very emotionally attached and have some very fond memories of celebrating personal and public events at the Cannery. I’m sorry to see it close.”

Hamilton, 75, said business in the approximately 300-seat restaurant has declined dramatically the last two years after the Newport Beach City Council denied Hamilton a permit to continue having live entertainment and dancing in the restaurant’s upstairs bar area.

Neighbors in a pricey apartment complex across the street had complained bitterly about noise from what they called the “Cannery Village crawl”--local vernacular for bar-hopping through the district. The neighbors felt that live music and dancing at the Cannery exacerbated the situation.

“The city has seen fit to move toward residential development and away from commercial [development],” Hamilton said. “That has created a big conflict in this area.”

Other trends contributed to the Cannery’s closure, Hamilton said, including the lengthy construction of the main bridge leading to the Balboa Peninsula, which made getting to the restaurant rather daunting for a few years. In addition, increased competition from an influx of new restaurants made it difficult to survive.

“When we opened up, Fashion Island had one restaurant,” he said.

Hamilton said Waterfront Homes had been inquiring about the land for several years. It was not until last year that Hamilton agreed to sell his waterfront land for an undisclosed price.

Many of the restaurant’s approximately 100 employees have been offered jobs at other nearby restaurants, he said.

Many of the employees have worked at the restaurant for decades. Among them is general manager Teri Hatleberg, 50, who began as a server 26 years ago and worked her way up to a management position.

“It’s family here, not just a restaurant,” Hatleberg said. “You really put your heart and soul into it. There’s so much history in this place.”

For Hamilton, the imminent closure has given him time to reflect on his unexpected foray into the restaurant business in the early 1970s. He retired in 1972 from a career as an engineer, running a Chicago company that manufactured business machinery for the aerospace and electronics industries.

Hamilton moved from Chicago to Newport Beach, where he had spent his childhood summers hanging out at the beach “and playing around at the cannery, throwing rocks.” The plant at one point was the city’s largest private employer before closing in 1966. The site sat vacant until 1972 when Hamilton and some partners learned the waterfront land was for sale and decided to buy it.

“I didn’t plan to run it, but it didn’t do so well the first year, so I decided to unretire,” Hamilton said. “Then I just learned the business day by day.”

The restaurant not only looks like the original cannery where tuna and mackerel were canned then pressure-cooked, it includes much of the plant’s original equipment as part of the decor: a can conveyor, labeling machines, a can washing machine, autoclaves for cooking raw fish inside a can, and the face of the broiler room used for sterilization.

Hamilton does not plan to go quietly. There are several special parties--both public and private--planned over the next several weeks.

Customers such as Stephen Fuller of Fountain Valley are inconsolable.

“It’s been here forever,” Fuller said. “It’s tragic because of the tradition that’s here. It’s got a lot of memories for people.”

But Hamilton, who has been active in city affairs over the years and still owns Malarkey’s Irish Pub on Newport Boulevard, is trying to remain philosophical.

“There’s a beginning and an ending to everything,” he said. “We didn’t plan on it ending so soon, but we accept our fate.”