Landmark shack still shakin’

An iconic snack shack in Crystal Cove has been taken over by a large restaurant chain, but locals can still order their favorite eats.

You just have to know the password.

Ruby’s Diner has taken control of the famed Shake Shack, an old eatery that served local residents and visitors to Crystal Cove for decades. While the menu will change slightly, visitors can still get unlisted items like the Date Shake, a milkshake using dates, as well as the famed Monkey Flip ice cream drink. Oh, and you can still get peanut-butter, banana and honey sandwiches, too ? if you ask the right person.

“They won’t be on the menu, but if you ask for one, they’ll be able to make it,” project manager Jaime DeJong said. “We want to do as much as we can to preserve it for the locals who have been coming here for years.”

The new “Ruby’s Shake Shack” has fresh white paint with blue trim in place of the original yellow. The newly operated Ruby’s Shake Shack will also sell breakfast and some beverages from Diedrich Coffee.

“It’s kind of unique in California to pull off the road, have a sandwich and watch the dolphins swim by,” said Richard Rozzelle, superintendent of the state parks department’s Orange Coast district.

Barely visible from the road, the small eatery is set in a small parking lot just a sharp turn off the highway. Customers can order from a small indoor area, but the prime eating location is a giant round table next to the shack with a million-dollar view of the ocean, the coastline and the historic Crystal Cove cottages.

Rozzelle said the shack attracts all types of visitors ? locals, commuters, tourists along the beach and even the occasional executive conducting a business meeting.

“It’s a very diverse crowd,” he said. “With Pacific Coast Highway, you get people traveling through the region.”

DeJong said the new venture will include menu items from the original “Shake Shack,” and Ruby’s and the wait staff will wear the retro 1940s-era soda fountain uniforms. Ruby’s will also manage and operate the neighboring Beach Comber restaurant, although the company hasn’t released any details of how it will be operated.

The move comes after the Crystal Cove Alliance signed a 20-year contract to manage the cottages and concessions at the Crystal Cove Historic District. The group will manage 22 newly restored cottages at the state park, originally built in the 1920s and 1930s.

Like the cottages, the Shake Shack and the old Beach Comber restaurant are being restored along historic guidelines to give them a Depression-era look.

“They’re painstakingly restoring it shingle by shingle,” DeJong said.

Not everyone was happy about the change of hands. Former operators Mike and Katie Flamson said they were sad to leave the Shake Shack after operating it for 15 years. They officially left on April 30.

“I’m sad, but we had a great run,” Katie Flamson said.

Once the management of the facility went to the Crystal Cove Alliance, Flamson said her family did not rebid on the site when her lease ran up because a new deal would be an all-inclusive contract to run both the Shack and the Beach Comber restaurant.

“It incorporates too much,” she said. “It’s not small-business anymore. It’s not mom and pop.”cpt.26-shakeshack-CPhotoInfoTD1RA78E20060526izsm3mncMARK DUSTIN / DAILY PILOT(LA)John Edwards of Wilson Construction applies a coat of white paint recently to the exterior of the Crystal Cove Shake Shack. The eatery is now known as Ruby’s Shake Shack.