At the end of Sleepy Hollow Lane, the boardwalk lounge that sat right on the sand is dark. The Deck on Laguna Beach and Driftwood Kitchen closed on Monday, Sept. 7, after more than a decade at the Pacific Edge Hotel complex, 610 to 668 Sleepy Hollow Lane. Over those years, management said, the two restaurants served nearly one million oysters, including ten years of Sip & Shuck events that raised money for local nonprofits.
The timing of the closure matters. It came just as Laguna's sunset was moving earlier, and by November the sun sets before 5 p.m. In early summer, a 3 to 6 p.m. happy hour ends with hours of daylight still left. In November and December, the same window takes in the whole sunset. The season after The Deck closed happens to be the easiest time of year to rebuild the habit somewhere else, as long as you plan around the day of the week.
What closed, and what the plans keep
The closures were planned. "The closure of Driftwood Kitchen and The Deck is part of the planned redevelopment of the Pacific Edge Hotel property," Chris Whitman, the hotel's managing director, told the Orange County Register in July. The Register wrote at the time that whether the restaurants would reopen "remains up in the air." In its farewell, management said the closures were not for financial reasons, as the Laguna Beach Independent reported.
The city's approval documents keep the restaurants in the plan. The project description filed with the state on CEQAnet covers a modified Pacific Edge project that the city approved on Nov. 5, 2025. It calls for redistributing seating "between two existing restaurants and one previously entitled but not yet established cafe." That cafe, with outdoor dining, is planned for the existing Coast building at 647 S. Coast Highway. The same plan sets the hotel at 136 rooms, remodels nine existing buildings and adds a new automated parking garage. Investment group Dune Drifter LLC bought the property in 2024. In her November 2025 coverage on Best of Laguna Beach, Diane Armitage reported that Foster + Partners is the architect and that the larger excavation phase was expected to begin after Labor Day 2026.
The Deck first opened on the sand in 2012, and Driftwood Kitchen followed in 2013, taking over the space of The Beach House, which had operated there for 45 years. This stretch of Sleepy Hollow Lane has passed from one restaurant to the next before.
The winter clock
For now, the sunset hour has moved to other rooms in town, and the calendar works in their favor. Here is when the sun sets in Laguna Beach over the next two months, using timeanddate's tables for November 2026 and December 2026:
| Date | Laguna Beach sunset |
|---|---|
| Nov. 1 | 4:58 p.m. |
| Nov. 30 | 4:43 p.m. |
| Dec. 1 to Dec. 7 | 4:42 p.m. |
| Dec. 31 | 4:53 p.m. |
The earliest sunset of the year falls on Dec. 4. For about nine weeks, every sunset lands between 4:42 and 4:58 p.m. That is close to the middle of a 3 to 6 p.m. happy hour, with time for a first round before the sun goes down and a second as the light fades over the water. Most of the rooms below run happy hour on weekdays only, so the season favors a Tuesday over a Saturday.
Monday through Friday, 3 to 6
Three ocean-view rooms run happy hours that include the full winter sunset.
Splashes Bar at Surf & Sand Resort. The closest match to what The Deck offered is the Golden Hour at Splashes Bar, which runs daily from 3 to 6 p.m. and serves oysters, caviar, a shellfish plateau, and a cheese and charcuterie selection meant for sharing. For anyone who went to The Deck for oysters with the sunset, this is the most direct replacement in town.
Las Brisas, 361 Cliff Drive. Las Brisas sits above the coastline and serves a sea-to-table menu built on Mexican flavors. Weekday happy hour runs 3 to 6 p.m., with $4 off featured cocktails and house wines and $5 bottled beers.
The Cliff. The Cliff calls its multilevel patio "180° whitewater views." Happy hour runs 3 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and live music plays at the bar and fire pits on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights. A Tuesday or Friday visit gets you the sunset during happy hour and live music later in the evening.
Weekends run on a different clock
On weekends, most of those happy hours don't apply, and the sunset comes later in the window that remains.
Mozambique, at 1740 S. Coast Highway, has a Veranda Rooftop with open-air dining and panoramic ocean views. Its happy hour runs Wednesday through Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. On a weekday in early November, the 5 p.m. close comes just after sunset. By December, the sun sets with about 15 minutes of happy hour left. On weekends, the 2 to 4 p.m. window ends well before sunset, so a weekend visit to the rooftop is for the view and dinner rather than for the happy hour.
Splashes Bar's Golden Hour runs every day, which makes it the one oyster-and-sunset option on this list that works the same on Saturday as on Wednesday.
The Rooftop at La Casa del Camino, 1289 S. Coast Highway, works the other way around in winter. It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays under its winter hours, and it opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Bar seating is first come, first served, and table reservations go through Resy.
At Montage Laguna Beach, Mosaic Bar & Grille serves Baja-inspired seafood and cocktails poolside from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, under chef de cuisine Miguel Ruiz. With a 5 p.m. close and sunsets between 4:42 and 4:58 p.m. through November and December, a late lunch there ends right around sunset. The Loft, also at Montage, serves dinner daily with two ocean-view patios for anyone who wants to stay into the evening.
The one table still on the sand
None of these rooms sits directly on the sand the way The Deck did. Lost Pier Cafe at Aliso Beach, part of The Ranch at Laguna Beach, comes closest. The Ranch describes it as a barefoot beach cafe with palm-fringed Pacific views, and its posted hours are "8 am – Sunset." In winter, that means it closes before 5 p.m. It suits a late-afternoon lunch at the beach, but it closes too early for drinks after sunset.
After dark, the drinks move up the canyon to The Porch at The Ranch, which has fire pits, cocktails and live music daily from 4 to 8 p.m. It looks out over the canyon, not the ocean. Harvest, The Ranch's restaurant, looks out over Aliso Canyon and the golf course and lists West Coast oysters on its menu.
Thanksgiving and the holiday weeks
The holidays shift a few of these schedules. Splashes is serving a four-course Thanksgiving menu on Thursday, Nov. 26, from noon to 8 p.m. With sunset that week just before 4:45, a mid-afternoon reservation puts the sunset in the middle of the meal. The Cliff is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mozambique excludes happy hour on select holidays. The Rooftop at La Casa del Camino asks guests to call about Monday and Tuesday availability during holiday weeks.
Restaurant hours change with the season, so check each venue's website before you go, especially for happy hours.
If you're thinking about how the Pacific Edge redevelopment might affect this stretch of South Laguna, or how changes like this shape a neighborhood over time, I'm happy to talk it through. Vasi Vangelos follows these projects closely. Let's Connect.
