My Favorite Cafes

The Deck, Laguna Beach, CA
627 Sleepy Hollow Lane
Laguna Beach, CA 92651

While visiting Laguna Beach recently we stayed at the Pacific Edge Hotel. The hotel was written up in Sunset Magazine a couple of times, so what the heck, we checked it out.

The hotel itself is fine. I would most definitely ask for a room with an ocean view and one that is on an upper floor. As it was, our room, with a slight ocean view, was fine. But enough about the rooms.

My favorite part of this quick visit was the extremely convenient eatery right next door. The Deck is, as you would guess, a deck right on the beach. If you enter from the street just walk down the stairs and you'll run into the hostess station. If you enter from the beach you'll have to walk through the deck and up to the hostess station, up one flight of stairs.

The happy hour is great after a very relaxing day at the beach watching countless families. 3:00 starts the happy hour, and if you get their early enough (at 3) you can snag a great table right on the deck's edge.

We leisurely enjoyed our happy hour drinks and ordered happy hour items off their menu and easily passed two hours. The wait staff if fun. They all look alike. They wear black shirts and sunglasses. I'm not sure how planned all this is, but in a way it is stepford chic!

We visited in late December, right after the Christmas holiday. I imagine that this whole area can get extremely busy in the spring and summer months. Having said that, we had an amazing day sitting at the beach, getting full sun and totally relaxing.

If you stay at the Pacific Edge Hotel, as a guest you'll usually get a small discount on your Deck bill (it seemed to depend on our waitress).

Food: Each item we had from the happy hour menu was great. The portions were enjoyable, not too big or too small. We went through each food item, all accept the hamburger and the salad.