RELATED
ARTICLES:
° Hodad's Review
° La Jolla
° San Diego

SURFSIDE
SAM.COM
° Home Page

P

This place is a real, er, day "trip," where hippies hang out and it's a throwback to the 60s.

Visiting Ocean Beach, CA!
Known for a Burger Joint It's a 60's Throwback Beach

Ocean Beach – or OB as locals call it – is a mellow stuck-in-the-60s spot.

With the Gaslamp Quarter to the south and lovely La Jolla to the north, and with Mission Beach and Pacific Beach receiving most of the limelight from locals and tourists alike, it's easy for Ocean Beach to sit quietly on its small edge of the Pacific.

And so it does, a little dot on the map, not easily accessible from any direction, stuck in its little niche that's changed little mentally from the 60s. The beach hippies prefer is this way, too.

The burger at Hodad's is an attraction for tourists to Ocean Beach.

To outsiderrs, Ocean Beach is where that funky burger joint, Hodad's, is located. That placed eanred a bit of fame when featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show, and the place is what passes for a tourist spot in these parts.

But there's little else about Ocean Beach in San Diego Couty that draws in people from other places (except, perhaps, for what some feel are the best fish tacos in the area, served as South Beach Cafe).

The main stretch of shops, restaurants and bars is on Newport Ave.

Ocean Beach only occupies a small space by the Pacific and the activity on its main street, Newport Ave., is barely two blocks long. In addition to Hodad's and South Beach, it contains a few small shops, a tattoo parlor, an Irish bar, a dive bar that is a locals hangout even on weekday afternoons and an old motel – not a hotel – on the corner at the ocean that looks as if it's been untouched since the mid-60s.

A little inland on Newport is an antique shopping area.

Heck, there's even free parking on the street (for two hours)!

Fancy, it's not.

But the beach is nice, it's wide, there is a dog beach at its northern end – what self-respecing hippie does not own a dog!? – and it contains what has to be one of the world's longest walking piers that bends around and stretches pretty far out to the sea. It is, in fact, the longest concrete Pier on the West Coast and is called the Ocean Beach Pier.

Don't come to Ocean Beach – or "OB" as locals call it – with any attitude that's anything other than one to relax, hang out and be peaceful. The beach is at Newport Ave., and Abbott St., and in addition to a lot of sand between the walking/running patch and the water there is a small park with grass that's one of OB's top "veg spots."

SurfsideSam.com likes to refer to Ocean Beach as a good place for a real day "trip." As in a trip back in time to a trippy place.

Scenes of Ocean Beach at Newport and Abbott.

SurfsideSam.com cover all things on, at, and about the beach. © 2011. All rights reserved.

Related Article: La Jolla