When I drove by Ti Amo today … 👀

What I saw vs. the real story

This morning, I was mid-sentence in a voice text to my BFF when I drove by the old Ti Amo restaurant in South Laguna. And suddenly, I had no words, not a thought in my head. This is what I saw:

Initially, I thought it might be a new restaurateur slyly announcing his or her new concept. So, I made a U-turn and trotted through the side gate to see if I could rummage up some details.

Ti Amo turns to Truly

Turns out (per the couple of rumors I heard) that this is going to be a Truly Pizza hub for our incoming friends from Dana Point. The construction crew had simply removed the shake shingles from the front facade earlier this week and no one but me (apparently) noticed the lettering underneath. I chatted with Buzz, the contractor there for Mitchell GCs out of Irvine, for the details.

Now, when Truly Pizza set up shop in Dana Point’s Golden Lantern District in June 2023, its popularity absolutely blew up overnight. I wrote about this phenomenon here when I announced their decision to expand to North Laguna Beach in the former “3” location:

At the same time, Truly’s current footprint in the “3” space (which most of us remember as Madison Square & Garden Café), won’t allow for a great deal of kitchen expansion. So, because of the sheer demand at their current Dana Point location – and the expected demand at their North Laguna location – the Truly Pizza partners chose to create a commissary kitchen between the two.

A commissary is a licensed commercial kitchen that’s typically created to rent space to various chef and catering entities. This one, however, will be wholly owned and operated by Truly’s, allowing their prep cooks and pizzaiolos (the vaunted pizza dough makers) to create vast quantities of the company’s award-winning dough and craft gelato recipes.

The commissary will span the entire downstairs portion of what used to be Ti Amo.

And THEN, the Truly team will be opening a bakery in the street-level restaurant - great news.

Truly is hoping to have the commissary kitchen operational by the end of June with the bakery completion to follow.

First two photos from left will be the "under street" level commissary kitchen. The stairs leading to the street-level portion of the restaurant will become a Truly bakery for the public.

Back in the day when Laguna Hotel operators - the Andersen family - were considering the closed Ti Amo space as an option, I remember the lovely Georgia chatting with me about all of the great options available there. She thought that opening the front facade as more of a morning bistro with counter-height stools at an open window would be a fun addition. It would allow patrons to watch the world go by. I thought that was an extremely great idea - kind of like what Coyote Grill does just a few doors down with their front windows.

I look forward to hearing what Truly plans for their “bakery division,” and will be sure to share with you.

And, yes, I know what many of you are already asking: What’s going to happen to the beautiful Ti Amo tree?

If you ever were a patron at Ti Amo, you probably remember the giant tree in the middle of the restaurant. It’s a Canary Island Pine, and was rescued from the interior bar during the renovation in 2016 The renovators at the time told me that the tree was causing too many roof leaks (small wonder), so they just got rid of the room and the roof entirely to allow the inside tree to become an outside tree! Now that’s tree love for you! The tree has been happily growing ever since, now at least 30 feet tall.

The well-loved "Ti Amo Tree" will stay in place. Yay.

The Truly owners are keeping the tree but my years of Garden Walks with Laguna Nursery’s Ruben Flores tells me that the tree is too hemmed in with its current concrete well. We might have to send Ruben to the rescue.

Ti Amo’s colorful history

At 31727 Coast Highway, Ti Amo was actually a private residence in 1929. It was converted to a restaurant in the early 1980s, and operated as several different restaurants (Monique’s being one of them) before being named “Ti Amo” in 1994. It closed in 2015 and went through a remodel before reopening in 2017 with the popular Newport Beach Franco Barone at the helm. At that time, the restaurant’s name was changed to “Ti Amo by Il Barone.” Thanks to the pandemic, Barone chose to close the Laguna Beach operation in May 2020.

The City of Laguna Beach purchased the property for $2.1 million on Sept. 6, 2021 with hopes of establishing a new fire station there. After deciding against the fire station, the City declared the property a”surplus property” in January 2023, and it was put up for sale on the open market in August 2024. About a month later, the LLC representing Truly Pizza, D&S Partners LLC, purchased the property for $3.55 million.

Now, as to the REAL mystery …

I keep a spreadsheet that now dates back into the 1970s on ALL the Laguna Beach restaurants comings and goings. (In fact, I talked at length about this spreadsheet in my Monday radio show this week, and will have that replay up for you shortly.)

I’ve never heard of the Sea Grotto.
I’ve never heard anyone even mention the Sea Grotto.

I called around to a few of you old timers - Chef Evan Lewis (Evan’s Gourmet) who was born and raised here … then Douglas Miller, our walking encyclopedia of our town’s history, and he was stumped, too. I even contacted renowned Restaurateur David Wilhelm, who initially set up shop here in Laguna Beach with Kitchen Cucina in 1984. He’d never heard of the Sea Grotto, either.

I’m sure one of you oldtimers out there will surprise me with all the news on what was once the Sea Grotto. Just hit “REPLY” and I’ll reward you with a year’s V.I.P. subscription and will ballyhoo your name as the historical restaurant genius among us.