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Outdoor Activities

The Casino Dock Café: Catalina Boaters’ Favorite Hangout

By Leslee Jaquette
Armed with coffee and the Catalina Island Boaters’ Guide, I stretch my legs out on the deck rail of the Casino Dock Café. After the waiter takes my order for the three-egg, Casino Scramble, I peruse the scene.
Row after row of beautiful yachts gleam in the golden morning sun. Like curious prairie dogs, boaters poke their rumpled heads out of cockpits and cabins here at anchorage in Avalon Harbor on Catalina Island off the coast near Los Angeles.  Then, one-by-one, they emerge, load into dinghies and tenders for the first shore foray of the day.
We are all participants in the ritualistic existence of Southern California’s most beloved anchorage. Taking a break from his duties, Former Harbor Patrol Officer Arnie Gonzales joins me at the Casino Dock Café for a cup of java.
“Think of the anchorage as the largest hotel on the island and the Casino Dock Café as the hotel’s hangout,” said Gonzales, an 18-year veteran of the City of Avalon Harbor Patrol. “Boaters love to sit here with a beer, look at all the boats and listen to a band on weekends.”
Whether boaters view the Casino Dock Café as a neighborhood pub, yacht club beach bar or breakfast pitstop, this is a happenin’ hangout that most Catalina cruisers visit at one time or another.  Beyond its elegant morning sun and box seat views, the Casino Dock Café represents and cultivates the island lifestyle boaters so relish.
Traditional Action Central 
Just as the name implies, the Casino Dock Café is located in Main Harbor on a pier just south of the island’s icon, the Catalina Casino. The Catalina Island Museum and public washrooms are situated in the Casino just a few feet from the café’s shoreside entrance. Adjacent to the café, the Avalon Marine Dock offers boaters fuel, ice and bait. If the fuel dock isn’t very busy, it is usually okay to run up to the café for an order to go.
The Casino Dock Café is particularly famous for its reasonably priced breakfast huevos rancheros and its lunch time favorite, fish tacos. “Yachties fuel up on breakfast burritos and coffee and take the dog for walk,” said one regulas, who described himself as an ‘other peoples’ boat guy.’  “Later in the afternoon, they like to just hang out, have a beer, kick-back and watch the world go by. It’s a serene place.”
The café is open mid-March through November. Avalon resident Michelle Warner said she remembers the café dock from her childhood when her family cruised from Los Angeles to Catalina Island on a 37 foot ChrisCraft. Back then, they spent up to three weeks at anchorage, swimming off the boat in the clean water and playing around in the dinghy.
She recalled that not much has changed in the harbor off the deck of the Casino Dock Café.  “During happy hour, boaters still love to load a cooler into a tender and go ‘dinghy cruising’ around the harbor,” observed Warner. “Everyone waves and admires all the other boats.”
CONTACT:
City of Avalon Harbor Department: 24 hour service VHF Channels 12 & 16. (310) 510-0535.
Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau: P.O. Box 217, Avalon, CA  90704 (310) 510-1520 Fax (310) 510-7607; www.catalina.com.
Casino Dock Café: (310) 510-2755