Wind & Sea closes after 50 years in Dana Point Harbor

Wind & Sea, the waterfront restaurant that has served mai tais on Dana Point Harbor for more than 50 years, closed for good on 15 September. Demolition follows within weeks, clearing the site for a $600m harbor redevelopment.

Robert Mardian, a Stanford graduate who abandoned a law career, opened Wind & Sea in 1972. The restaurant built its name on seafood and what it called the best mai tai in the world, served on a deck overlooking the harbor in Orange County, California.

The closure puts 198 employees out of work. Mardian closed his other harbor restaurant, Harpoon Henry's, in August 2025 after the same length of run, and the neighbouring Mariner's Village complex shut in early 2026 under the same redevelopment plan.

The harbor is not losing a failing restaurant. It is losing a working one, on purpose.

A harbor rebuilt from scratch

Dana Point Harbor's $600m revitalization project will replace the aging marina buildings with new restaurants, hotels and shops. Two other long-running restaurants, Proud Mary's, open since 1977, and Turk's, open since 1984, are closing as part of the same plan. Harbor officials describe the project as bringing the marina, largely unchanged since the 1970s, up to modern boating and hospitality standards.

Harbor authorities have framed the project as an overdue upgrade to infrastructure built in the 1970s. For the businesses inside it, the upgrade has meant an end date rather than a renovation: none of the closing restaurants has announced a return to the rebuilt harbor.

The pattern echoes other chain closures across the US restaurant industry this year, though Wind & Sea's case is different: it is not failing, it is being redeveloped out of existence.

What comes next

Construction on the new harbor is expected to continue for several years, following the same trajectory as the O'Charley's and Red Lobster closures that have reshaped much of the sector in 2026, though for very different reasons.

Whether any of Dana Point's original restaurant families return once construction ends is not yet decided. For now, the harbor loses three restaurants with a combined 160 years of history within the same 12 months.