West Side Oyster Club opens June 26 at 1355 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Caviar to go, a full raw bar, lobster rolls, and oyster shooters from the family behind The Albright on the pier.
Some restaurants open. Others arrive with 49 years of context already behind them.
West Side Oyster Club opens Friday June 26, at 1355 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica; and the people behind it are not newcomers to this coastline.
Greg and Yunnie Morena, both Santa Monica natives, have run the Santa Monica Pier’s longest-standing restaurant since 2013, when Yunnie’s mother passed down the family business her Korean immigrant parents originally opened in 1977 as SM Pier Seafood.
Today that institution operates as The Albright, a pier mainstay now approaching its fifth decade of continuous operation. West Side Oyster Club is not a side project. It is the next move from people who have spent nearly half a century learning exactly what this city wants from its seafood.
The Concept: Caviar to Go, Sunset Included
West Side Oyster Club occupies the former Blue Plate Oysterette space, a storied address that ran for 16 years before closing in January 2026, and reimagines it entirely. The format is fast-casual and deliberately takeaway-friendly: you can order a lobster roll and clam chowder bread bowl at the counter, or you can spend $115 on a Grand Cru caviar plate served on ice with crème fraîche, potato chips, and chives, walk it across to a Palisades Park bench, and watch the sun drop over the pier.
Both moves are equally valid here. That is the point.
The raw bar stocks West and East Coast prime shellfish. The menu runs seafood towers, fried oyster and shrimp po’boys, shrimp and chips, crispy calamari, and a kids’ section built for the beach-going families who make Ocean Avenue what it is. Caviar comes in three sizes for guests who want to calibrate the splurge. Everything is designed to travel.
The beverage program matches the ambition. Standouts include the Palisades Sunset: chipotle-infused tequila, lime, and pomegranate, a Kyoto Old Fashioned built on Japanese whiskey, green tea, and bitters, and the WSOC oyster shooter: a house oyster in spicy housemade Bloody Mary mix with choice of vodka or gin. Draft and bottled beer, wines, and sparkling round it out.
The Space
The interior was redesigned by Los Angeles-based David Alvarez of Studio Alvarez, building on the vision of Blue Plate’s Jenny Morton. The result is restrained — painted and natural wood, a faded palette of white, blue, and yellow, large-scale art and signage including a mirrored menu installation on the exterior. The design leans deliberately into West Coast surf and skate culture rather than yacht club polish, and dissolves the boundary between inside and out. The room seats approximately 80.
Why This Opening Matters
The City of Santa Monica has eliminated sidewalk dining fees, waived per-seat wastewater capacity fees, and approved a $3 million economic development fund in recent months — a policy environment designed to rebuild Ocean Avenue after a difficult two-year stretch. The Morenas read that environment and moved. FIFA World Cup events are running on the Pier through July 19, 2026, delivering peak international tourist volume directly to the block. The timing is not accidental.
Greg Morena put it simply:
“Santa Monica raised us, and we’ve been giving it back for nearly 50 years.
The West Side Oyster Club isn’t just an evolution, it’s a lifestyle. Coastal heritage, casual luxury, and the kind of soul this city was built on.
We are home.”
Greg Morena
The format — fast-casual, to-go optimized, price-accessible with a high-end ceiling — is also a direct response to what has pushed other Ocean Avenue operators out. Lower labor intensity, higher throughput capacity, honest food at honest prices. The $115 caviar plate and the lobster roll coexist without apology.
West Side Oyster Club opens June 26. Hours: Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Saturday 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m., Sunday 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. Public parking is available next door.
