Montara history: The restaurants of Montara Beach

Three different establishments have occupied what should be a prime location on Montara State Beach in the last ninety years: the Gallagher Montara Beach Hotel, Frank Torres’ Beach Hotel, and the Chart House. 

Gallagher’s started as a summer house in 1913 on Pacific Avenue in Farallone City.  It was converted to a hotel in 1921.  The owner Robert Gallagher, sold the building in 1940 to Frank Torres.

During World War II, Frank Torres’ place was used as officer living quarters for the gunnery school in Moss Beach.  Shortly after the war ended, the building burned.  Torres replaced it with a pink stucco building called Frank Torres’ Beach Hotel.  The specialty of the hotel’s restaurant was Peruvian cuisine.  Frank sold the property in 1978 to the Chart House chain of restaurants.

The new buyers tore down Frank’s hotel and built a new restaurant on its foundation. Twenty-five years later, the owners closed the Chart House in 2002 It was reopened by the property’s owner, Dave Andrews, as the Outrigger. At the time he took it over, Andrews said that parking by beach users made it impossible to open the restaurant for lunch and that this could have been one reason that the Chart House’s owners closed it down.

The Outrigger closed in 2004.

Michael Smookler is the author of Montara: A Pictorial History.