My wife and I recently had a minor flood in our Oceanside home. No big deal really, but we had to evacuate for three days. Rather than stay in a hotel, our longtime friend Nancy Eichenberg kindly offered the second floor of her place, overlooking Moonlight Beach. As I write this, I am sitting on the balcony, trying to locate the Encinitas of my youth.
I recognize Coast Highway and can trace the path where I once peddled my Schwinn 10-speed in search of surf. I can see whitewater cracking on the D Street sandbar. If I bend my neck slightly to the south, there are the old Coast News offices.
For the most part, however, this is not the town I moved to in the summer of 1970. What was then a working-class hamlet is now a bustling city based primarily on tourism and real estate.
A massive yellow crane oversees the digging of a hole that will soon become a parking lot supporting a series of multiuse buildings replacing a single building called Captain Keno’s. I have fond memories of Keno’s even though it was never my hang — a bit too shabby, shady and in need of a thorough dusting.
Still, there was always something comforting in seeing it. It was among the last landmarks of ’70s Encinitas. (I hope someone hung onto the wooden Keno’s sign that John Moseley painted in his teens.)
A mile or so south of this emotional archeological dig that was once Captain Keno’s is one of my all-time favorite restaurants, La Especial Norte. If you are new to town and have yet to eat there, I suggest their chili rellenos, potato tacos, or caldo de res (Mexican soup).
And, while I am not encouraging anyone to consume alcohol, Especial’s Cadillac Margaritas are worth the trip all on their own.
Not that I would do such a thing, but from where I’m seated, I could throw a rock and hit Encinitas Surfboards. Owned and operated by two of the most influential surfers in our town, John Kies, one of the world’s top shapers, and legendary surf hipster Marc Adam.
I first met Marc and John in Cardiff, at the long-buried Koast Surfboards where we worked for a character named Allan Weiss. (If you want to hear some good stories from the mid-’70s, hit up John or Marc some day and ask about Weiss. If they can get through conversation without laughing, I owe you a bar of 15-cent wax.)
Marc managed the Koast shop, I was a salesman, and John made the boards, along with local shapers like Steve Clark and Rusty Preisendorfer. While the boards were built in less-than-ideal conditions, some of the best eggs and swallowtails I have ever owned came from that factory.
When Koast went under in the mid-’70s, John and Marc went into business on their own, moved up the road to Encinitas, and named their place after the town.
Encinitas Surfboards was not then, and is not now, fancy. It is a surf shop run by surfers, for surfers. Surfers drop in not just for great surfboards, accessories and beachwear, but to gather behind those hallowed doors to tell and hear great surf stories and confirm or deny the latest rumors.
Marc Adam, his younger brother, Todd, and John Kies hold down our history in this little corner of a town that forever changes. They are part of our town’s history and well worth checking out once in a while.
