UPDATE 10:30am | A few days after Smooth’s Sports Grille officially closed down, owner John Morris says he’s jumping right back into things and could resurface soon with a new restaurant in Belmont Shore.
“That’s my number one priority; to relocate to Belmont Shore and the Marina,” he said. “I’m very close to getting a nod on a property.”
He declined to discuss the details of the negotiation because nothing has yet been finalized.
Morris began his career as a restaurateur in Belmont Shore with the original opening of Legend’s in 1979. He left for Pine Avenue downtown and opened Mum’s in 1988 as the first of many upscale restaurants that would soon follow. In 2004, Morris turned Mum’s into Smooth’s Sports Grille and ran that until this week. He says his vision for a new Belmont Shore joint will more resemble the original Mum’s.
“It’s catering to the 30 and older crowd in terms of evening standards,” he says. “I just hope I can pull it off.”
10:00am Thursday | John Morris sits down at a table and is immediately served a tall iced tea, with a splash of raspberry. Without prompting. Without a word or a nod to the waitress. He just sits and it appears, and then he smiles and thanks her. We’re not even at his own restaurant.
Ask him how many of the restaurants along Pine Avenue have this procedure in place, and he just grins.
“All of them.”
After 23 years of running Smooth’s Sports Grille – formerly Mum’s when it opened in 1988 – and essentially leading the migration of upscale restaurants to downtown Long Beach, it’s easy to take Morris at his word. We sit at George’s Greek Cafe, just across the street as movers are packing up what’s left of Smooth’s, and Morris describes the four-cheese breakfast dish that has become his favorite over the years.
“Breakfast of the Gods!” chimes in George Loizides, owner of George’s and the famously friendly greeter who welcomes all diners inside.
Morris and Loizides share a hug, the brotherly hand-shaking and back-slapping that has been going on between Morris and fellow Pine restauranteurs for two decades. For months, Morris has been quietly saying that he wanted to close Smooth’s, but only just last weekend decided to pull the trigger on a sale. The news broke yesterday and there were more than a few tears and condolences offered to Morris as we chatted.
But the man himself couldn’t be happier.
“The weight of the world was taken off my shoulders,” he smiles. “I was miserable here for a couple of years. I just thought to myself that it’s time for a change.”
He always loved the restaurant, the people and downtown. Even when business got tougher both pre- and during the recession, Morris didn’t lose the spark that brought him here and tried all kinds of arrangements to make it work. Live music didn’t help, dueling pianos didn’t help, a partnership with Bouchee’s Bistro fell through.
“The street needs a change, the street needs a new energy,” he says, and though he says he won’t be working downtown anymore, he’s excited for its future and its potential. The new restaurant taking Smooth’s place will be Latin American inspired and he’s enthusiastically lent his expertise to the new owners, mainly because he thinks the place will be a hit. It will even retain three employees who worked at Smooth’s for more than 15 years, and possibly other staffmembers.
They’re also doing him a financial favor. The new restaurant will take over about $147,000 that Morris owed in loan payments to the city. “It will be brought current during escrow,” he says. After Bouchee’s left abruptly in April, Morris saw difficulty in making the payments and says he reached out to City officials including several councilmembers, the City Attorney, City Manager and Mayor to seek solutions and ask for a way to work through the situation. He didn’t receive a response, but did hear from City Attorney Robert Shannon last week when he informed Morris that the payments were in default. The letter surprised Morris, especially since he reached out months ago, but he says City Manager Pat West agreed that it’s an assumable loan and can be taken over by the new restaurant.
Eventually, possibly, maybe, one of these days, Morris will have some time to himself, and that’s what many people are most curious about. Morris has never been one to sit still and retirement certainly doesn’t suit him. And it’s a little difficult to believe when he says of his future plans, “I’m going to get back into yoga.”
Downward dogs aside, he finally relents: “My goal is to open another restaurant as fast as I can,” he says. Morris would love to head into east Long Beach, preferably Belmont Shore where his career began with the original opening of Legends in 1979. That may be where it all started, but it’s still hard to picture a downtown without the figuratively and literally towering John Morris patrolling the patios. Of course he’ll be back from time to time for an iced tea and some Breakfast Of The Gods, but the era of a Morris-owned restaurant here is over.
“I thought we were going to be further along than what we are now,” he says. Morris came downtown when 25 years ago he was shown renderings of a bustling row of open-patio dining with limitless potential. No one can say that Pine Avenue hasn’t come a long way, but Morris says it still hasn’t become what he was promised. Storefronts that were empty then are still empty now, and that can make it difficult to attract residents, and that can make it difficult on business.
“There’s been a lot of hiccups and it’s very unfortunate, and the hiccups have been caused by – I don’t know what else to call it – the leadership,” he says. “My real checkout [from the business] was when I realized how hard it was with my ongoing battles with the DLBA (Downtown Long Beach Associates) and it just got to the point of why bother?”
He bothered because Morris always believed that Pine Avenue could work, and is widely credited with bringing the first New Year’s Eve celebration into the streets in 1989, a tradition that recently started up again and has been a huge success. Other events like live music, Halloween parties and much more followed.
“It has never been the product, the product has always been good,” he says. “[Pine Avenue] just hasn’t gotten there yet. It’s good, but it’s going to be great one day.”
Morris maintains that he’s excited about the future but doesn’t deny a little sadness, as photos are taken off the walls of the restaurant where all three of his children have worked.
“I wouldn’t change anything for anything,” he says. “No matter what I’ve done I’ve always tried to do it for the right reason, and for that I’ve lost a lot of battles. Especially with City Hall. I’ve had a lot of life-changing experiences here but I know what we were about and nobody can argue the fact that we were always about Long Beach.”
He takes one more sip of iced tea with a splash of raspberry, looks at it and says, “You know, I drink this stuff by the gallon.”
Before it’s half-empty a new one appears on the table. Without a word.
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1:00pm Wednesday | After 22 years on Pine Avenue, owner John Morris will close Smooth’s Sports Grille and the restaurant has already been purchased by outside investors. Morris decided to sell several weeks ago and will look for new opportunities, he told the lbpost.com.
Smooth’s originally opened on Pine Avenue as Mum’s, as the downtown area was attempting a renaissance in 1988. It was the first major draw and other upscale restaurants followed to form the street as we know it today. Morris changed the name to Smooth’s in 2004 as a sports-themed restaurant that honored famous Long Beach athletes and held dinner parties for championship-winning youth teams. Morris also occasionally hosted rallies and community events like watching parties for the 2008 Presidential debates and public forums such as “Beer & Politics” where Morris famously called for the Los Angeles River to be diverted through the Port of Long Beach.
Smooth’s made several recent attempts to jumpstart its business as it fell on hard times. In September of last year, the gourmet hamburger specialist Bouchee’s Bistro moved in to form a partnership as Bouchee’s At Smooth’s, which Bouchee’s owner Tony Zervas running the kitchen and menu and Morris running the business operations. That relationship ended abruptly when Bouchee’s moved out all of their equipment overnight this April. Recently, Cohiba nightclub had been using the Smooth’s rooftop as an open-air lounge on weekends. Smooth’s also experimented with dueling pianos, live local musicians and more.
The restaurant will have its last day this Saturday, and then will be closed for three months of renovations before opening as a Spanish-themed restaurant that specializes in tequilas.
Smooth’s hosting a party for the Formula Drift event during the 2008 Grand Prix of Long Beach.
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