During a business trip to Southern California earlier this year, I spent a night near Los Angeles International Airport as I had an early flight back to Iowa the next morning. I have a friend who moved from Atlanta to Manhattan Beach, located just south of LAX, a few years back and I got hold of him in advance of my trip to let him know that I'd be in the area and wondered if he wanted to get together that particular evening. He was excited to hear that I was coming and he quickly cleared his calendar so we could get together. After picking me up at the hotel, he took me down to Manhattan Beach. After a little driving tour of the area - I had never really spent any time in Manhattan Beach or Hermosa Beach during previous trips to SoCal, and after the 30 minute tour I'm sorry that I hadn't - we ended up in downtown Manhattan Beach so he could take me to one of his favorite little haunts, a little sports bar/pub called OB's Pub & Grill.
My buddy explained to me that he lived a few blocks away and he has spent many weekends in the place watching games on one of the many flatscreen televisions found throughout the place. OB's has been around since 1985 and about 7 years ago owner Steve Delk gave the place an updated cosmetic change. My friend says that he loves to come up to OB's with his computer, sit in one of the booths with the open window facing the street and do some work over lunch and a couple of beers.
We parked just down the street from OB's along Highland Ave. just south of Rosecrans Ave., the two main streets into Manhattan Beach. (see map) The front of OB's had wood siding and large paned windows that were open on a beautiful summer's evening not far from the Pacific Ocean. Inside the place, I found a cozy little joint with some booths and high-top tables. Capacity in OB's probably wasn't more than 60 or 70 people giving it a nice little homey feeling. I immediately told my buddy how I could see why he liked coming to the place.
The bar wasn't all that big at OB's, but they had a number of California craft beers on tap and a well-stocked back bar. We took a seat near the bar at a bench seat with a fixed table. It was sort of in the corner by the bar and we were able to hang out and catch up on things in our lives. The young lady behind the bar came out with a couple of food menus and a beer list that featured a number of domestics and imports alike. My buddy got a pint of the 805 blonde ale from the Firestone Walker brewery up in Paso Robles. I asked what they had for India pale ales's on tap and the bartender said she had a San Luis Obispo Brewery IPA. I took one of those. Actually, it was a very good beer and I had a couple that evening. However, when I asked for a third one, the keg blew and she didn't have a replacement. I ended up getting a Space Dust IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company out of Seattle for my last beer which was good, but not as good as the SLO Brewery IPA.
The menu at OB's was pretty extensive for a place that size and featured a number of interesting appetizers such as jalapeño bottle caps which were battered and deep-fried jalapeño slices, calamari, cream-cheese filled jalapeños that they called Armadillo eggs, and fiery chicken fingers that came drenched in Louisiana Hot Sauce. My buddy said that his son especially loved the deep-friend mac & cheese bites. "He'll just order them instead of a sandwich or a meal," he said.
I think our bartender/server came over to the table a minimum of four times asking if we were ready to order. But we were catching up on things and really didn't look at the menu. Finally, we decided after ordering our second beers from her that we probably needed to nose into the menu. My buddy said that he's had a number of different things at OB's over the years and he assured me that while it wasn't fine dining, it was well-above average pub food.
OB's offered over a dozen different types of sandwiches, a dozen variations of burgers, and main entree items such as a 12 ounce New York strip steak, bangers and mash, fish and chips, and their own meatloaf that had me sort of intrigued. Soups and salads for the lighter fare were also available on the menu at OB's.
I thought about getting one of their burgers - each of their burgers are 1/2 pound fresh ground chuck. The Andrew burger featured grilled pastrami with Swiss cheese on top of the burger patty. The mushroom/Swiss burger also caught my eye. But their sandwiches also sounded pretty good. The tuna melt topped with cheddar jack cheese on sourdough bread was tempting, as was the grilled pastrami sandwich with Swiss cheese on rye bread. There were a lot of choices on the menu at OB's.
The funny thing was that what my buddy ordered was exactly what I decided to order - the Julie's sandwich with tater tots as a side. When he said what he wanted along with the tater tots, she came to me and I said, "Pffft... Yeah, me too!" My friend and I sort of chuckled over that. "It's my favorite sandwich on the menu," he said.
And it was very good. Julie's Sandwich consisted of grilled roast beef slices with melted cheddar jack cheese served on toasted sour dough bread. A cup of au jus came on the side with the sandwich. The beef was tender and rich in flavor. The cheese gave it a nice contrasting taste quality and it was tough to beat the flavor of the toasted fresh sourdough bread. "I'm sort of surprised you didn't get a burger," my buddy said. Me, too, I told him. But I was far from unhappy with my selection of the Julie's Sandwich. The tots with loads of Cholula hot sauce were a nice complement to the sandwich.
My buddy probably could have taken me to any number of places in Manhattan Beach the one evening we were together. He pointed out a number of nice restaurants up and down Highland Ave., but he knows that I especially like places like OB's Pub & Grill. I was more than happy with the food, beer selection, the service, and the overall friendly and cozy ambience at OB's. The Julie's Sandwich consisting of grilled roast beef and cheese on toasted sour dough was a very good pub-style sandwich. The tater tots were also a nice little surprise for a side offering. And they had a good selection of craft beers on tap, even though I literally drank them out of the beer that I really enjoyed. I'm sort of jealous that my buddy can walk there to hang out for beers, watch games and to have some pretty good food for a little pub like OB's. It's a great little neighborhood place.
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