The Reel Inn: Catch of a Lifetime

Malibu’s Reel Inn was more than a seafood restaurant. No one knows that better than Teddy Leonard, the Inn’s co-owner.

“It seemed to be appreciated by many,” said Leonard. “I mean, we would have surfers in line with actors, in line with homeless people, in line with movie executives. You had families, you had everybody. Everybody stood in line.”

Located right off of the Pacific Coast Highway on the shores of Topanga State Beach, the locally famous seafood shack was open for 36 legendary years. Finding itself at the intersection of Southern California surf culture and the nearby heart of the film industry, the restaurant still remained a favorite amongst tourists. Leonard’s husband Andy founded the Inn in 1986, and Teddy came into the fold after the two married in 2005.

The Palisades wildfire started burning in the Santa Monica Mountains on January 8, fueled by intense winds that reached up to 80 mph. The blaze burned across over 23,400 acres of Los Angeles County, destroying an estimated 6,800 structures and evacuating over 100,000 residents. It is the single most destructive fire in Los Angeles city history – the areas that were hit the hardest included Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu. The Reel Inn was not spared.

“The Reel Inn on the Pacific Coast Highway is actually pretty iconic,” said Los Angeles-based food journalist Esther Tseng. “It’s been there for a long time, and it’s one of those – you know, you order at the counter and then you get your food, you pick a table and it’s kind of like a surf shack place.”

“The restaurant had that feeling, like it was just a good time,” said Leonard.

“So, that burned down,” said Tseng. “You know, that’s really devastating, because it held a lot of memories for a lot of people.” 

Right now, the lot that the restaurant used to stand on is a caged-off dump site for the smoldering wreckage that the fire left in its wake. Nothing remains of the structure itself. Leonard will never forget the harrowing last moments before the restaurant was ravaged by the flames – she and her husband were not at the restaurant when the fire broke out, but members of their crew were.

“My husband was watching the [security] camera, and he said ‘oh my god, there are firemen on the back deck, they’re pulling down the fence behind the patio,’ said Leonard, shuddering at the memory. “And then the camera went black. He was talking to our manager as it was happening, and he said ‘get out, get the crew, get ‘em out.’”

Thankfully, no one at the restaurant was injured in the fire. “They got out just in the nick of time,” said Leonard. “I think [the manager] ran to her car, and her car is at the other end of the parking lot. By the time she got to her car, the flames were already up the back of the building. It went really fast.” 

With the restaurant ripped from the earth that it once stood on, the Leonards shifted their focus to the hardworking people who made the Inn the iconic LA landmark that it was.

“Our concern immediately was for our crew,” said Leonard. “Because most of those folks have worked for us for 20, 30 years. Some of them had never had any other job in their life.” The majority of the restaurant’s long-time staff, a tight-knit bunch of less than two dozen, had come from the same large family in Oaxaca, Mexico. 

“We knew their families,” said Leonard. “You know, we knew when they had a baby, we knew when someone died, we were there for them and they were there for us. They got us through COVID, we got them through COVID. We really had an amazing crew.” Leonard has seen the first-hand effects of the fires’ deep impact on LA’s large community of immigrant workers.

“These are the people that grow your food, they’re the people that pick your food,” she said. “The people that cook your food, they’re the people that serve your food. They’re also the people that are in the hotel and the hospitality industry, from top to bottom – they also are in the real estate. So, you know, when you talk about construction and building the labor force, the backbone of our labor force is immigrant.”

As of April, the restaurant had crowdfunded over $200,000 from over 2,500 donors on GoFundMe to help recover their staff’s lost wages. “I have had people call in from all over the world to say how sorry they were and to donate to our GoFundMe for our crew,” said Leonard. She said that the outpouring of support from across the globe has been overwhelming, both for her and her staff.

“I didn’t realize – Istanbul, South America, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Spain, Italy,” said Leonard. “I mean, we got donations from everywhere. Scotland, Ireland, England. And then you get, all of the sudden, $1,000 from a businessman in the UK that says ‘that’s my first stop whenever I’m in LA,’ you know? You just never know.” 

Leonard said that all proceeds from the GoFundMe are going directly to their staff. She knows that it’s not a permanent solution, but she hopes that the generous donations from the Inn’s dedicated former customers can help keep the crew on their feet, as they begin to re-enter an unstable job market. Among those loyal customers were many celebrity guests of the Inn, with the spot holding treasured memories for many stars on the outskirts of Hollywood. 

“We’ve had Gordon Ramsay one time,” said Leonard, chuckling at the memory of the superstar chef’s visit. “David Beckham brought Gordon Ramsay in, and it was kind of funny, because he said to the crew,’you guys want me to cook?’ And they all looked at him like, ‘why would we want you to cook?’ They had no idea who he was.” 

Leonard sprung to tell another story of an unusual celebrity visit. “One time, my husband and I were on a show – I think it was called The Chew, daytime television,” said Leonard. “We had a lot of TV come in and film, but we were on it – and like an hour after the show aired, Paris Hilton came in and wanted to try the dishes she had just watched on television. And trying to explain to the Hispanic crew why she was famous, it was hilarious.” 

Leonard also said that Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen were regulars at the Inn, the latter often shutting down the dining room to host his birthday parties there – a privilege that the Leonards solely reserved for the New Jersey rockstar. Why exactly was the restaurant a go-to for so many stars? Leonard says it was their unparalleled dishes, which she continues to take pride in. 

“All of our food was fresh,” said Leonard. “Fish delivered that morning, so we were sort of the In-N-Out of fresh fish. You know, everything was made on site. The french fries were hand cut. The coleslaw was hand cut. Our preps crew, they made everything – the tartar sauce, all of our sauces. Everything was made on site that day.”

The Inn’s future, as with so many other businesses in the area, is entirely unclear. “I wish I could answer that question,” said Leonard, when asked where the Inn is going to go from here. “We’re waiting to hear from the state parks. They have actually staged the EPA clean-up, and they’ve staged the Army Corps of Engineers – on the side of the rail line is where they’re taking all the debris from the Palisades fire. They’re staging it where a restaurant was.” 

Although it’s been difficult, Leonard has begun to accept that answers about the future may take months (or years) to reveal themselves. “I don’t know when they’re going to be ready to talk to us about whether or not we’ll be able to rebuild or set up another restaurant,” said Leonard. 

In the meantime, Leonard and her daughter are working together to set up an online merchandise store, with all proceeds being contributed to their re-building fund. “When people call us, they go: ‘Wait a minute. How are we gonna replicate your coleslaw?’ So now we’re thinking maybe we should have a cookbook,” said Leonard.

The Leonards are not banking on the prospect of rebuilding the restaurant. Everything is up in the air right now, and they aren’t sure if a new iteration of the Inn will be financially feasible for them or their staff.

“You know, from what I understand, people are getting money from FEMA. We are not,” said Leonard. “I mean, the only thing they’re offering business owners are loans, and loans are at 8%. So yeah, thanks, but no thanks. It’s like, we don’t want to borrow money to build a restaurant that we’re not sure we can build.”

The Leonards have been offered support from many other local establishments, but nothing will compare to the way things used to be. “Other people in the restaurant industry have reached out and said, look, we have a kitchen you can use,” said Leonard, “but it’s not the same as having a location. The location was a big part of The Reel Inn, a very big part of it. It’s not repeatable, and you can’t bring back something the way it was.” 

After Media Milwaukee’s interview with Leonard, she shared an article with the journalist – it was a recent Esquire interview with actor Rob Lowe. In the interview, he recounted his memories of frequenting the Inn while he was living in Malibu in the 1980s.

“I loved any kind of battered, fresh fish there. I discovered Coronas with lime at The Reel Inn. It doesn’t get more California,” said Lowe in the interview. “They always had their menu handwritten on a placard. And that’s what I mourn. I mourn everything in Malibu, which is: There’s very, very little, if anything, left of the working-class ambience that I grew up in.”

The Esquire article deeply resonated with Leonard. She knows how representative the restaurant was of a more vintage vision of Malibu, but she can still relish in the decades of memories that the Inn’s walls held.

“My husband had this wonderful thing,” said Leonard. “There’s a neon sign, and underneath it was a blackboard sign. Our crew, every morning, would paint a pun for the day on the sign. So everybody coming in and out of Malibu, that was sort of the gateway. They saw the sign, and many times we’d have screenwriters call us: ‘how about this pun?’ If somebody gave us a pun and we used it, we’d buy ‘em dinner.”

It was a small thing, but it spoke volumes. “You know, just silly, fun puns that people enjoy, that made them smile,” said Leonard. “That was a big piece of it, it was an iconic part of Malibu. People saw the sign, and they were heading into Malibu and out of the city. The location was that big sigh of relief that you get when you know you’re going to relax.”

You can donate to The Reel Inn’s staff on their GoFundMe. 

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the 2025 California wildfires. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.