The deal was signed at a table inside Java Man. Patrick Mescall and Brian Eldridge told Easy Reader it was the lightly stained one by the large, white-trimmed window. "All our hopes and dreams are at that table," Mescall said. The two have brainstormed and signed business deals there for years. One of them was Tiki Kai, the tiki bar and eatery on Pier Plaza. The most recent deal made them the owners of the coffeehouse itself, and of Ocean Diner too.
They started running both businesses on October 5, 2026. Rick Hankus opened Ocean Diner in 1986 and Java Man in 1992. He died in November 2025. The seller looked for buyers who would keep things as they were. The buyers keep saying the same thing. The first public chances to see whether they mean it all fall this November.
What changed hands on October 5
Java Man sits in a little red beach cottage from 1929 at 157 Pier Avenue. Inside, the cottage is split into small, semi-private rooms. Ocean Diner is across town at 959 Aviation Boulevard. Hankus ran both with his spouse, Tim Biggs. Biggs told the Daily Breeze that the two of them had been thinking about selling so they could retire, and had already talked with Mescall and Eldridge.
"We ideally wanted to sell them both to the same person at the same time, keeping the name and the brand," Biggs told the paper, "primarily keeping the staff." The couple ran Ocean Diner for 39 years and Java Man for 35.
Biggs's list put the staff last, but the staff may be the main thing that was sold. Easy Reader's tribute to Hankus from November 2025 recognized the people behind the Java Man counter:
- Nick Herrera, 27 years
- Daniel Nava, 27 years
- Jesus Garcia, 19 years
The same tribute also recognized an Ocean Diner crew that had been with Hankus for more than two decades. In that piece, Kevin Cody wrote that Hermosans hosting out-of-town guests or clients were more likely to bring them to Java Man for coffee and a morning glory muffin than to an upscale restaurant. They knew someone at the door would greet them by name.
That kind of familiarity doesn't show up in a purchase agreement. Mescall still talks about it as the asset. "Everyone's got a great thing to offer here, but no one's got a better team than we do," he told Easy Reader. "And that's pre-owning it."
A group that keeps old places running
The pledge to keep things as they are is more believable because of what these buyers already own. Mescall and Eldridge met almost 20 years ago as bartenders at the opening of Salt Creek Grille at The Point in El Segundo. In 2017 they bought O'Hearn's in Redondo Beach and turned it into Paddy O'Brien's Irish Pub. Their company, South Bay Hospitality, now also runs Tiki Kai in Hermosa Beach, Eat at Joe's in Redondo Beach, The Hula Hula Room and The Bounty Room in Torrance, and The Sly Fox Irish Pub in Lawndale.
Eat at Joe's is the best example. According to the restaurant's own history, Joe Filkosky bought it in 1969, when it was a seven-stool burger stand, and grew it into a bigger diner known for the John Wayne Special. The same history now lists Mescall and Eldridge as the owners. When Mescall talked about Java Man, he brought up Joe's himself.
"Eat At Joe's could have gone away, but you don't ever want things like that to go away. When institutions start going away, everything starts to look the same."
Patrick Mescall, in Easy Reader
Java Man has meant something to the partners for a long time. "Our first meeting to purchase Paddy O'Brien's was at Java Man," Eldridge told the Daily Breeze. They aren't treating the cottage as a building to redo. "It is not shiny, you're not sitting in the Taj Mahal and everyone knows that," Mescall told Easy Reader. "This is an ambiance you could never recreate."
Java Man has gotten through a tougher test than a change of owners. Cody reported that Hankus called 2010 his hardest year. That was when the city removed street parking on Pier Avenue to redesign the upper part of the street. The work was supposed to take a few months and took almost a year. Hankus said it paid off in the end, because the redesign added a parkette where customers could drink their coffee in the sun. Cody also wrote that Hankus opened Java Man in 1992, the same year Starbucks went public. At the time of that tribute, the three Starbucks locations near Java Man had recently closed.
What could change, and how carefully
Keeping things the same doesn't mean nothing changes. The new owners told Easy Reader they want to keep the original culture and also improve how both businesses run. One idea is keeping Java Man open into the evening. Another is adding live music from local performers like Mikey Jerome, who was in Mescall's wedding.
Mescall described both ideas as things they're still considering. "We'd love to see what we can get away with. We don't want to scare anybody," he said. "It's only been a week, so we don't want to go in and make big changes." He added that Java Man is Jerome's favorite place to play, and that "if we can have him singing on a Tuesday night, we'll make that happen."
The one firm commitment is about Ocean Diner. The same article says its Wednesday closures "will soon be a thing of the past." The article doesn't give a start date. Until the diner posts one, call the diner before heading over on a Wednesday.
Hankus's own idea for Java Man suggests that evening music would bring it back to its roots. Cody wrote that Hankus wanted a beatnik-era coffeehouse, modeled on Hermosa's Insomniac from the 1950s, where writers wrote, musicians played and artists showed their paintings. When wifi arrived in 2000, the cottage also became a shared workspace. A Tuesday night set from Mikey Jerome would fit the coffeehouse Hankus first had in mind.
November puts the promise to work
Several dates this month, close together, will show how the new ownership handles the places' history and its own plans.
- Thursday, November 5. Tiki Kai turns one. It opened at 73 Pier Ave. on November 5, 2025, the Daily News reported. It is the group's newest Hermosa business and the only one it built from scratch.
- Thursday, November 19. One year since Hankus died, on November 19, 2025, at 67. The Daily Breeze tribute quoted friends calling him a "humble hero." It noted that his term as Chamber president began in 1998 and that he was named the Chamber's Man of the Year in 2002.
- Saturday and Sunday, November 21 and 22. Hermosa for the Holidays comes downtown. The Hermosa Beach Chamber lists a Pier Plaza market, a Ferris wheel, live music at Java Man, and Jeremy Buck's Rock for Tots, now in its 20th year. The tree lighting is November 22 from 5:45 to 6:15 p.m. Earlier that Sunday, Coast Music has students playing from 3 to 3:45 p.m. at 1 Pier Avenue before Rock for Tots.
- Thursday, November 26. Thanksgiving. For more than a dozen years, Hankus ran the kitchen for the annual Mama Liz Thanksgiving Dinner at the Hermosa Kiwanis Club, where volunteers served turkey dinners and pumpkin pie to 400 to 600 people from the community each year, Easy Reader reported. According to a 2018 Easy Reader account, the dinner started in the early 1980s, when Liz Turner and her son Randy served free Thanksgiving meals at their downtown restaurant, the Garden of Eden. It later moved to the Kiwanis Hall.
The holiday weekend matters because the Chamber has already put live music at Java Man on the schedule. That is the idea the new owners described as a careful test, and it will happen in front of the biggest downtown crowd of the season. Mescall said they would stretch things "as much as people want us to," as long as the community and staff are comfortable. Biggs said Hankus's biggest contribution was himself: an owner who was there every day, knew every customer, and loved to talk and joke. "His energy is still there," he said.
The partners have plenty of other projects underway. Easy Reader reports that South Bay Hospitality plans to open Lucy's, in the former Texas Loosey's, and Pop's Pizza in Torrance early in 2027, and that it plans a second Tiki Kai in West Hollywood with partner Dennis Doody. In Hermosa, they have promised to keep the cottage, the team and the Java Man name, and to open Ocean Diner on Wednesdays.
At Jen Caskey Group, we know a place's value often comes from the people and history behind it, and that a careful handoff can keep both. If you're planning to pass on a home with a long story of its own, we'd be glad to talk through it with you. Get Your Home Valuation.
