Downtown Merchants Prepare for Holiday Hordes

The intersection of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Highland Avenue was buzzing Friday afternoon with the typical summer sounds: the hushed gossiping between midday shoppers, the excited squeals of small children on the way to the beach and the yelps and cheers of World Cup fans pouring out from the large, open windows of downtown's numerous taverns.

But inside Funbunns, a hole-in-the-wall beach rental shop only steps away from the intersection, owner Robert Levy and co-manager Alan Gordon were soaking up the last bit of silence before Saturday, the official start of the Fourth of July weekend.

"We get a thousand people, maybe even two [thousand], on this street," said Levy, who has owned Funbunns for 13 years. "It's been increasing every year since the shop opened."

Although a surefire revenue-generating holiday event for shopping malls across the country, the Fourth of July is comparable to Black Friday for beachside communities. For the employees at Funbunns it means stocking the tiny shop with bikes of all colors and designs until not an inch of space is free.

"We got some new bikes in—mostly beach cruisers," Gordon said. "They tend to go first, then the mountain bikes."

Levy scans the display walls at the front of the store, stocked to the ceiling with eclectic surf knickknacks seemingly geared for tourists.

"We don't usually carry that many shirts," Levy added, eyes still on the wall. "But we sell a lot of retail and body boards this weekend; much more than other weekends. We also got some extra [bike] pumps. We rent out the store until it's empty."

"We stocked up," Gordon finished. "We're ready for it."

"Brace yourself" appears to be the motto of the weekend for local businesses, as restaurants are also over-stocking products. Memphis at the Beach manager Justin Safier expects to serve twice as many meals as the cafe would on a regular summer weekend.

Relatively new to Manhattan Beach's downtown scene, the hip lounge-like restaurant opened last summer—exactly four days before July 4. Safier sees this weekend as a chance to apply the lessons he learned from last year's combined opening weekend/national holiday.

"Make sure you have enough staffers, and that you have all your bases covered," Safier said of his strategy. "Take a look at your numbers from last year and try to get an idea of what's going to happen. It's a lot of projecting and analyzing, seeing what you ran out of, what went wrong."

Although Memphis is located in the heart of downtown—and along the path of hungry beachgoers—Safier is confident things won't get too out of control.

"We try to get people taken care of as quickly as possible. We'll offer them a drink from the bar, or take cornbread outside to those waiting," he said. "We're pretty quick-paced, so it tends to flow."

Long lines, however, will prevail at the various taverns along Manhattan Beach Boulevard, as bar-goers now have two reasons to celebrate with a chilled beer: the nation's birthday and the ongoing World Cup competition. As a result, Shellback Tavern manager Rico De'Alba expects to see a line out the door of the cavernous and beloved dive bar every day of the extended weekend.

"We were packed this morning, and it'll be like that all day long, from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., through Monday," he said. "We call ourselves a neighborhood bar, but we'll get 75 percent out-of-towners."

With those high expectations, De'Alba made sure Shellback was not only equipped with enough alcohol, but also with the correct safety precautions.

"We doubled the [number of] bouncers—from three to six," he said. "We need to make sure there's no problems, no fights breaking out. We always have someone watching for trouble."

Despite the cacophony of jukebox tunes and hearty banter already spilling out of the downtown restaurants and bars by early afternoon Friday, both Safier and De'Alba said the nation's birthday hardly compares to Manhattan Beach's own epic tradition—the annual Charlie Saikley Six-Man Beach Volleyball Tournament.

"Six-Man weekend is definitely our busiest weekend of the year," Safier said.

De'Alba echoed his sentiment: "The Fourth is huge, but it's the second biggest to Six-Man."

With that in mind, local businesses are indeed bracing themselves this weekend—but with open arms to their customers.

"It's stressful, but at the back of your mind you got to remember that it's a fun weekend," Safier said. "Everyone's here to have a good time."