By Elena Coe McNamara
Features Editor
Mira Costa alumnus and Hermosa Beach local Greg Newman has made his mark on the South Bay, opening multiple bars and restaurants throughout Southern California.
Some of Newman’s local business ventures include South Bay restaurant chain Sharkeez as well as Hermosa Beach’s Palmilla. Newman opened his first restaurant after he graduated college in 1993.
“My favorite part of owning restaurants is the design aspect, just planning it out,” Newman said. “I love laying out the restaurant, choosing the type of vibe it will have, the waiters’ uniforms and picking out the menu and the drinks.”
Newman graduated from Costa in 1986 and later attended El Camino College. He then studied at the University of Southern California. While a student at USC, Newman studied general marketing and business marketing, which helped him in his future restaurant and bar openings, he said.
“I really geared everything I did toward being able to later open these various restaurants,” Newman said. “It had always been a foregone conclusion that I would end up in the restaurant business, so I directed my schoolwork at USC toward things that would help me be more successful.”
Newman’s decision to enter the restaurant industry was influenced by his father, who owned and operated a chain of restaurants called The Red Onion. Newman says he grew up surrounded by the business aspect of restaurants, which further helped him to successfully open his own bars and full-service restaurants.
“I was straight out of college, and I knew that opening up this bar was what I wanted to do,” Newman said. “I had the experience I needed; I knew it was something I could manage.”
The original Sharkeez location opened in 1993 in Manhattan Beach when he was 24 and was geared toward college students and his college friends, Newman said.
“I remember the first night we opened; after closing, I just stood there and looked around and really realized that this was my place,” Newman said.
Newman also owns the upscale restaurant, Palmilla, which opened in November 2012 and is located in Hermosa Beach. Palmilla was the first non-bar that he opened, which showed those around him that he was capable of running a full-service restaurant, he said.
“When I opened Palmilla, it was definitely a major departure from Sharkeez, and I’m glad it worked because people had pigeon-holed me for a bar guy.”
Newman has opened a variety of restaurants all over Southern California, including different Sharkeez locations, Palmilla, Panama Joe’s in Long Beach, Killarney’s in Huntington Beach, Sandbar in Santa Barbara, as well as Tower 12, his newest restaurant set to open in Hermosa Beach in January of 2017.
“A big part of my job is to surround myself with all of the right people,” Newman said. “I make sure I have good directors, managers and accountants so that I don’t need to be in all of the locations all the time, because that would make it impossible for us to manage.”
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