Manhattan Beach(Manhattan State Beach)

If you get hungry, there are many great restaurants near Manhattan Beach.  Esperanza is a popular upscale Mexican restaurant that has a unique coastal-inspired decor and is known for serving outstanding Sonoran-style Mexican dishes including delicious tacos and burritos – and it is also well-known for serving a variety of expertly-crafted cocktails.   The Strand House Manhattan Beach is an upscale waterfront restaurant that has a cozy ambiance – the restaurant offers excellent dishes for brunch, lunch, and dinner, including poultry dishes, steaks, seafood, pasta, and soups and it offers fun live music performances.  Rock ‘N Fish Restaurant is known for serving delicious dishes inspired by regional American culinary influences including salads, Jambalaya, Hawaiian-style steak, blackened fish tacos, and teriyaki chicken.  Manhattan Beach Post is known for serving delicious gourmet dishes with local Californian culinary influences, along with a variety of excellent cocktails – it has also been praised by the MICHELIN Guide.  Fishing With Dynamite is known for serving amazing seafood with local and International culinary influences and it has also been praised by many publications including Los Angeles magazine and the MICHELIN guide.  The Kettle Restaurant – also called The Kettle – is a popular restaurant that serves amazing dishes for supper including pasta, pot roast, steaks, seafood, and chicken dishes.  If you are looking for another good and affordable nearby restaurant, Uncle Bill’s Pancake House offers amazing dishes for lunch and breakfast including sandwiches, burgers, fish-and-chips, salads, pancakes, waffles, French toasts, and wraps.  Other great restaurants near the beach include Nick’s Manhattan Beach and Tin Roof Bistro Manhattan Beach. 

If you are looking for hotels in Manhattan Beach, there are many great nearby options.  The 5-Star Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey offers many amenities including a saltwater pool, a tennis court, a basketball court, two restaurants, a fitness center, a spa, bicycle rental facilities, poolside cabanas, a gift shop, and a jewelry shop.  Another upscale hotel is the 4-Star Shade Hotel Manhattan Beach that offers many amenities including a pool, poolside bar, access to a nearby fitness center, a lounge with a terrace, loaner facilities for bikes, beach chairs, and umbrellas.  Another great upscale hotel is the 4-Star Westdrift Manhattan Beach, Autograph Collection that offers many amenities including a restaurant, a fitness center, a pool, bike loaner services, and a golf course.  A more affordable hotel is the 3-Star Residence Inn by Marriott Los Angeles LAX/Manhattan Beach that offers many amenities including a restaurant, complimentary breakfast, a pool, a fitness center, a convenience store, and bike rental services – this hotel also offers fun activities for kids.  If you are looking for another good and affordable nearby Manhattan Beach hotel, the 3-Star Hi View Inn & Suites that is located conveniently close to some of the major landmarks around Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach offers many amenities including lifeguards, a pier, restrooms, showers, concession stands, a bike path, volleyball courts, and children’s play areas.  

Dogs are not allowed here.  

Manhattan Beach offers many fun activities including sunbathing, beachcombing, fishing, skating, biking, picnicking, volleyball, swimming, surfing, bodysurfing, boogie boarding, windsurfing, kitesurfing, skimboarding, jet-skiing, surf-skiing, water-skiing, boating, wakeboarding, parasailing, kayaking, canoeing, and wildlife watching.  

The northern end of Manhattan Beach is particularly popular with surfers because the water here offers fun and large surfing waves.  In addition, surfers also often surf around the Manhattan Beach Pier.  This beach also hosts the International Surf Festival.  If you plan to surf, swim, kayak, windsurf, or boogie board here, we recommend being careful because the water here has dangerous and unpredictable rip currents.  

If you like volleyball, there are many volleyball nets in Manhattan Beach that offer a fun volleyball experience – this beach also hosts an annual professional volleyball tournament during summer named the Manhattan Beach Open.  This tournament is an AVP event – the Association of Volleyball Players event – and is currently one of the largest and most prestigious beach volleyball tournaments of the United States.  

Another famous and very popular beach that you can explore is the nearby Hermosa Beach.

Manhattan Beach has a mobility mat for visitors with wheelchairs and a disabled-friendly ramp that offers access to the beach.  Beach wheelchairs are also available at Manhattan Beach for visitors with disabilities on a first-come-first-serve basis – the beach wheelchair storage locker for Manhattan Beach is located near 4250 The Strand.  Call the local authorities at 310-372-2162 for more information regarding the beach wheelchair booking rules.  In addition, this beach also has reserved parking spaces for disabled visitors.

Getting to Manhattan Beach is easy – the beach is located near the western end of Manhattan Beach Boulevard near its intersection with Ocean Drive.  Manhattan Beach Boulevard is easily accessible from North Sepulveda Boulevard, which is a part of Pacific Coast Highway/California State Highway 1.  There are multiple small paid parking lots near the beach’s pier.  In addition, there are a few metered parking spaces near Manhattan Beach – these parking areas are located along a nearby road called Manhattan Avenue.   The parking lots and street parking areas charge between $2 to $2.50 per hour.

We recommend visiting this beach early during summer weekends because it can get extremely crowded, and finding parking can be difficult.

As an interesting fact, the area around Manhattan Beach used to have many sand dunes in the past – in the 1920s, real estate developers from Hawaii made a deal with the local authorities to procure some of the sand around Manhattan Beach and use it to replenish the sand of a world-famous Hawaiian beach named Waikiki Beach.  In addition, Manhattan Beach has also been featured in many movies and television shows including the 1984 movie Against All Odds and the 1988 Mel Gibson and Michelle Pfeiffer movie Tequila Sunrise.

There are many attractions near Manhattan Beach.  There is a popular pier on this beach named the Manhattan Beach Pier – this pier is around 928 feet long and it was constructed in 1920 – this pier is a popular fishing site.  This pier has been featured by many movies and television shows and it also has an aquarium named the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium.  If you like biking or skating, the Marvin Braude Bike Trail – also known as The Strand – is a popular 22 mile oceanfront biking and roller skating trail that passes near this beach - this trail offers a fun oceanfront biking and roller skating experience.  Polliwog Park has many amenities including multiple gazebos, a rose garden, a playground, picnic areas, barbecue areas, restrooms, drinking fountains, benches, an amphitheater, an exercise course, and a large pond.  This park also hosts many fun events throughout the year including concerts and artistic performances and it also has a small museum.  Sand Dune Park is a recreational park that received its name because it has a 100-foot tall sand dune - in addition, this park offers many amenities including a children’s playground, picnic areas, restrooms, and drinking water facilities and it is also home to many plants and birds.  This park is currently open through a reservation system and you can visit the official website of the city of Manhattan Beach for more information regarding the booking rules.  If you are looking for another attraction near the beach, AdventurePlex is a kids-oriented recreational center that has a variety of fun and interesting things to do and explore including a rock wall, a play structure, a ropes course, and a garden.