RJ’s Café Celebrates 20th Anniversary

BY BREEANA GREENBERG

RJ Breeden was looking to get out of the restaurant business in 2003. That was until his wife, Tracey Breeden, approached him about opening a new café in Dana Point.

At the time, Tracey recalled. RJ had told her he would never own a restaurant again and decided to pursue medical device sales.

“Basically, I’ve worked in restaurants since I was 15 years old,” RJ said. “Started in San Juan Capistrano, and it just was pretty much all I knew.”

RJ’s first restaurant job was washing dishes.

“My friend in high school, his dad owned it, so I started out washing dishes, but he taught me how to cook and just kind of showed me a few other things,” RJ said.

But it was not until RJ moved to Tahoe and started working in a restaurant there that he decided to make a career of working in the industry.

The first restaurant RJ opened was RJ’s Place in Diamond Springs, California.

“And then I opened another one called The News Café, and that was in Palm Springs,” RJ said. “Then, from there, I came here. I was only going to be here a couple of months, but I ended up staying.”

“I tried to get out of it, and (Tracey) told me that it’s the only thing that I knew so that’s what I continue to do,” RJ said.

After visiting Dana Point and having dinner at a Peruvian restaurant on Dana Point Harbor Drive and learning that the diner was for sale, the couple made an offer.

“It was a small little café like what I was used to doing because I’ve done it before and so we made an offer and ended up buying the place,” RJ said. “And here I am, 20 years later.”

RJ added that no other café offered a similar country breakfast in the area in 2003.

“Nobody did a good country breakfast in Dana Point and the business that was here happened to be for sale,” RJ said. “It was a place that already had a kitchen and was ready where I could go in and put in a minimal amount of money to transform it into what I do, which is breakfast and lunch.”

The previous restaurant was decorated in oranges, greens and leopard skin print, Tracey said. She decided to bring in a Tahitian feel with RJ’s Café’s new decor.

When RJ opened the café, he envisioned creating a local spot for regulars to gather.

“I’ve always liked being a local spot,” RJ said. “Since I grew up down here, I grew up in San Clemente—I was gone for 22, 23 years—so I just wanted a place where people I knew from my past life when I lived here to come back and visit and built a clientele with locals.”

“Our business is probably 75% locals,” continued RJ, who is celebrating the restaurant’s 20th anniversary on Friday, April 21.

The restaurant’s popularity was on full display this past year, as it earned its 14th consecutive gold medal for Best Breakfast in the Dana Point Times’ annual People’s Choice Lantern Awards.

RJ’s has earned 15 overall medals in

Dana Point Arts & Culture Commission Launches Nonprofit, Artist Directory

BY BREEANA GREENBERG

The City of Dana Point has launched new online nonprofit and artist registries that will serve as resources for the community to easily view a comprehensive calendar of arts and culture events, as well as contact information for local artists and nonprofits.

The two new directories featuring contact information for local arts- and culture-related nonprofits and artists are now available on the city’s website. In creating the directories, the Arts and Culture commissioners sought to facilitate collaboration between various organizations.

the Best Breakfast category, and five overall medals for Best Family Restaurant.

In addition to serving quality food, RJ attributes the café’s success to its longtime staff and faithful customers.

“I try to keep a staff that’s friendly with all locals, mostly local people work here,” RJ said. “We’re family oriented, we’re a family so we want family people to be working with us.”

In the first few years that the café was open, RJ would sit down and chat with customers regularly, Tracey said.

“RJ is like their friend,” Tracey said. “He goes around telling jokes, sits down at their table, and we have people that come like every day, once a week.”

“And so that was like a familiar face for them to see and say, ‘Hey RJ, what’s your joke of the day,’ ” Tracey continued. “When you go to restaurants, you don’t really get that.”

Tracey echoed RJ’s sentiments about the success of the restaurant, attributing it to its personable service, great food and friendly staff.

Looking to celebrate the milestone anniversary on Friday, Tracey and RJ had not yet landed on celebratory plans when talking to the DP Times earlier this month.

“I’ll probably go around and spontaneously give out free meals that day or something. It’s a milestone but it’s just another day,” RJ said, adding, “It’s kind of hard to believe it’s the longest job I’ve ever held in my life. I’m going to be 65 this year. So, it’s a milestone.”

Tracey added that reaching this milestone is “really exciting because there’s not too many restaurants, businesses that have been around that long. Especially with COVID and everything like that.”

Thanking his customers for their continued support over the last 20 years, RJ said, “My staff appreciates it, I appreciate it, my wife appreciates it.”

In November 2022, the commission formed an ad hoc committee that Commissioners Laura Smith-Hatch and Karin Schnell chaired to compile data for both registries.

The local art and culture organization and local artists directories can be found at the City of Dana Point website, danapoint.org. The city’s website also features a Master Events Calendar with information on local nonprofit events throughout the year.

Those interested in being included in the nonprofit registry can email Senior Management Analyst Jaimie To at jto@ danapoint.org with the nonprofit’s name, mission statement and contact information.

Residents 18 and older interested in being included in the artist directory can also email To, and they can include their name, the type of art that they do, their email and website, picture of their artwork that they’d like to display on the website, and address of their studio, if they have one.