Orange County restaurants shut down by health inspectors (June 15-22)

• June 24, 2023

Restaurants and other food vendors ordered to close and allowed to reopen by Orange County health inspectors from June 15 to June 22.

Mae’s Cafe, 9062 Trask Ave., Garden Grove

Closed: June 15
Reason: Rodent infestation
Reopened: June 15

Paddy’s Station, 26701 Verdugo St., Suite B, San Juan Capistrano

Closed: June 15
Reason: Rodent infestation
Reopened: June 15

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This list is published weekly with closures since the previous week’s list. Status updates are published in the following week’s list. Source: OC Health Care Agency database.

​ Orange County Register 

Surfing dogs, ruff competition heats up Huntington Beach

• June 24, 2023

The dog days of summer are here.

The 26th annual Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge Western Regional Competition kicked off on Friday, June 23, in Huntington Beach, bringing ruff competition to the sand and surf.

Surfing dogs took to the waves at Brookhurst Street, balancing on boards as they navigated the waters toward shore.

The main competition was held further north at Newland Street, where a dock diving event showcased pups sprinting off a 40-foot stage to launch into a 19,000-gallon pool. Qualifiers were also held for a freestyle flying disc contest and “fetch it” events.

The pups return to the sand on Saturday, June 24, to continue the agility, diving, disc and other competitions. The event, free to the public, will run from 10:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Newland Street at Huntington State Beach.

For a full schedule of events, go to purina.com

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​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Power of three isn’t necessarily NBA ticket to success

• June 24, 2023

The world according to Jim:

• It’s a fallacy, really, that in the NBA you need a Big Three to compete for a championship. Yet Phoenix’s acquisition of Bradley Beal last week, starting a chain reaction that eventually deposited Chris Paul with the Golden State Warriors, suggests some teams haven’t gotten the memo. …

• Consider the last five league champions. Current champ Denver is built around should-have-been-three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and a band of complementary players. Golden State last year had shooters extraordinaire Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, disrupter Draymond Green and a bunch of guys who knew their roles. Milwaukee in 2021? Giannis Antetokounmpo and a solid core around him. The Lakers in 2020? Good health for LeBron James and Anthony Davis (no doubt aided by the four-month pandemic break) and, again, complementary parts. Toronto in 2019? Same thing, built around Kawhi Leonard. …

• Miami might have rode the power of three to a couple of titles in 2012 and ’13 with LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, and we can debate whether Bosh was truly a star. But more realistically, and especially with the league’s increasingly punitive salary cap rule coming in, isn’t it better to concentrate on having the right pieces around your main guys? …

• The trick is convincing on-site superstars who want/demand input on personnel. They attack problems much as they did as teenagers, when they were recruiting their buddies to join the same AAU team. …

• Did Miami get the steal of Thursday night’s draft at No. 18 in UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez Jr.? With the polish that comes from playing four years in Westwood and the knack for doing the little things that equate to winning, he can have a quick impact in Miami. And if there truly is a “Heat Culture,” he fits perfectly. …

• Yes, the Lakers had a shot at Jaquez but instead took Jalen Hood-Schifino, the Indiana one-and-done guard, at 17. He’s more of a long-term play and should benefit from the player development skills of Coach Darvin Ham and his staff. His offensive game needs work, and I suspect Hood-Schifino’s presence won’t lessen the need to either re-sign or replace D’Angelo Russell. Think two or three years down the road. …

• With the Houston Astros in town to play the Dodgers, the timing of Rob Manfred’s interview with Time Magazine was interesting – and particularly his acknowledgment that offering Astros players immunity for information regarding the 2017 sign-stealing scandal was “maybe not my best decision ever.”

You think? …

• But I’d go further. The biggest blunder in the aftermath of the Great Trash Can Caper was treating Astros owner Jim Crane with a velvet glove. Crane allowed General Manager Jeff Luhnow’s anything-goes culture that led to the scandal, made Luhnow and field manager A.J. Hinch the scapegoats after the penalties came down and said, “No, I don’t think I should be held accountable.”

And he wasn’t, aside from a $5 million fine – chump change in baseball economics – and the loss of a couple of draft picks. A year’s suspension from ownership would have been more fitting. …

• Then again, this isn’t Bowie Kuhn slapping George Steinbrenner with a two-year ban for illegal campaign contributions, or Fay Vincent banning Steinbrenner in 1990 after he’d hired someone to dig up dirt on his own player, Dave Winfield. Manfred doesn’t discipline owners but coddles them, as we’ve seen in the way he’s enabled A’s owner John Fisher in his willingness to tank multiple seasons in order to burn bridges in Oakland and facilitate a move to Las Vegas. …

• Incidentally, you’ll love this: The A’s marketing slogan for the last few years in the East Bay has been “Rooted in Oakland.” Raiders owner Mark Davis, who fled to Las Vegas first, said one of his beefs with the A’s involves that (now hollow) slogan, which he construed as a slap at the Raiders.

If the shoe fits …

• If last week’s U.S. Open wasn’t already a triumph for golf in Los Angeles, the USGA announcement a couple of days later that the Open would be coming to Riviera in 2031 would have been. (It is, among other things, confirmation that broadcast partner NBC really, really likes being able to show the final rounds in prime time on the East Coast, given that this was the most-watched Open since 2019 at Pebble Beach.)

Plus it’s Riviera, more of a fan-friendly course than Los Angeles Country Club. Anyone who tried to walk the LACC course last weekend and tried (and failed) to find a patch of flat ground will understand. …

• The real heroes of last week’s tournament? The shuttle drivers. With no parking even close to the course, spectators and media had to park in Century City or at UCLA, and the shuttles between those points and the golf course were prompt and convenient. …

• Another big event announcement that should impact SoCal came down Friday. The FIFA Club World Cup, which is being expanded from a seven-team event to a 32-team tournament in 2025, has been awarded to the United States, likely in late June and early July. It will be a dry run for the 2026 World Cup, which will be shared between the U.S., Mexico and Canada but will have most of its host sites in this country.

And yes, you can assume SoFi Stadium will be one of the host sites in 2025 as well as ’26. …

• Today’s suggested motto for most of us on social media (and a lot of people who aren’t): “I may not always be right, but I’m always certain.”

[email protected]

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​ Orange County Register 

Galaxy defense beset by injuries and international duty

• June 24, 2023

Chris Mavinga’s first season with the Galaxy was interrupted by injury.

On Wednesday, Mavinga played 90 minutes in the Galaxy’s 2-2 draw against Sporting Kansas City. It was his first 90-minute effort since Oct. 9, 2022, when he was a member of Toronto FC.

“I tried to do my job, I was focused on winning duels and focused on every detail,” Mavinga said. “I feel like it was a good 90 minutes. I know I have room to improve.”

Mavinga’s return and road back to fitness come at a much-needed time as the club is running thin on center backs.

Eriq Zavaleta (El Salvador) and Jalen Neal (U.S.) are away for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Sega Coulibaly has struggled with injuries and has appeared in only three games. And in Wednesday’s game, Martin Caceres was taken off on a stretcher after suffering what has been diagnosed as an avulsion fracture in his left knee, which could sideline him for the remainder of the season. He’s scheduled to undergo surgery Wednesday.

“He’s one of the most positive human beings I’ve ever come across in my life,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said of Caceres. “He’s got a positive mindset, he’s extremely disappointed because he knows the team is battling right now and to feel like he’s not going to be able to help the team in this stretch … he’s a team guy.

“That’s what’s hurting him right now as much as the injury and his time off, is that he feels like he’s needed in the team and he won’t be able to help the team right now. He’s positive in his mind, he’s trusting the process and the doctors and his mindset is he’ll get through this.”

Heading into Saturday’s road game against the Colorado Rapids (6:30 p.m., Apple TV+), the challenge for Vanney is finding a center back pair.

“We have short-term challenges,” he said. “We’ll try to do a little bit of defending by committee and by numbers just by virtue of not having many true center backs. Chris (Mavinga) being the one true center back. Kelvin (Leerdam) has played some center back inside of three (man back), he’s trained as a center back inside of a four (man back). We have probably three to five games where we’re going to have to find good solutions inside our group.

“The biggest thing is, we don’t have a lot of size in that true center back position. We’ll look inside the league and outside the league outside of that five-game stretch for ways to build upon our group. We have this stretch until the Leagues Cup break, we have some mechanisms to try to work inside of the league if the right opportunities exist to reinforce our group for the rest of the season and maybe beyond, and then after Aug. 3 (close of the summer transfer window) we can sign any players that are out of contract at that point.”

That leads back to Mavinga, who is welcoming the extra workload and the direction the team is headed. He said getting back to fitness was the first challenge after missing a month earlier this season.

“We’re three games unbeaten. We’ve played two tough games away, we played Kansas, they were in good form, we didn’t lose the game, Colorado is going to be a tough place, but we need to continue our form,” he said.

‘CHICHARITO’ UPDATE

The Galaxy said forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez underwent successful knee surgery Friday.

In an Instagram post, Hernandez said: “Already home resting and ready to smash it all into recovery.”

The team captain suffered a torn ACL in the team’s May 31 game at Real Salt Lake. He will miss the rest of the season.

GALAXY AT COLORADO

When: Saturday, 6:30 p.m.

Where: Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, Colo.

How to watch: Apple TV+ (free)

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​ Orange County Register 

Wall Street falls to close out its first losing week in the last six

• June 24, 2023

Another drop for stocks on Friday helped drag Wall Street to its first losing week in the last six.

The S&P 500 fell 33.56, or 0.8%, to 4,348.33, pulling back further from last week when it reached its highest level in more than a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 219.28, or 0.6%, to 33,727.43, and the Nasdaq composite sank 138.09, or 1%, to 13,492.52.

Overseas markets also fell, while crude oil prices slipped amid worries that a stressed global economy may burn less fuel.

Europe’s economy appears to be weaker than expected, according to a preliminary report measuring manufacturing and services businesses. That added to the week’s hesitance in markets, caused by a crank higher in interest rates by central banks around the world as they try to get high inflation under control. High rates drive down inflation by slowing the economy, which raises the risk of a recession.

High interest rates in the United States have already dragged manufacturing and other industries into contraction, while also helping to cause several failures in the banking system that rattled confidence. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said this week that even though his central bank didn’t raise rates last week, it could still push through a couple more hikes by the end of this year.

Critics have also said the U.S. stock market was due for a breather after it climbed too far, too fast following a rally of more than 20% since mid-October. The S&P 500 just broke its longest weekly winning streak since November 2021.

Much of the exuberance was because the U.S. economy had managed to avoid a recession, even though the Fed hiked rates at a breakneck pace since early 2022. The job market in particular has remained remarkably solid.

Wall Street’s hope has been that slowing inflation could get the Fed to take it easier on rates, while a small cadre of stocks soared to incredible heights amid a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

Wall Street traders for the most part are still expecting fewer rate hikes this year than what the Fed has suggested. They may once again be underestimating the Fed’s resolve, economist Ethan Harris wrote in a BofA Global Research report.

“Early in the hiking cycle, the focus was on avoiding a recession,” he said. “However, with persistently high inflation, the focus has shifted from erring on the side of doing too little to doing too much.”

A preliminary report on Friday indicated the overall U.S. economy is continuing to grow, even though manufacturing is shrinking and its output fell to a five-month low.

“The question remains as to how resilient service sector growth can be in the face of the manufacturing decline and the lagged effect of prior rate hikes,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Any further rate hikes will of course have a further dampening effect on this sector which is especially susceptible to changes in borrowing costs.”

A slower economy could mean pressure on demand for energy, and the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. oil fell 35 cents to $69.16 after paring earlier, sharper losses. Brent crude, the international standard, dipped 29 cents to $73.85 per barrel.

On Wall Street, tech companies were hit hard. Higher interest rates hurt all kinds of investments, from stocks to bonds to crypto, but high-growth stocks tend to be among the most impacted.

A 1.4% drop for Microsoft and 3% fall for Tesla were the two heaviest weights on the S&P 500. Nvidia, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, fell 1.9% and was the third-heaviest weight on the index. It’s still up nearly 189% for the year so far.

On the winning side of the stock market Friday was CarMax. It jumped 10.1% after reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analyst expected.

Coinbase rose 6.9% after winning a Supreme Court case. The crypto trading platform wanted to keep a dispute with a customer in arbitration, a process that many companies prefer over lawsuits in courts.

In European stock markets, Germany’s DAX lost 1%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.6%. The FTSE 100 in London slipped 0.5%.

On Thursday, the Bank of England hiked its main interest rate by a bigger margin than expected to a 15-year high. It was the central bank’s 13th straight increase. Central banks in Norway, Switzerland and Turkey also raised borrowing rates.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.7%. Stocks have slid there as China’s economic recovery stumbles following the relaxation of anti-COVID restrictions.

​ Orange County Register 

Starbucks union calls strike over Pride displays

• June 24, 2023

Workers at 150 Starbucks locations will strike in the coming week over what their union says is a clash over decor supporting LGBTQ+ causes, but the company denies it’s banned any such displays and accused the union of using misinformation as a tactic in labor talks.

Starbucks Workers United said in a tweet Friday that 3,500 workers will be on strike over the next week, starting with the flagship location in Seattle.

The union has tried to establish a foothold at Starbucks for some time and at least 358 Starbucks stores have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections. A Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, became the first to unionize early last year.

But those efforts have slowed in recent months with pushback from some workers who have resisted organization efforts. Starbucks on Friday said Workers United is using misinformation about its support for LGBTQ+ causes as part of ongoing contract negotiations.

“Workers United continues to spread false information about our benefits, policies and negotiation efforts—a tactic used to seemingly divide our partners and deflect from their failure to respond to bargaining sessions for more than 200 stores,” Starbucks said in a written statement.

Starbucks, based in Seattle, said last week that there had been no change to any policy on the matter and that its support for LGBTQ+ causes is “unwavering.” The company has been outspoken in its support for LGBTQ+ employees for decades. It extended full health benefits to same-sex partners in 1988 and added health coverage for gender reassignment surgery in 2013.

Starbucks Corp. is also currently selling Pride-themed tumblers in its stores designed by Toronto artist Tim Singleton, who is gay.

Workers United says that store managers around the country have curtailed or removed displays during a monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ people. In some cases, the union said, managers told workers that Pride displays were a safety concern, citing recent incidents at Target where some angry customers tipped over merchandise and confronted workers.

Starbucks said recent anti-LGBTQ+ social media campaigns against brands like Disney, Target and Bud Light in some parts of the country have not changed its stance.

Brands like Chick-fil-A, which closes on Sundays for a day of “rest and worship,” and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, have also been targeted online by anti-LGBTQ+ groups and individuals.

Several U.S. retail brands have faced backlash from conservatives over the display of LGBTQ+ merchandise, as well as criticism from gay rights groups for insufficient support for the community after the companies relented under pressure from conservatives.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s efforts to market to the transgender community have led to a steep drop in sales of its Bud Light beer in recent weeks.

​ Orange County Register 

OC lawyer embezzled $500,000 from 89-year-old former LA boss and wife

• June 24, 2023

Attorney Bonnie Roadarmel was well-connected and well-heeled, buying first-class airfaire to Paris and shopping at Hermes, Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld.

Married to a former supervising deputy in the state Attorney General’s Office, Roadarmel was a partner at a top Orange County legal firm who specialized in insurance law.

By contrast, her former boss, Stephen Kanne, an attorney who retired from a successful real estate law practice in Los Angeles’ westside, lived a much more spartan lifestyle, but not by choice.

In May 2021, Kanne, 89, discovered why, in the words of his 74-year-old wife, Claudia, “we were always broke.”

Roadarmel, who had volunteered decades earlier to manage the couple’s finances for free, had allegedly siphoned more than $500,000 from them in just the past 10 years, according to documents Kanne supplied to police and the State Bar of California.

Some of their money went to pay down multiple American Express cards in Roadarmel’s name, as well as one in the name of her husband, Paul Roadarmel, documents show.

The evidence was solid. Bonnie Roadarmel, 62, pleaded no contest in Los Angeles County Superior Court on May 23 to two counts of felony elder abuse with a fraud enhancement. She had been charged with nine counts.

Roadarmel was sentenced to four years in state prison, but that term was suspended in favor of a sentence of one year in county jail, which could be further reduced for good behavior.

She is in custody at the Century Regional Detention facility in Lynwood and due to be released on Nov. 27. Her law license as well as that of Paul Roadarmel are listed as “inactive.” A notice alerting consumers to Bonnie Roadarmel’s felony case is listed on her bar profile.

Text apology

In a text message to Stephen Kanne, Bonnie Roadarmel apologized and said her husband knew nothing of her misdeeds.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you and Claudia. There’s no excuse for my action,” Roadarmel texted on May 24, 2021, a week after he discovered the embezzlement, according to a photograph of the text provided by Kanne.

“I will repay you for all I took from you and Claudia. … I hope you won’t prosecute.”

But the Kannes went to the police.

Before her conviction, Bonnie Roadarmel paid $630,251 in restitution, according to a court minute order.

‘I will always despise her’

But the pain remains for Stephen and Claudia Kanne, who live in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles.

“If she hadn’t been caught, then she would have gone on to deprive me of perhaps the single most important thing in my life — ensuring that Claudia would live in comfort after I passed away,” Stephen Kanne said in his victim’s statement to the court. “And for that I will always despise her.”

At his age, Stephen Kanne told the court, he doesn’t leave home much because of health issues. So the restitution doesn’t do him much good now.

“It was just Bonnie’s way of trying to buy her way out of state prison,” he told Superior Court Judge Katherine Mader.

Bonnie Roadarmel’s attorney, Katherine Corrigan, declined comment. No photographs could be found of Bonnie Roadarmel and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department would not release her booking shot. Paul Roadarmel, who retired in July 2022 from the Attorney General’s Office, did not return an email seeking comment.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office also declined to comment.

Tale of betrayal

The Roadarmel case is one of heartbreak and betrayal.

In an interview, Stephen Kanne said he first met Bonnie Roadarmel when she applied for a clerking job in his office at the age of 23 in the early 1980s. As his staff dwindled with the sour economy, Roadarmel remained and eventually worked her way up to office manager in 1987, he said. By the time he retired in 1994, there was only him and Roadarmel.

“Anything I asked her to do, she was just the tops,” Stephen Kanne said. “Bonnie handled all of the bookkeeping, including my personal stuff, and I did the legal stuff.”

He said Bonnie asked if she could continue handling his personal finances after he took down his shingle, declining to accept any compensation. She had signing authority on his checks as part of the arrangement

“Whenever I wanted to go on vacation, I would check with Bonnie to see if I had enough money,” Claudia Kanne recalled in an interview.

On birthdays and special occasions, Roadarmel showered the Kannes with expensive gifts: decorative plates and a crystal bowl from Tiffany, extravagant floral arrangements and the like. But Roadarmel never visited the couple.

Claudia Kanne said she always wondered why she and her husband never had any money. They lived frugally, she said.

“I’ve never been in a beauty parlor since the junior prom,” Claudia Kanne said. “I cannot even pronounce (Hermes). I go to the grocery and come home and take care of my husband, because that’s the kind of lifestyle I thought I could afford.”

In her victim’s statement, she told the court, “As far as Tiffany’s, I saw the movie once, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ but that’s as close as I’ve gotten, because … we were always broke.”

Meanwhile, Bonnie Roadarmel graduated from Loyola Law School in 1999 and eventually specialized in representing insurance policy holders. She worked her way up to a partnership at Newmeyer Dillon in Newport Beach.

Bonnie Roadarmel no longer works there, but her bio is still on the company website, touting that “she has successfully recovered millions of dollars for policy holders.”

Scheme unravels

Then the embezzlement scheme unraveled. In May 2021, Stephen Kanne called his bank to make sure one of his checks had cleared. He said he got a call back from a customer service representative asking who Bonnie Roadarmel was. The bank official explained that she had written several checks to herself, Kanne said.

He also learned there were payments to American Express on cards that he did not own. Kanne called an attorney, who then called Irvine police. An officer questioned Roadarmel and she immediately texted Kanne, according to a memo prepared by his attorney, Terry Kaplan, and submitted to the State Bar. A copy also was given to the Los Angeles Police Department, which took over the case.

While Roadarmel had worked as the Kannes’ personal bookkeeper since at least 1994, she turned over to them only 10 years of financial records, beginning in 2011. Among the files was an envelope containing American Express statements for cards paid down by the Kannes.

Scattered among the charges for such sundry items as gas stations, car washes, hair stylists and dry cleaners were a $9,056 round-trip ticket to Paris, France, nearly $70,000 over three years for luxury goods from Hermes, $15,677 for Chanel over a three-month period, and hundreds of dollars in charges for a private car service, according to an accounting submitted by the Kannes to police and the State Bar.

Payments also were made to insurance companies to presumably cover hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, according to Kannes’ submission to the police and bar.

“I really thought she was a special person,” reflected Stephen Kanne. “She played me like a Stradivarius.”

The Kannes said they believe Bonnie Roadarmel got a sweetheart deal in court because of her professional and personal connections.

Said Stephen Kanne: “She got a slap on the wrist with a feather.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Sipping Sunshine: The Ultimate Guide to Southern California’s Top Margaritas

• June 23, 2023

As the weather heats up in Southern California, there’s nothing quite like sipping a cold, refreshing margarita. Today, the margarita is one of the most popular cocktails in the world, and it’s enjoyed in many different forms. Whether it’s on the rocks, frozen, or made with different flavors of tequila, the margarita remains a classic cocktail that’s perfect for any occasion.

The margarita is a cocktail that originated in Mexico in the mid-20th century. While its exact origins are unknown, the most popular story involves a socialite, Margarita Sames, who created the cocktail in 1948 for her guests at her vacation home in Acapulco. She mixed tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice, and the cocktail was an instant hit.

However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the margarita became truly popular in the United States. The rise of Mexican cuisine in the country, as well as the availability of tequila, helped to popularize the cocktail. Additionally, the creation of the frozen margarita by a Dallas restaurateur named Mariano Martinez in 1971 helped to fuel the cocktail’s popularity even further.

We’ve scoured Southern California to bring you the five best margaritas in the area, so get ready to sip (and possibly get a little tipsy) with us!

Gracias Madre – West Hollywood and Newport Beach
If you’re looking for a margarita with a twist, Gracias Madre’s highly Instagrammable ‘Lavender Margarita’ is a must-try. Made with organic tequila, fresh squeezed lime juice, and a homemade lavender syrup, it’s both sweet and tart with a subtle floral undertone. Be sure to pair it with some of the restaurant’s delicious vegan Mexican-inspired dishes!

Petty Cash – Fairfax and Downtown LA
For tequila aficionados, Petty Cash’s ‘Perfect Margarita’ is a must-try. Made with a blend of blanco and reposado tequilas, fresh citrus juices, and a touch of agave nectar, it’s a classic margarita with a kick. Bonus points for the restaurant’s fun atmosphere and creative, taco-focused menu.

Lola 55 – San Diego
When it comes to margaritas in San Diego, there are a million options to choose from, but only a few that truly stand out. When you head south, the best margarita in the city is served up at Lola 55, off F street, near the Gaslamp Quarter. It’s bright, tangy, and perfectly balanced – made with just the right amount of tequila, fresh lime juice, and a touch of sweetness. You’ll want to come back to Lola 55 for seconds (and maybe even thirds).

Casa Vega – Sherman Oaks
Casa Vega’s Cadillac Margarita is an absolute must-try for anyone looking to indulge in a little luxury. Made with top-shelf tequila, Grand Marnier, fresh lime juice, and a touch of agave syrup, it’s a smooth and strong drink that’s perfect for sipping on the restaurant’s gorgeous, flower-filled patio.

Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen – Brea and Irvine
For a margarita with a tropical twist, head to Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen and order the ‘Pineapple Habanero Margarita.’ Made with fresh pineapple, habanero syrup, and top-shelf tequila, it’s a sweet and spicy drink that’s perfect for sipping on a sunny day. Bonus points for the restaurant’s lively, festive atmosphere and delicious Latin-inspired menu.

So there you have it – our five favorite margaritas in Southern California! Whether you’re looking for a classic or a creative twist on the drink, these restaurants are sure to satisfy your cravings. So grab a friend and a designated driver, and get ready to indulge in some of the best margaritas the area has to offer!

​ Orange County Register