The Golden Cove Shopping Center in Rancho Palos Verdes isn’t located directly on the ocean. It just feels like it is.
Situated at the southern terminus of Hawthorne Blvd. at its intersection with Palos Verdes Drive West, the cozy center is named for Golden Cove, an ocean cove dotted by tidepools that’s just a brief hike away.
The picturesque location just north of Point Vicente appealed to developer Jerry Moss, who announced plans for the construction of the new shopping center in May 1965. The seven-acre site he chose was on the landward side of Palos Verdes Drive, just below the bluffs from the Los Verdes golf course.
The Los Angeles firm Novikoff Engineers designed the center, which was estimated initially to cost $1 million. The plan called for 76,000 square feet of one and two story buildings designed in a muted Mediterranean style meant to be compatible with the natural setting.
The center would be anchored by a 28,000-square-foot Safeway grocery store, and include several smaller businesses, including a Bank of America branch, beauty shop, independent drug store, shoe repair, dress shop and others.
Office suites also would be available on the top floor of a two-story office/small business combination building.
By the time ground was broken officially for the project on Dec. 2, 1965, its estimated cost had risen to $2.5 million. Its builder, the general contracting firm Ernest W. Hahn, predicted that construction would be complete by June 1966.
Golden Cove’s anchor Safeway grocery store opened for business on July 21, 1966. For a time, it and the Bank of America branch were the only two retailers open at the new center.
In April 1966, the recently formed St. Paul’s Lutheran Church announced it would build its church on a site that it had purchased adjacent to the center
Restaurateur Ralph Wood Jr., owner and operator of the Woody’s Smorgasburger chain established in Southern California in the 1950s, heard about openings at the Golden Cove center. After investigating it, he decided it would be ideal for a new fine dining restaurant he’d been considering.
He opened the Admiral Risty on Oct. 10, 1966. Named after his wife, Barbara “Risty” Wood, the steak and seafood eatery became a landmark Peninsula restaurant for the next five decades.
An unfavorable lease renewal deal led to its closure on Aug. 17, 2019. It was replaced by a Chase Bank branch office.
In 2025, I wrote about a teen club for Palos Verdes area high schoolers that opened in one of the second-floor office suites at Golden Cove on June 24, 1967. Club Bagatelle operated until its founder, Elin Vanderlip, discontinued it in November 1968.
A Vons supermarket eventually took over the original Safeway location. Vons closed that store in 1994, and the building was repurposed eventually into the Rancho Palos Verdes branch of Peninsula Montessori School, which opened in 2001.
After more than a decade without a grocery store or food market of any kind, a Trader Joe’s market opened for business on April 17, 2010, after its owners replaced and remodeled the former Golden Lotus restaurant building.
One of the more picturesque Starbucks coffee outlets opened in the center on Aug. 8, 2003. Its outdoor back patio offers a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean that includes, on a clear day, Santa Catalina Island.
The Starbucks was added as part of a year-long overall renovation that concluded in October 2003.
Though developer Jerry Moss went on the record in April 1967 as opposing incorporation, the Golden Cove Shopping Center became and remains part of the newly formed city of Rancho Palos Verdes when the latter officially became a city on Sept. 7, 1973.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
Palos Verdes Peninsula News archives.
