The Spaghetti Bender is Closing after 55 years! 

Dear Friends, 

At the beginning of March 2025 Lorenzo’s Spaghetti Bender will serve its last meal. After 55 years we’ve decided to take a well-deserved rest and close the restaurant. 

In early 1969 Joyce Hoskinson and her mother Ailie Pasini were running Joyce’s Cafe (now called the Sugar Shack) in downtown Huntington Beach. Joyce had recently divorced and needed to make a living for her son 4 year-old Michael and her parents, times were tough. One day after serving breakfast Joyce packed her mother and Michael into her car and took a drive down Pacific Coast Hwy. In West Newport she spied a for sale sign on an old Mexican restaurant…she spun a U-turn, called the owner and quickly made a deal to buy the restaurant. Joyce’s father Papa Lorenzo was working in the Merchant Marines, one call brought him back to takeover the kitchen of the newly christened “Spaghetti Bender”. Named after Papa, and the gentle slur against Italian immigrants.

Spaghetti Bender opened in the Summer of Love in June 1969. Business was slow until a local restaurant reviewer had a great meal and wrote an article about it. That began 55 years of continuous dinner service.

In 1976 Joyce rolled the dice again. The business was booming and her busy little restaurant was turning customers away, Joyce knew she needed to expand. She closed the restaurant to completely remodel Spaghetti Bender into the charming building that stands today.

During over 20,000 unbroken days of business we served all of our guests with the same ethic: great food served in a warm and inviting atmosphere, all for a reasonable price.

Our most humble “thank you” to the staff over the years that helped to make The Bender the best. There is not enough room here to list all the amazing employees who made the Spaghetti Bender the success it was. Chef Alphonso, who served us faithfully for over 40 years after Joyce discovered him working the grill at the HB Sheraton. Janie Barger, who came to work as a waitress then became our longest serving manager and Britta Pulliam, who rode her bike from HB at 14 to work as a salad girl, hostess and waitress, then leaving to build her own award-winning restaurant, Britta’s Cafe. After closing her restaurant Britta came back to help Joyce run Spaghetti Bender.

Words cannot express our gratitude for the 55 years of success our family enjoyed in West Newport Beach. Thanks to the nearly 3 generations of customers that made the Spaghetti Bender their home away from home, together we’ve been able to create memories that will last a lifetime.

Love, the Hoskinson, Pasini and Pulliam families 

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” Winnie the Pooh

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If you’d like to join us for a final meal in the next few weeks please reserve a seat here https://www.exploretock.com/thespaghettibender, we anticipate a busy final month so please be sure to reserve your seat