The long-vacant and controversial restaurant site at the Santa Barbara Airport has a new tenant, and this concept just might take off.

The Goleta Spot has agreed to a yearlong lease with the City of Santa Barbara to take over 521 Norman Firestone Road, the former site of the Elephant Bar and High Sierra Grill.

One of the owners, Ben Schroeder, plans to partner with food trucks, but people will order and eat inside the restaurant. He envisions about five businesses at the site, in somewhat of a public market fashion.

“The idea is to bring everyone together and have a place to connect,” Schroeder told Noozhawk.

The city’s Airport Commission recently approved the lease, which is for a year with two one-year options. The annual rent for the 8,695 square feet of space will be $129,381.60
exclusive of utilities, beginning July 1.

“We’re really excited to see that old building brought back to life and brought back to what we can use, and I am hoping to have lunch over there. That would be awesome,” said John Feldhans, airport properties manager.

The lease comes as the Airport Department is moving forward with the redevelopment of its Fixed Base Operator facilities in alignment with the Airport Master Plan. FBOs are companies that manage private recreational air travel. The Request for Proposals is in its final stages. Santa Barbara currently has two fixed-base operators — Signature Aviation and Atlantic Aviation.

“He’s been in contact with the FBOs for the FBO redevelopment to potentially have a longer-term lease,” Feldhans said.

Schroeder said he is not planning any major changes to the building. He’ll put up some new paint.

“The inside, stripped down from its last adventures, needs paint and some furniture and some repair — nothing major,” Schroeder said.

The concept, he said, will be food trucks — Goleta-based companies that have a following.

“The idea is to feature local brewery, cider, sodas, different offerings,” he said.

The restaurant will be fast-casual, he said.

“Renovating the kitchen would have been very costly,” said Schroeder, who also owns the Santa Barbara Cider Co. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t invest a lot into the build-out of the kitchen, so we are going to use it as a commissary. The approved food truck will be parked outside, but no one will be ordering from the food truck.”

People will order inside, the food will be made at the food truck and then brought inside, and people will pick it up at the counter.

It will be open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Schroeder said eventually the site could feature live music.

The restaurant site in recent years has been plagued by controversy. The Elephant Bar did business there for about 25 years, but then the company went out of business. High Sierra Grill eventually took over, but after a few years it attempted to transfer the lease to Warren Butler and his Flightline concept. The city declined to approve the lease transfer.

Butler in 2019 secured a $500,000 loan from ACI Jet, a fixed-based operator that serves airports in San Luis Obispo, Orange County, Paso Robles and Oceano, and acquired $100,000 in seed funding from limited partner Steve Siry.

High Sierra struggled at the spot, at 521 Firestone Road, the former site of the Elephant Bar restaurant. Butler rebranded the restaurant as Flightline, an ode to World War II memorabilia and a celebration of airplane and aviation culture.

Then-Airport Director Henry Thompson and other city officials refused to let High Sierra transfer the lease to Butler, raising questions about his financial viability. At the time, ACI Jet had been one of the companies that the city believed would bid on the FBO contract.

City officials at the time worried that ACI Jet wanted to acquire the lease so that it would give itself a competitive advantage to secure an FBO contract eventually. ACI eventually pulled its funding for Flightline.

At the end of the Airport Commission meeting in March, Schroeder obliquely referenced some of the past drama.

“The goal is to be a contributing member to this specific community and to not make it in the newspaper unless it is a good thing,” Schroeder said.