The building went up in 1955 and was christened the Plush Horse Inn in 1960...
South Bay History website wrote:
The Plush Horse Inn and Restaurant in the early 1970s. The Plush Horse Inn opened at 1700 Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach on August 3, 1960, with help from a throughbred horse from Del Mar named Plush Horse. According a Daily Breeze story, he helped to untie the ribbon to open the
motor hotel for business. The Plush Horse's rooms contained all modern conveniences, including air-condtioning, telephone and even indidivudal televsions. The facility near the corner of PCH and Palos Verdes Boulevard had two adjacent eateries, a larger restaurant knows as the Plush Horse, and the Plush Pony coffee shop, and was large enough to serve as a banquet and meeting room. In November 1980, the Plush Pony restaurant began a short but successful run as Annabelle's Discotheque, but that incarnation was troubled and eventually closed because of unruly crowds and unhappy neighbors. Upscale restaurateurs Michael Franks and Robert Bell transformed the Inn's smaller coffee shop, the Plush Pony, into Chez Melange in 1982, when the inn was still known as the Plush Pony. It became one of the South Bay's best-known restaurants almost immediately. After its stint as Annabelle's, the main restaurant became the French restaurant Renaud's, after its chef, Renaud Defond. Then-Daily Breeze restaurant critic Charles Britton gave it two stars in a 1985 review, but Renaud's closed soon thereafter. The Strand nightclub opened at the site in May 1986, and drew name acts such as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Leon Russell, Chris Isaak, Gregg Allman, Nick Lowe and Pancho Sanchez during its ten years of operation as a supper club featuring musical entertainment. The Strand struggled in its later years, filing bankruptcy in 1994, though it continued to hold shows. The Strand nightclub in 1994. It was rechristened as Club Caprice in 1996 with the idea of attracting a more upscale and less rowdy clientele, but increasing competition from venues such as the House of Blues in West Hollywood, who paid more for acts and insisted on exclusivity, hurt the club's revenues and it closed in late 1999. Bristol Farms drastically remodeled the building before opening one of its gourmet grocery stores on December 6, 2000.
