LA's New Favorite Destination Event: The Good Vibes Breakfast Club

The Good Vibes Breakfast Club, a gathering held every Friday morning high in the mountains that ring Los Angeles, is exclusive. Not because they don’t let everyone in. Quite the contrary, they let in anyone who wants to come.

It’s just that to get to the location—Newcomb’s Ranch on Angeles Crest Highway 25 or 30 miles from the nearest freeway or other paved street—you have to successfully negotiate a twisting mountain road. Granted, you don’t necessarily have to negotiate it quickly, but going fast can be fun (provided you do it safely, staying on your side of the double yellow, and waiting politely for the slower cars to use the turnouts).

Angeles Crest Highway—State Highway 2—includes 117 great curves between the Shell Station and Newcomb’s Ranch—some fast, some slow, but all of which are best negotiated in some sort of really special sports car or motorcycle.

Thus, not only is everyone who makes the pilgrimage on Friday mornings likely to be driving a coveted gem, but they’re far more likely to appreciate great engineering and the talent it takes to utilize it fully.

Like all the best things in life, the Good Vibes Breakfast Club came about as pure serendipity. “It's not even an event,” said founder Jay Ryan. “This was an accident. What we have here today was never intended. My wife and I started coming up here on Fridays for breakfast.”

Newcomb’s Ranch used to serve food year-round and functioned as a sort of dining destination for sports cars and motorcycles. Then the pandemic hit, Newcomb’s shut down, and a for sale sign has stood out front for the last year or so. Asking price is $6 million, which is possibly absurd as a business investment considering that even if you sold thousands of hamburgers a day, which you wouldn’t, you’d never make enough to service just the debt on the mortgage, let alone pay the taxes.

So now Newcomb’s and its generously proportioned parking lot serve as a mere goal line for sports car drivers and motorcyclists. You have to aim somewhere. It’ll be like that until Jay Leno or Ralph Lauren or the Petersen Foundation (just a hope!) buys it and the burgers start grilling once again.

For now, Jay Ryan brings a few boxes of donuts, a small box of coffee, and everyone’s happy. It serves as an escape and a diversion for Jay and his wife Nicole now that they battle Nicole's multple sclerosis. On the day we met, Nicole was sitting in a wheelchair next to the couple’s Porsche, smiling and chatting and holding court with their many friends.

“Life sort of flipped upside down for us,” Jay said when we met him and Nicole at Newcomb’s. “So we said, ‘Let's screw it for a while’ and start (goofing) off on Friday mornings.”