Benji Weatherley, a highly regarded surfer who once competed as a pro, is launching a Hawaiian-themed bar and restaurant in Encinitas.

Breakers Café Bar & Grill, inspired by Weatherley’s formative years in Hawaii, will include Hawaiian music, an arcade and games, and a full bar, and will be housed in what is now an empty building at 481 Santa Fe Drive, previously home to Schooner Station Pizzeria & Sports Pub and before that Today’s Pizza. The nearly 2,500 square-foot indoor and outdoor space will pay homage to the North Shore of Oahu but also feature a retro surf flavor befitting of Encinitas. Weatherley previously owned a restaurant in Hawaii.

But all of that begs the question: who is Benji Weatherley?

Well, let’s start with who he was: A super talented surfer featured in the best surf flicks of the 1990s – a member of the ‘Momentum Generation’ memorialized by Encinitas film maker Taylor Steele – but who never managed to win a pro surf contest, which no one held against him, because number one, he liked surfing more than he liked contests and number two, Weatherley was well-liked, which is a massive understatement.

As Peter King, the surfer and surf journalist, wrote in Men’s Journal: “Benji Weatherley is a magnet. I mean, he’s got magnetism. Women want to be with him, and men want to be him. He can’t explain it and I won’t try.”

The other non-surfing moment that helped crystallize Weatherley’s reputation was his friendship and roommate-ship with Blink-182 front man Tom Delonge, another product of San Diego. In fact, the band’s song “Mutt” was written for and inspired by Weatherley – specifically, his fondness for sex and lots of it.  

As Delonge wrote, “Mutt is a song I wrote about my friend Benji Weatherley, a professional surfer who has sex all the time. It’s just a song about a guy and a girl who like to have sex and who don’t really care about much of anything else.”

The song, incidentally, is memorialized in the 1999 movie “American Pie.” It’s the scene when the main character Jim sets up his webcam to spy on his classmate, Nadia, while she’s taking off her clothes. When Jim sprints to his friend’s house to view the feed, “Mutt” is heard in the background.  

If that’s who Benji Weatherley was, who is he today?

Now in his late ‘40s, Weatherley seems to have aged well. In addition to being a rising restaurateur, he’s a standup comic and runs a successful podcast  in which he and his co-host interview a range of athletes, musicians and anyone else who interests them. Examples include Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell (who, according to Weatherley, once lived in Oceanside), Encinitas residents Jagger Eaton (the Olympic skateboarder) and Chris Cote, a commentator for the World Surf League and for the 2024 Olympic surfing competition.

Peter King captures Weatherley’s inherent likability. “Benji embodies all the personality and flair of his charismatic mother, the gentle side of his father’s strength, and uses it to create a constant 50-foot radius of perfect, content, nonthreatening atmosphere wherever he may be. This easygoing, unexplainable force gives the “Mutt” the uncanny ability to move throughout the universe with all the nonchalance of a cumulous cloud.”

So, he’s a likable guy who can shred.

But can he run a restaurant?

Stay tuned. Breakers Café Bar & Grill is expected to open in early 2025.