Lawsuit Filed Over Goleta Beach Restaurant
Sea Legs Founder Sues Current Development Team for Breach of Contract and Fraud
The ongoing quest to bring a restaurant back to Goleta Beach is now the subject of a lawsuit that claims the current developers broke their contract with a former partner, stole her ideas, and committed fraud along the way.
Alicia Whitney, who founded the Sea Legs restaurant group in Huntington Beach, is suing her former, longtime employee Omar Khashen and his business partner Joe Diggs for breaches of contract and fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets, and fraud. Khashen and Diggs have been remodeling the former Beachside Cafe into a new establishment since winning the bid nearly one year ago.
The property is owned by the County of Santa Barbara, which evaluated a number of restaurant proposals before awarding the long-term contract to the Sea Legs team of Whitney, Khashen, and Diggs in October 2021. But after using her expertise, concept, and brand to win the project, Whitney alleges that the two men quietly cut her out of the deal.
