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.”
Once the goofing off found its way to social media, more people started coming up.
“You post it on Instagram, you do it consistently enough that eventually other people show up and, yeah, it becomes a thing. Five years later, this is what it's become.”
It became a lovely gathering of great cars driven by nothing but friendly people.
“It's the amazing people. And I mean, you walk around—it's not really the cars. It's all the people who are here every week. It's crazy—it's really wild. It started with cars, and I think people come for the cars. But now it’s the relationships for us, and it's an escape. It's really—it's an escape from the rest of… everything.”
Last Friday there were Porsches (all 911s) spread out over many model years, from an aubergine 1972 911T and an ivory 1979 911SC Outlaw 2.7-liter 911 S to a superb GT3 RS. In between was my borrowed GTS Cabriolet, which was perfectly at home in this environment.
Up there, no one cares what movies you’ve been in, how much money you make, or what style of driving shoe you sport. It’s just great cars, great people, and squirrels.
“This is the Mile High Club, the other one,” Ryan said of the 5,340-foot elevation. “And it's not a club—that's the most important thing—everyone is welcome. It's not car-specific or make-specific. There's no judging, no style of car or person-specific. You can be a tire kicker, you can be a stats reader, you can be a driver. It started as a drivers meet, but it's kind of everything now.”
Is it going to get too big?
“I mean, some days we feel like it's gotten too big. But then the ebbs and flows of life take over. The next week it's calmed down and everything's back to normal. So I think whatever it is, it's gotten here naturally and organically. And whatever people seem to like about it is that natural, organic quality. I feel like whatever this is, it's gonna live and die at its own time.”
A smiling Nicole gave a thumbs up in agreement. And with that I ate a chocolate glazed Dunkin’ Donut with nuts and we talked about life and Porsches. I saw two friends whom I hadn’t expected to meet, because that’s what happens up here.
Then I got back into my absolutely delightful screaming-yellow-zonker GTS and drove back to the city, better for the experience, but mildly dreading having to return to the real world. Maybe I’ll go back next Friday. Maybe I’ll see you there?
But for now, until next week, it’s auf wiedersehn, baby. We're all on our own, $6 million short of true happiness.
