🌙 Moonshadows Malibu. Gone but not forgotten ... but I wish I’d taken more than these recently discovered photos to remember it by. 🌕 On Jan. 7, 2025, The Palisades and Eaton fires started within hours of each other, sparked by dry conditions, 90 mph Santa Ana winds and, allegedly in the case of the #PalisadesFire, a man who has pleaded not guilty to arson and other charges (current trial date: April 21, 2026). By the time both fires were fully contained, more than 30 people had died, an unknown number of animals had perished and some 17,000 homes, schools, churches and other structures had been destroyed.  One of those structures was @moonshadows_malibu, which on Jan. 8 burned down to the pilings that had kept various restaurants cantilevered over the ocean at that site for more than 75 years. My Dad started taking me there in the late 1970s, when I visited him on selected weekends and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the teen-aged me. The restaurant had become Moonshadows by then, groovily decorated with plants and wood and stained glass to go with the view, which I was still young enough to enjoy without intrusive thoughts about the California Coastal Commission. I wish I had listened more carefully as Dad, who was 12 years older than my Mom, talked about dining there when it was still the Big Rock Beach Café, after he served in the Navy during WWII and was living in nearby Topanga Canyon as an astronomy major at UCLA.  Later — much, much later — Moonshadows became *the* place my husband and I stopped for lunch after picking up out-of-state visitors at LAX. The vibe, the views, the occasional appearance of a celebrity at the next table, often conspired to say, “Welcome to California” without a braggadocious word being spoken. Given all of the above, you’d think I’d have more than this paltry collection of Moonshadows photos, recently discovered on an old computer but shot in 2007 when the Snake River Kobe beef burger with taro chips was $15.50 and the “hangar” steak sandwich with “kimchee” was $13.95. . . ⬇️ continued in comments ⬇️ . . #MoonshadowsMalibu #oneyearago #malibucalifornia #losangeles