The Ritz, a Newport Beach institution, shuts down just 17 months after its reopening

Roughly 17 months after its much-anticipated return in Newport Beach, The Ritz Prime Seafood will serve its last dinner under current ownership Wednesday night and will close indefinitely.

The restaurant’s operator, Woodland Hills-based Grill Concepts, said in a statement that The Ritz’s “strategic repositioning and turnaround” had positioned it for sale.

It isn’t clear who bought the restaurant or whether the new owner plans to reopen it.

Grill Concepts opened The Ritz Prime Seafood in October 2015 at 2801 W. Coast Hwy. with a seafood-centric menu and a name slightly altered from its predecessor’s. The location along Mariners’ Mile was formerly occupied by the Chart House restaurant.

The original Ritz Restaurant, famous for its red-lipped waitresses and three-martini lunches, had a long history in Newport Beach before it closed in 2014. Hans Prager opened the upscale eatery in 1977 near the Newport Pier, then moved in 1982 to the more chic Newport Center, where it remained until the site manager, the Irvine Co., declined to renew its lease.

Beccy Rogers, general manager at the former Ritz Restaurant in Newport Beach, talks to the wait staff before a New Year’s Eve dinner in 2013.

(SCOTT SMELTZER / Daily Pilot)

Grill Concepts’ chief executive, Bob Spivak, partnered with Ritz owner Charles Mathewson and decided to revamp the restaurant at a new location overlooking Newport Harbor.

“At the time Hans opened The Ritz, it was a cutting-edge restaurant. But 35 years later, things had changed,” Spivak said shortly before the restaurant’s reopening in 2015. “We knew if we were going to do it, it would have to be the type of restaurant Hans would open if he was opening it in 2015.”

Wood tables — sans The Ritz’s classic white tablecloths — and floor-to-ceiling windows that let in natural light made the new restaurant’s decor more modern than the old landmark’s black leather booths and red chairs.

The Ritz Prime Seafood’s menu featured items such as grilled lobster topped with burgundy truffles, and dry, aged prime steaks with umami butter or foie gras butter. The restaurant also had a raw bar with fresh oysters and other seafood flown in daily.

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