Years of history at one table

Newport Beach has changed a lot since 90-year-old Albert Irwin use to get breakfast for a dollar and coffee for a dime at Richard’s Lido Coffee Shop in 1956.

“A lot of old houses by the water are gone,” said Irwin, who used to coach football for Newport Harbor High School in the 1950s. “There’s duplexes and condos there now. So much of Newport has changed — everything, really.”

Irwin, whose father built the old Irwin Building at West Oceanfront and 22nd Street in 1924, is a member of the legendary Newport social group the Goofoffers. The group has been meeting in some form for more than 50 years since the first members began gathering at a flower shop while their wives went grocery shopping at the long-closed Richard’s Lido Market in Lido Village. Dick Richard, the owner of the market and flower shop, decided the men needed something to do, so he started serving coffee, eggs and sausage. A tradition was born.

Some of the original members of the club gathered for breakfast Monday at Woody’s Diner on Balboa Peninsula to share coffee and memories. The reunion was sparked by a few recent deaths of some members.

“So many of the guys are passing on, so we didn’t want to lose any more before we did this,” said longtime Goofoffer George Grupe who was at Richard’s Lido Coffee Shop the first day it was open, about 1956.

A large framed portrait of the longtime Newport Beach resident Art Gronsky sat at the head of the table, representing one of the latest members of the Goofoffers to pass away.

Gronsky was 87 when he lapsed into a coma and died four days later while on vacation in Alaska last October. A beloved local historian, Gronsky was the man who fired the starting pistol at the Flight of the Lasers yacht race every year and Gronsky’s family owned the Balboa Pavilion in the 1950s.

“There’s hundreds of years of history sitting at this table,” Goofoffer Carter Ford said.

Anywhere from 60% to 70% of the Goofoffers have died over the years, Grupe estimated, many of them prominent longtime Newport residents with large stores of local history like Gronsky.

“He’s dead, he’s dead and he’s dead,” said Goofoffer Wally Ziglar, pointing to a laminated chart he made of member photographs. Ziglar was one of the group’s youngest members when he joined in 1968.

“These guys here, they just refuse to die,” he joked, looking around the table of about 20 old friends.

The Goofoffers enjoyed swapping stories and talking local politics. More than 1,000 men were members of the group over the years, including John Wayne and President Richard Nixon.

The club members bought custom-made coffee cups from a mug shop in Corona del Mar with gold-gilded handles and their names painted on them for about $5.50 in the 1950s. Some members brought mugs that were still intact to the reunion.

Ziglar and some of the other Goofoffers still meet every Monday for breakfast at Mimi’s Cafe in Costa Mesa, although some members, like Grupe, believe the group should stay in Newport.

“There’s a camaraderie here. It was bunch of men approaching retirement,” Ziglar said. “You’d hear a lot of stories about old Newport.”

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.