Private Hibachi Chef in Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach is the quiet western end of Panama City Beach, on the stretch of Front Beach Road before the towers begin. It is lower-rise than the resort end and a good deal more residential: small complexes, duplexes and beach houses, many of them with a driveway and a yard rather than a shared deck and a lift. For an outdoor dinner that is the easier arrangement of the two, and it is the reason a hibachi setup here usually needs less negotiation than one further east. The other thing worth knowing is the geography. Laguna Beach sits close to Lake Powell, the coastal dune lake that marks the county line, so a group staying here is a short drive from the Walton County side without paying resort prices to be there.

Most properties on this stretch give us something workable outdoors: a driveway, a patio, a side yard or a deck. We need roughly 6 ft x 4 ft of level ground with open sky directly above it, plus about 3 feet of clear standing room on the chef's side. The two things that rule a spot out here are the same as anywhere on this coast: a screened enclosure over a pool, which looks open and is not, and a noticeable slope on a driveway, which sends oil to one edge of the flat-top and leaves the chef fighting the surface all night. A slight grade is fine. Send a photo with the enquiry if you are unsure and we will tell you before the date rather than on it.

Laguna Beach is reached along Front Beach Road, and in season that road is the constraint rather than the distance. The chef aims to arrive about 45 minutes before your seating and plans around the traffic rather than asking you to. Parking is straightforward at most properties here, which is one of the advantages of the western end, but we do ask you to keep a driveway space clear rather than leave us to find a street spot with the cart. Laguna Beach is outside the 30A zone where we charge no travel fee, so travel is priced against your exact address on the booking form and shown before you commit.

The bookings this end of the beach suits are the ones that wanted 30A and looked at the price of it. A bachelorette group renting a house in Laguna Beach gets a driveway, a yard and a short drive to Inlet Beach, and spends the difference on the weekend rather than the address. Birthdays work here for the same reason, with the added advantage that a house tends to beat a condo when half the guest list is under twelve and the party needs somewhere to run around. What hibachi adds in either case is that dinner stops being a logistics problem: no table for fourteen to find on Front Beach Road at seven, no second car, no waiting. Rates are the same as everywhere we cook: $60 per adult on the 2-protein plate, $30 per child aged 5 to 12, and a $500 minimum on the food total.