Celebrity chef Andrew Gruel became the newest member of the Huntington Beach City Council on Tuesday night in empty meeting chambers after the room was cleared following multiple disruptions from a raucous audience after the mayor moved to appoint him without debate.
Council members didn’t publicly discuss why they chose Gruel.
While several members of the audience were thrown out earlier in the meeting, the loudest pushback came when Mayor Pat Burns moved to appoint Gruel, at which point over a dozen audience members started shouting and Burns publicly ordered to clear the room except for the press and Gruel and his family.
Gruel is a celebrity chef who owns the Calico Fish House in Huntington Beach, and was the founder and previous owner of Slapfish, opening over 40 restaurants across his career.
“People probably look at my position and say ‘What does a chef know about all that stuff?’” Gruel said at the end of the meeting. “Chefs are inherent at cutting waste, that’s what we do.”
He’s also a frequent guest on Fox News, including several segments where he appeared alongside former City Attorney Michael Gates, and runs his own YouTube cooking channel with guests including former Congressman Matt Gaetz.
[Read: Huntington Beach City Attorney Heads to Trump Administration]
“Everything we do here is obviously emblematic of a movement to focus on local politics but also represent true American values, family, freedom etc,” Gruel said at the end of the meeting. “Everybody has the same goals. Safety, clean streets, clean parks, all those different things. We might just have disagreements on how you get there.”
Gruel was a fierce critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, lambasting the wave of business closures – especially restaurant shutdowns.
On Tuesday, Huntington Beach residents started interrupting Mayor Burns when he proposed appointing Gruel without any discussion.
“Shut up,” Burns said after the first interruption, calling a five minute recess.
No people were charged or arrested, according to Deputy City Manager Jennifer Carey.
Gruel’s name was first floated weeks ago by Gates at his going away party before heading to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
Gates invited Gruel on stage at the Huntington Clubwith the rest of the city council and publicly endorsed him to take over now-state Senator Tony Strickland’s vacant seat.
[Read: How State Senator Tony Strickland Became Orange County’s Political Lazarus]
“There’s going to be a great replacement for him. I don’t know, I feel like I should say something,” Gates said. “I’ve been talking to Andrew Gruel about stepping up.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Gates continued, inviting Gruel up on stage with the rest of the city council. “If council so chooses, he’s going to be a fantastic replacement.”
To view footage of that event, click here.
Ken Babineau and Valentina Bankhead were also listed as possible replacements on Tuesday’s city council agenda but they both withdrew their names from consideration at the 11th hour.
Some Surf City residents raised a series of concerns over the process behind Gruel’s appointment.
One resident highlighted how there was no public application process for interested candidates – just the city council’s picks.
“Every single person who showed up (in 2021) who wanted to be a part of that process was given their time. The public was given an opportunity to see what those people believed in,” the person said. “At what point are you going to honor the things you screamed about three years ago and invite the public into this process? Shame on you.”
In recent years, cities throughout Orange County use a public application and review process to fill vacancies – where council members publicly ask questions of a pool of candidates then eventually fill the vacancy through a majority vote.
[Read: 2021: The Year of Vacancies in Orange County Governments]
Huntington Beach did the same thing in 2021 when Tito Ortiz resigned his council seat, opening a public application process where council members ultimately selected Rhonda Bolton to take over the remaining three years on the seat.
Several people pointed out how many residents previously complained about the appointment process when Bolton was chosen, despite now-Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark being the runner-up in the 2020 election.
[Read: Rhonda Bolton Appointed to Huntington Beach City Council, Becoming First Black Woman on Dais]
In the 2024 election, the runner-up was then-Councilwoman Natalie Moser, an outspoken critic of the city council majority who lost her reelection by over 3,000 votes.
Outside the meeting chambers, several people stayed by the doors and raised complaints about being thrown out of the meeting.
“This city wants to conduct their business behind those doors,” said another resident, Paula Lazicki, outside the meeting chambers, a notion echoed by fellow resident Kyle O’Toole.
“I find it ridiculous that they seemed to have come to their decision behind closed doors.”
Brian Guevara contributed to this report.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative.