SANTA CRUZ — The Dolphin Restaurant, which has called the Santa Cruz Wharf home for more than 50 years, was demolished bit by bit Wednesday to make room for necessary repairs to the damaged south end of the more than 100-year-old wooden structure.
“The reason that the Dolphin is being demolished is that numerous pilings underneath the restaurant were damaged or went missing during the storms,” said Santa Cruz Development Manager Norm Daly at the site of the demolition. “It’s impossible to replace those piles without the building being removed.”
Daly explained that the city-owned building the Dolphin called home was built in the 1960s and was “functionally obsolete.”
“It was really time for something to happen there anyways,” said Daly. “This was a great opportunity to remove that building and then repair the piles underneath.”…