Plans for his ‘passion project’

Despite being worth oodles of money, gallivanting around the country and world, attending Hollywood parties and being a major motion picture director, Newport Beach native McG said his favorite thing to do in his hometown is ride his beach cruiser from his Balboa home to TK Burgers.

And now, the successful producer and director responsible for “The OC,” the “Charlie’s Angels” movies and most recently “We Are Marshall,” will put some of his focus on revitalizing the site that has been home to the Arches restaurant and liquor store for all these years.

Last fall, he and Newport Beach developer Chris Brigandi, who co-founded Strada Properties, partnered to sign a 10-year lease at the property in what McG called a “passion project.”

“We just want this to be a reflection of everything that is so great about this town — the Wedge, the Dory Fleet, the Junior Lifeguards,” McG said during a recent interview in his Newport home.

Current Arches owner Dan Marcheano will pack up his kitchen and move his business elsewhere in Newport and focus more on barbecue.

Marcheano said he owns the rights to the name and corporation of the Arches, but regardless of what they’ll call the place, Brigandi and McG are excited at the prospect of having the neighborhood restaurant.

Their plans are not ritzy or glamorous. All they want to do is continue the restaurant’s history as a quality neighborhood restaurant, with the welcome mat out for every resident.

“This is not going to be exclusive, but rather inclusive — it’ll be like a club, in a way, but one that everyone’s a member of,” Brigandi said.

To pull it off, they rounded up some other local guys — including McG’s oldest friend, Mark McGrath, frontman for singing group Sugar Ray and co-host of the TV entertainment news program “Extra,” Bob Hurley and other longtime Newport residents and friends of the pair.

In the deal, they’ll also run what is now known as the Arches Liquor Store, located next door to the restaurant — something that has them both quite excited. But they plan on changing the store’s format, creating a specialty market with coffee, meats, cheeses, and wine and beer. He wants to give the store more of a coffeehouse vibe, where a resident can read the paper, enjoy a snack and mingle with neighbors.

“It’s designed to last forever; we’re not looking at this as an aggressive money maker, we just want it to work,” McG said.