The Kraken on South Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas's Cardiff-by-the-Sea district has anchored the Cardiff bar and live-music scene since Doug Aldred opened the doors in 1976 after relocating from Detroit. The stage and dance floor host live bands up to seven nights a week with no cover charge — a booking format spanning classic rock, punk, and country acts that feeds the same Restaurant Row nightlife corridor as Cicciotti's Trattoria Italiana next door. The building itself predates the bar: it previously served as an office for a local construction firm and then as the original home of surf legend Don Hansen's Hansen Surfboards in the 1960s before Aldred converted the space. Walls throughout the low-ceilinged interior are covered with nearly 50 years of memorabilia, magazine clippings, and signed ephemera, and the back room houses pool tables overlooking the nature preserve that borders the property. The bar changed to local ownership in 2014, and the Cardiff nightlife corridor it anchors extends into the dining scene at Everest Himalayan Cuisine and other South Coast Highway 101 restaurants. The compact floorplan packs a full-length bar, a dedicated stage with house sound system, a dance floor, and a rear patio into a single beachside structure directly across the 101 from Cardiff State Beach.