Serving Up Ocean Friendly Business Month 2026!

Surfrider is celebrating the incredible Ocean Friendly Restaurants and Hotels that are putting their values into practice: eliminating single-use plastic waste and making it easier for their patrons to eat, drink, and stay somewhere near the coast without trashing it. It's our fourth year celebrating Ocean Friendly Business Month! 

All month long, chapters and clubs across the Surfrider Network are hosting ocean-friendly inspired events. Find an event near you and show our Ocean Friendly Businesses some much deserved love and appreciation:

Find An Event Near You

What It Means to Be Ocean Friendly

Each participating businesses must follow a set of criteria that focus on plastic reduction, water conservation, energy efficiency, and more. The result is a community of eco-conscious businesses that we can lift up and celebrate as examples of success to inspire behavior and policy change. Currently, we have 600+ restaurants and 46 hotels participating in 32 states, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Our Ocean Friendly Restaurants serve over 41 million single-use plastic-free meals, and our Ocean Friendly Hotels save 2.2 million water bottles and 3.3 million mini toiletry bottles every year.

Creating Lasting Policy Change

Ocean Friendly businesses fill in policy gaps, strengthen campaigns, and showcase how reducing disposable plastic is good for business. We have over 50 businesses voluntarily participating in states that preempt local plastic ordinances. Where local plastic reduction policies have been passed, chapters uplift our Ocean Friendly Programs to ensure restaurants and hotels are compliant with the law. Surfrider has mobilized hundreds of Ocean Friendly Businesses to support policies at local, state, and federal level by signing comment letters and attending lobby days. We also feature participating businesses in case studies that show real-life examples of plastic reduction cost savings.

Pacific Catch in Santa Monica, California signed the surfboard opposing new offshore oil drilling. Photo: Eric Scholbohm.

Bringing People Together

When customers eat at an Ocean Friendly Restaurant or stay at an Ocean Friendly Hotel, they get to experience what the world could look like without single-use plastic. Not as an abstract idea, but a real, tangible possibility. Ocean Friendly Businesses are a way to present Surfrider’s mission to new audiences in an immersive way. Food and travel bring people together, and what better way to advocate for healthy beaches than by eating at a restaurant or hotel that prioritizes sustainable business practices?

People enjoying a meal at OFR, Yodelin Broth. Photo: Yodelin Broth

How You Can Support Our Ocean Friendly Businesses

• Attend a local Ocean Friendly inspired chapter or club event
• Dine at an Ocean Friendly Restaurant
• Stay at a Ocean Friendly Hotel
• Remember to thank Ocean Friendly Business staff for being a part of the program!
• Write a good review on OFR and OFH's Yelp, Google, Trip Advisor, or Open Table pages - mention that you love that they're Ocean Friendly!
• Recruit your favorite restaurant or hotel to become Ocean Friendly
• Know of a restaurant or hotel that would be a good fit for the program? Email us! ofr@surfrider.org