{"id":472455,"date":"2026-09-23T00:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/472455\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T00:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:10:19","slug":"claim-jumper-steakhouse-in-buena-park-closes-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/472455\/","title":{"rendered":"Claim Jumper steakhouse in Buena Park closes \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Claim Jumper is down to one Orange County restaurant after closing its Buena Park location this week. The restaurant served its final meal on Monday, Sept. 21, confirmed by an employee.<\/p>\n<p>Reddit users <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/orangecounty\/comments\/1wmnloi\/claim_jumper_buena_park_is_closing_tuesday_sep\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">took notice of the closure<\/a> on Sept. 21. The Buena Park venue, across the street from Knotts Berry Farm, has since been removed from Claim Jumpers\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.claimjumper.com\/locations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">locations page<\/a>. That leaves its Costa Mesa outpost, located inside South Coast Plaza, and San Diego spot as the chain\u2019s only remaining California locations.<\/p>\n<p>Hungry? Sign up for The Eat Index, our weekly food newsletter, and find out where to eat and get the latest restaurant happenings in Orange County. <a style=\"color: red\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/06\/24\/one-of-southern-californias-last-claim-jumper-steakhouses-has-closed\/?clearUserState=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">San Bernardino space quietly closed<\/a>, ending the chain\u2019s presence in the Inland Empire.<\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2026\/09\/21\/are-restaurants-the-new-anchors-at-orange-county-malls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Are restaurants the new anchors at Orange County malls?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Craig Nickoloff and his father, Carl, founded Claim Jumpers in Los Alamitos in 1977. The Nickoloff family name has long been synonymous with dining in Orange County. Craig\u2019s son, Nick Nickoloff, who owns and operates namesake restaurants <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/02\/04\/nicks-third-restaurant-officially-opens-in-newport-beach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Nick\u2019s<\/a> and South of Nick\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Craig Nickoloff sold a majority stake in his eatery to a private equity firm in 2005. The chain later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2010\/09\/10\/claim-jumper-sold-files-for-bankruptcy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">went into bankruptcy in 2010<\/a>. At its height, Claim Jumpers operated 45 locations in eight states.<\/p>\n<p>Claim Jumpers is known for its its Gold Rush-era decor, with steaks galore and oversized portions of comfort fare.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, there are three other Claim Jumper locations, owned and operated by Landry\u2019s and sometimes branded as CJ, found at Golden Nugget casinos in Las Vegas and Laughlin, Nevada, and Lake Charles, Louisiana.<\/p>\n<p>No word yet what, if anything, will replace the Buena Park location found at 7971 Beach Blvd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claim Jumper is down to one Orange County restaurant after closing its Buena Park location this week. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1311,7,611,944,412,580,420,136],"class_list":["post-472455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-buena-park","tag-california","tag-orange-county","tag-restaurant-closures","tag-restaurants","tag-restaurants-food-and-drink","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}