The same shoreline since 1953.

Sporting Club Beach was founded in 1953 by George Abou Nassar, an American University of Beirut graduate who named the club after Sporting Club of Monte Carlo. The location — a stretch of rocky coastline at the foot of Manara in Ras Beirut — was, and is, one of the few places in the city where the sea is still the sea.

For seven decades, the club has been run by the same family. Walid, Marwan, and Ralph Abou Nassar carry the daily work today. The next generation — Tarek, Rayan — has already begun.

We have never closed. Not during the fifteen years of the Lebanese Civil War. Not during the 2006 conflict. Not during the 2020 port explosion. Not during any of the economic crises since. On the worst days, fewer people came. The doors stayed open.

What we are is what we have always been. A meeting place by the sea. Three saltwater pools cut into the rock. Our kitchens have fed Beirut for generations. Old umbrellas. Members whose grandparents swam here.

We don’t compete with bright lights and grand designs. There are clubs for that. We are something else. We are the place you keep coming back to.