Good point about grocery shopping. However don’t recall grocery stores in that area. It’s mostly residential, high end shopping, and restaurants. Plus, Most grocery stores have a parking lot so parallel isn’t necessary. There’s are convenient bus stops everywhere in S beach. My point is - if you’ve been there - you’d see it’s just not necessary to use a car for going shopping or to eat lunch. In fact it’s more of a headache. Think nyc on the beach.
My mom really loved S Beach. It was cute. She loved the city. Liked the beach. But found the beach boring. So that’s how we started going to S Beach. We’d stayed in condos in that general area.