Celebrating 35 Years
The Restaurant—Where "The Rest of the World Is Welcome"

Story by Debbie L. Holmer with Susan Larsen

The year was 1973. Richard Nixon was in the White House and gasoline was thirty-nine cents a gallon. Kellogg’s corn flakes cost twenty-five cents for a big box. The top film was The Exorcist. It was the golden year of “Glam rock,” platform shoes and big, big hair. Elvis gave his unforgettable Aloha concert in Hawaii. The World Trade Center in New York City was dedicated. The Six Million Dollar Man made its TV debut. And in a little town on the North Coast of California, The Restaurant opened its doors, away from “the rest of the world.”

With two young children (Peter now forty-seven and Kristan now forty-three) in tow, Jim and Barbara Larsen and partner Rose Nunes, moved to Fort Bragg on Memorial Day of 1973. Their dear friend, artist Olaf Palm (1935–2000), by then a Fort Bragg resident, had encouraged them to move to the Mendocino Coast to realize their dream of starting their own restaurant after many years of working in other restaurants.

They found the perfect place for their new life at 418 North Main Street, Fort Bragg. The building was constructed in 1895 as the area’s first hospital and doctor’s offices (The Grey Whale Hospital opened in the 1920s). Through its many decades it had also served as a maternity hospital, boarding house, pharmacy, florist, soda fountain, bakery and even an Italian restaurant. The Larsens were able to secure a lease on the building (later purchasing it) and they moved in upstairs.

On July 9, 1973, with much help from family and friends, they opened The Restaurant, so named because of Jim and Barbara’s earlier years of saying, “I’m going to the restaurant” when they would leave the house to go to work. Fort Bragg was a workingman’s town with simple, inexpensive restaurants. Jim and Barbara had dreams of creating something new and different, but with respect for the local needs. Their first menus reflect their sensibilities with dinner offerings ranging from grilled liver and onions to trout stuffed with crab and mushrooms. The lunch menu boasted a selection from hamburgers to Salade Niçoise. The portions were generous, the food was terrific, the prices were reasonable, the Larsens were great hosts, and the staff was attentive.

It’s easy to see why The Restaurant was a success from the first day. Everyone at The Restaurant—locals, tourists, VIPs (Truman Capote came for lunch on many occasions and offered Jim a princely sum for the Olaf Palm painting that still hangs over the front door), movie stars (Barbara baby-sat for Goldie Hawn’s kids during the making of Overboard), musicians (nearly everyone who played at the Caspar Inn got dinner “on the house”; flautist Paul Horn stayed upstairs and serenaded the family; Norton Buffalo became a family friend), artists, single moms on welfare, fisherfolk, loggers—it was an exciting time with the arts, music and tourism all taking off.

Art, food and music
Jim Larsen grew up in Minnesota, about which he once said, “Succotash, stewed tomatoes and canned corn were very popular. When I first came to the California coast in 1950 I had no idea of the variety of fresh vegetables and seafood that were available. I had never heard of these strange things called avocado, artichoke, abalone—and those are just the ‘A’s.’” He began his professional cooking career in 1958 when he was hired at “Emil Villa’s Hickory Pit” in Walnut Creek, California. By 1969 he was the executive chef at the prestigious “Plumed Horse” restaurant in Saratoga, California.

Barbara Larsen had years of experience as a waitress and dining room manager but her true love was the “back of the house” where she could create recipes and menus. Between 1972 and 1997, Barbara developed hundreds of recipes representing thousands of hours of work. Her handwritten recipe cards are still used on a daily basis to create the dishes that never go out of style or lose their appeal. Barbara passed away in 1999 but her legacy lives on.

In the early years The Restaurant served dinner six nights a week, lunch four days a week, and Sunday brunch. In 1977 Jim, Barbara, and Rose also took on the challenge of the Mendocino Hotel. Robert (R.O.) Peterson, owner and developer of the Mendocino Hotel, turned to Jim and Barbara for help when his entire hotel and kitchen staff walked out on the night of the Christmas party. Peterson, a big fan of The Restaurant and the Larsens, made them an offer they couldn’t refuse and for the next year and a half they ran both restaurants! At the Hotel, Jim and Barbara redesigned the kitchen, the dining room and the Garden Room, hired and trained the staff, created the menus, cooked, and managed the whole operation. Rose held down The Restaurant with Jim and Barbara going back and forth to the Hotel. This was a phenomenal effort that took its toll on Barbara’s health. The money they earned enabled them to put a real foundation under the whole Restaurant building and install a new floor and carpet—things that they never could have afforded otherwise.

The Larsens’ friendship with Olaf Palm led to many an exciting event. Jim hired Olaf and friends to play jazz at The Restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights, and at Sunday Brunch for nearly twenty years. Cliff Olsen, Phil and Jane Lawrence, Ren Arcand, Richard Cooper, Kent Glenn and many more appeared at The Restaurant over the years making a few dollars and enjoying a fabulous meal. Sadly, many of these greats are now gone and live music is no longer served.

The original oil paintings adorning the walls at The Restaurant represent forty years of collecting by Jim and Susan Larsen. In the spring of 1975 Olaf and Susan Palm and Jim Larsen devised a plan whereby friends, restaurant patrons and family would each contribute a hundred dollars in advance to fund a painting trip to Provence for the Palms. In return each “sponsor” would receive an oil painting from the trip. When all the paintings had the final touches and were ready for showing, a grand banquet, exhibition and selection party was held at The Restaurant. This method of financing trips was so successful that it became nearly an annual event for the Palms. With each new trip the Palms planned, Jim Larsen played a large role in finding “sponsors” among his patrons at The Restaurant. Many of the paintings on display at The Restaurant are from these trips. The Larsen collection and display of over thirty-five Palm original oil paintings is the largest in the world. A great number of these paintings can be seen in the book Olaf Palm: A Life in Art by Irene Thomas, published in 2005.

Susan (divorced from Olaf Palm in 1994) and Jim Larsen were married in 2000. Their families had grown up together and Olaf and Jim had been best friends. Susan and Jim had been friends for over twenty-five years. During her six-year absence from the coast Susan spent five years in Louisville, Kentucky working with Lynn Winter at Lynn’s Paradise Café. In the 1980s Lynn had been a student at the James Krenov School of Fine Woodworking in Fort Bragg, and worked at the Café Beaujolais in Mendocino with Margaret Fox for five years. The wild and wonderful restaurant Lynn later created in Louisville turned out to be a training ground for the future Mrs. Larsen. Susan’s background in textiles, art, design, and food is a perfect match with both Jim and The Restaurant. Jim is her biggest fan and says he “couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do this without her.” Her changes and touches are everywhere in The Restaurant. Their mutual admiration and affection is obvious. They are a great team—each one’s skills complementing the other.

‘He moves like a dancer’
Gayle Caldwell wrote the following about Jim in a 1995 article for the Real Estate Magazine: “He moves like a dancer, or professional basketball player at solo practice, pivoting right while glancing left to survey the field of play. Loose-limbed he twists, bends, reaches; no movement is wasted or overstated.”

At the helm of his ship every night, Jim cooks virtually every entrée. While cooking he keeps an eye on the dining room and the front door, always knowing who is there, and he takes the time to go out and talk to guests several times during the evening.

What keeps Jim Larsen going? According to Susan, in an article she wrote for Menus from Mendocino magazine, it’s “the joy of creating a fine meal; the excitement, exhaustion and exhilaration that come from a really, really busy night when it all works like a dance; the lifelong friendships he has made with customers and staff; training new employees and watching them develop their skills.” In the same article, Jim is quoted as saying: “It’s hard to believe that after fifty years of professional cooking I still derive tremendous mental and physical satisfaction form this work.”

Jim has trained dozens of young people at The Restaurant as bussers, kitchen help, dishwashers, etc. Barbara trained the dining room staff—servers and bussers—over the years (including Susan in 1978 and her daughter, Cayo, in 1987). Everyone learns skills that last a lifetime. Jim says, “I tell them this is not your last job, and training you receive here will help you in any job you have in the future.” Jim wants all the kitchen staff to be cross-trained so that they are proficient in every area—starting with dishwashing, janitorial work, prepping, knife skills, handling ingredients; always respecting the food, the customers and each other. Running the restaurant is a cooperative affair; there’s a rhythm that must be found and honored and everyone is crucial to its smooth operation and consistent quality.

The staff at The Restaurant tends to stay a long time. Most of the employees have been there for years. Liuana Cofrancesco, prep cook, dessert chef and all-around kitchen guru, has been with The Restaurant for twenty-seven years. She says, “It has been a tremendous experience to work in such a family atmosphere.” Madeline Richards has been a server since 1984 and says, “It’s been easy by the simple fact that the food is always good—and so the guests are always happy. Jim and Barbara and now Susan have been good to me and I enjoy the family atmosphere. Our customers and co-workers have become my friends.” Sis Burdick came to The Restaurant twelve years ago with a lifetime of restaurant experience. She says, “I’ve worked in restaurants for over forty years and this has been the best—the best food, the best people. The Larsens are compassionate people and good friends—more than just an employer!”

Continuity, family and community
The themes of continuity, family and community lie behind every aspect of The Restaurant and are what drive the Larsens to continue. Nearly everyone in the Larsen family has worked at The Restaurant in some capacity including son Peter, daughters Kristan and Cayo, brother David, nieces Berit and Inga, grandnieces Una and Celia, and even granddaughters Ella and Clare. It is truly a family establishment spanning three generations. The Restaurant has always supported community events and fund-raisers from spaghetti feeds at the school when the kids were young, to benefit golf tournaments (Jim and Susan are avid golfers). “When we are asked for a donation, there is never a question of whether or not to—we support our community and they support us; it’s simple.”

A longtime fan and friend of The Restaurant and the Larsens, Doug Moody, co-owner of the North Coast Brewing Company (Mark Ruedrich is founder and co-owner) says, “One of the reasons for the continued success of The Restaurant is that they created an environment and atmosphere of having dinner at ‘home.’ Having dinner there warms the heart and brings a smile to the face. The passion for quality has never ebbed, serving classic American food with love and care. Jim and Susan Larsen and The Restaurant make Fort Bragg a better place to live. The whole community has benefited from their presence.” (The Brewery—as it is known—will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary September 5, 6 and 7).

Preserving quality in a tough economy
As one watches the news on television, we can’t help but to worry. Although we don’t have food shortages in the U.S. yet, supplies of staple foods are tightening and the cost of everything is increasing. And, of course, we are seeing the cost of gasoline and fuel oil increase almost on a daily basis. Jim and Susan Larsen comment about the impact all of this has on their business.

“Running a small, one-of-a-kind restaurant is always a struggle and is tough in any economy because the profit margins are so small or even non-existent. But obviously we’ve never given up, sometimes surviving by the skin of our teeth and lots of luck.

“We run a ‘tight ship,’ we are ‘cross-trained’ ourselves and wear many hats; living upstairs is an advantage in not having to pay rent for our own housing. But lately it’s gotten tougher—inflation, the falling dollar, the price of energy, the cost of food, labor costs, workman’s comp, even our linen bill is too much.

“We minimize waste by shopping more often, and prepping smaller amounts. As owner/operators we’re in a good position to monitor everything and to act quickly as needed. We don’t make a lot of menu changes, which helps keep down food and labor costs. We don’t buy much new equipment—our cash register is over fifty years old and Jim has used the same stove from day one. Jim is really good at ordering and knowing both instinctively and from years of experience how much of a product to have on hand. We recycle everything to reduce our trash bill; Caspar Community Garden takes all our compost; Susan is always turning off lights and heaters to cut the electric bill; we cut down the staff as soon as an evening slows down. We have a very low staff turnover rate and this helps because training new people is very expensive. But, you know we’ve always worked this way.

“Thankfully we have the advantage of terrific local and visitor clientele—and thirty-five years of a good reputation. We expect this summer to be decent—we’re staying positive—people love it up here; the coast has tremendous appeal for so many reasons.”

Others in the restaurant business that I talked with say that consumers are cutting back on luxuries such as eating out, to balance their budgets. They too feel that this is not a time for expansion or adding new expensive items. It’s a balancing of choices for The Restaurant and others like them. Using cheaper food products and trying to cut corners is not something they believe in or something they can do. They all value their long-standing employees.

Raise a toast to 35 great years!
The Restaurant has become one of the most loved and highly respected and recommended restaurants in the area. The cozy, charming, art-filled dining room draws people in and makes them at ease. The tradition of The Restaurant in Fort Bragg is one we can all be proud to support—go see them and raise a toast to thirty-five great years!