What’s Next for The Wharf at Noyo Harbor — As It Reinvents Itself, the Harbor Wants to Hear Your Wishes

Come along on another Noyo Harbor photo voyage made especially for our favorite landlubbers. This little journey is brought to you by Linda and me after a Sunday spent wandering our harbor, soaking up its quirks and characters. We’ll play voyeurs together — admiring a few wonderfully eccentric Volkswagen Bugs and peeking at the now‑temporarily‑closed Wharf restaurant as we dig into its beloved, oddball roots. And yes, we explain why this kind of storytelling is far more fun than churning out a chamber‑of‑commerce press release.

What will the grand old Wharf become in the years ahead — and how will it continue shaping life at Noyo Harbor?

Brutus has a very important question for the new owners of The Wharf: once the remodel is done, will the famous Pupburger return to the menu — and will doggos still be welcome on the deck? He insists this is essential community business.

We’re having a little old‑fashioned fun with The Wharf story. After all, The Wharf has been a Fort Bragg icon for more than 70 years — a place where locals, visitors, fishermen, and four‑legged regulars all found their way. Then came the closure and that intriguing sign promising that we’ll all enjoy the renovations once they’re complete.

So naturally, Linda, Brutus, Caesar, and I decided to take a closer look.

We could, of course, just call up the new owners — Bob Hunt or his sister, Pamela Amante — and ask them directly. By all accounts they’re lovely people, and they already run two of my favorite Fort Bragg hotels. When out‑of‑town friends ask where to stay, I usually point them to the Beachcomber or Harbor Lite Lodge. And if they’re traveling with kids, another solid choice is the Emerald Dolphin.

Bob and Pamela also own the Beachcomber Motel, Surf and Sand Lodge, Beach House Inn, and Harbor Lite Lodge — all purchased in 2021 from the same sellers who owned The Wharf. Even back then, they made it clear that renovations would be needed. And to be fair, renovations at The Wharf have been going on for years… or, depending on who you ask, decades.

Instead of calling up the bosses, let’s have some fun imagining and teasing what we wish The Wharf could become. Only joyful, playful, positive ideas allowed — house rules. We used to do this back in the newspaper days, and people jumped right in. Those days may be gone, but Frank is still here, Brutus and Caesar are ready, and the wishing well is open. So let’s start with the wishes.

We have so many amazing members of our community, and one of them is Heather Baird — an outstanding steward of Fort Bragg and the Noyo Harbor. Take a minute to enjoy her beautiful video, and if you’re not already following her, you really should.

Heather Bairds Beautiful view of our Amazing Harbor

Brutus and Caesar have officially submitted their wish: that doggie dining continues on the outside deck. Some traditions are simply too important to lose — Brutus even calls it “essential services,” and Caesar quietly agrees.

Frank’s wish is simple: optional extra‑large chairs — maybe even one table dedicated to seating for big people. He promises he’ll be there OFTEN if they do it. And it will make the Wharf money if they advertise it. Chairs and Frank have been locked in a murderous feud since he was 16 and already 6’6″ and 266 pounds. He’s broken many of them, and they’ve returned the favor by wrecking his back more times than he can count. It’s the main reason he avoids fancy restaurants — he spends the whole meal in chair Hades. “The more expensive the restaurant, the smaller the chairs,” he always says. And now at 6’8″ and 319, the war continues.

Frank also wishes for: even more direct connections to the fishing boats. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Princess Special of the Day, or Miss Kelley’s best crab, or whatever the fleet brings in? Imagine competing menu items from local fishermen and women — a friendly harbor showdown, plate by plate. 

Frank loves a great cioppino and halibut, but he also wants to know more about where his food comes from — not just the facts, but the story. Who caught the fish? What boat did it come off of? What does the chef love about this batch? He promises he’ll order anything that comes with a little narrative flair. Put some fun sourcing notes on the menu — fishermen, fish, chefs, the whole cast — and he’s in.

Linda’s wishes are a little more… tasteful: How about a teeming‑full fresh crab cocktail — made with crab sourced right here and served with a sauce inspired by local favorites like Mendocino Mustard or Carol Hall’s Hot Pepper Jelly — followed by a lineup of small‑bite salads and hors d’oeuvres crafted from the gorgeous produce coming out of ourlocal farms. Add in bread from somewhere like Hard Head Bread, our own hometown cottage bakery, because nothing elevates a meal like truly local loaves. Landlubber meals like steak and burgers should come straight from our own Amazing Butcher Shop, Roundman’s. And while she’s wishing, how about a rotating line of specialty drinks featuring the harbor’s own premium craft spirits from Schnaubelt Distillery. A pairing of iced Lemon Drop from the distillery goes perfect with salmon! Linda sure has yummy dreams.

Linda’s other wish: optional extra‑large chairs — maybe even one table dedicated to seating for big people. She promises she’ll be there OFTEN with her giant husband if they advertise it. Since chairs and Frank have been locked in a murderous, ongoing feud for decades, Linda is far too often left sitting alone at fancy dinners because the furniture simply does not fit Frank.

The Wharf is the sole survivor of the delicious good old days of Noyo Harbor. Capt’ Flint’s has been gone for just over ten years now — hard as that is to believe — after the popular fish‑and‑chips restaurant served customers for 43 years. And none of us will ever again have the chance to try to eat a Carini’s burger, nor be pampered with stories and kitchen treats by Mama Carini. Carini’s Italian Seafood & Grotto was the original harbor eatery, founded in a converted fish barn in 1947. It operated for 68 years and fed three generations of Mendocino Coast families before closing in March 2015. Its absence feels much bigger than the years suggest.

When I was a newspaperman, and even earlier as a kid in the Midwest, I learned that every town had a grand club where everybody dressed up and going there was a special occasion. These were the gentry. They knew which forks to use. Often it was the country club attached to the town golf course, the place where reputations were polished and the prime rib was… well, sometimes questionable.

Mom and Dad met after Dad came home from the Pacific in 1946, both graduates of Chillicothe High School in Illinois, both college‑educated, and both absolutely determined to get the HELL out of Illinois. They spent the rest of their lives as Californians, with pleasant sojourns in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Missouri, back to Illinois, and Texas — but their hearts never left the Golden State.

Dad, my brother Eric, and I once traveled across the Midwest like American Pickers, buying antique cars for Eric to sell back in Massachusetts. Mom and Dad — and all us kids — loved to enjoy and also laugh our heads off at Midwestern culture. Some of those grand country clubs had horrifically bad food and were still just as snooty and self‑important as the next town’s “Wharf,” where the food might actually be fabulous.

The cultural weirdness of the Midwest was one of Mom and Dad’s favorite lifelong topics, especially during those early years when they were constantly crisscrossing the country. And maybe that’s why The Wharf resonates so deeply with so many visitors today — it carries that same sense of occasion, that same glow, but with better food, better views, and none of the snootiness. It’s THE place where people feel like they’ve arrived somewhere special. Its TRADITION we can still have.

Mom and dad liked The Wharf — sometimes when it played the role of the good country club, glowing with that familiar Midwestern‑California magic, and other times when it was just… average. But that never mattered. What mattered was that it was there — steady, glowing, grounding our California‑dreaming reality in a harbor that has seen so many eras rise and fall. We all sat and told stories to the backdrop of those giant picture windows.

Places like this don’t just serve meals. They hold memories. They carry the echoes of the people who came before us, the travelers who wandered in, the families who returned year after year, the fishermen who tied up at dusk, the kids who grew up thinking this view was normal. They remind us who we were, who we are, and who we still hope to be.

So will The Wharf continue this way, or become something else entirely? That’s the question hanging over the tide line.

But if history has taught us anything — from the vanished glow of Carini’s to the shuttered doors of Capt’ Flint’s to the long‑gone country clubs and riverbank supper clubs of the Midwest and old South — it’s that the places we love survive when we love them out loud. When we show up. When we dream for them. When we insist they matter.

And here in Noyo Harbor, we do.

Will it continue this way or be something else?

We had a little fun with the story today. The Wharf sale was announced last fall, but we still haven’t seen the property transfer show up the way it did on the other recent transfers.

Remember what big, BIG news it was when Silver Canul left his post as chef at the Little River Inn to take over the kitchen — now proudly branded as Silver’s at the Wharf

Silver didn’t just make waves when he took over the kitchen at the Wharf — remember what big, BIG news that was — he also brought his Mayan Fusion magic across the street in the harbor. And now he owns it in yet another historic site: the longtime home of The Restaurant on Franklin Street, right across from the Skunk Train station.

When The Restaurant opened its doors, Fort Bragg diners were treated to stuffed trout, vegetarian casserole, and a Scandinavian berry dessert. The Restaurant operated from July 9, 1973, until February 27, 2017 — a remarkable 44‑year run.

But it wasn’t just the restaurant that enjoyed a rich history — the building itself has lived many lives. Built in 1895 as a hospital and doctor’s offices, it has worn more hats than most of us ever will. In the 1940s, it became Carlson’s Soda Fountain, with rooms to rent upstairs, a place where locals and travelers alike could grab a sweet treat and a soft bed.

Before that much‑ballyhooed sale to Jim and Silver, The Wharf was run for 27 years by Tom and Mary Wisdom. They kept the place steady through eras of boom, bust, and pure Noyo Harbor weirdness. The Wharf itself began as a charter‑boat operation with an attached lunch counter about 70 years ago — the brainchild of Jim, and later Jimmy Cummings, arguably the most colorful man in Fort Bragg history. He once owned half the town and generated enough drama and controversy to fill a dozen novels before he left this world. He was murdered in the harbor in 1997.

Cummings lives on in the eclectic nature of Noyo Harbor — for good, for weird, and for buildings that always seem to need one more renovation. The late Dusty Dillon told me that when he first met Jimmy and visited Noyo Harbor, you could “walk dry from tarp to tarp from one end of the harbor to the other.” Permits? Who needed stinking permits. We laughed at this partially true and entirely hilarious origin story of the harbor, whose history goes back much farther and includes chapters that are anything but funny — including the forced removal of Native people who were pushed down to the harbor, then pushed again to the “reservation” they now occupy on the northwest side of the Noyo Bridge.

The current kings of the north harbor, Steve Dunlap and Bob Juntz, certainly remember the Cummings gang well. They’ve always been straight shooters, never interested in inheriting any of Jimmy’s “connections.” And as far as anyone knows, his murder wasn’t tied to anything larger — just a dispute between two men.
This blog tells the weird story of Jimmy Cummings and other harbor oddballs

Jimmy Cummings may be long gone, but his fingerprints are still all over Noyo Harbor — in the stories, in the buildings that refuse to behave, in the characters who keep the place humming. The Hunts will bring their own chapter to The Wharf, and whether or not they ever crossed paths with Jimmy, they’re stepping into a legacy that’s equal parts history, chaos, charm, and pure Fort Bragg mythology.

So here’s your chance, Fort Bragg: Tell us what you want the new Wharf Restaurant to be. What should stay. What should return. What should never, ever be touched. What should be reinvented. What should be left gloriously weird. Your wishes are part of the Harbor’s DNA.

Because in the end, the Harbor isn’t just boats and buildings — it’s the people who wander it, argue about it, photograph it, rescue dogs from Princess tents, and remember who shook their hand on a foggy morning thirty years ago.

And with that, we close this chapter. The tide will bring another.

See you next time in the harbor — but only if you enjoy being kissed by adventurous, Harbor‑bound much, much too friendly German Shepherds.