The restored arch over Highway 116 is the first thing anyone notices on the drive in from Guerneville. White letters on a dark ground, curved across the road, reading Welcome to Monte Rio: Vacation Wonderland. It has been there for decades. What is new is that this summer, for the first time in a while, the sentence feels like a working description rather than a piece of nostalgia.
The shift you can point to is small on paper and large in daily life. A long-empty room on the main drag is open again, seven days a week, and the calendar that used to hinge on three or four festivals is starting to hinge on a Tuesday night walk to a beer garden. If you already live here, the interesting question is not whether Monte Rio is having a moment. It is what the shape of a resident week looks like now that there is somewhere to go on the nights nothing is scheduled.
The Room That Wasn't There Last Summer
Wonderland Pizzeria is the work of Brian Perloff and Kellee Kessler, nearby Villa Grande residents, who took over the long-vacant former Lucy's space and opened the doors on May 22. The address is 20391 Hwy 116, across the street from the main public beach. The name comes off the arch.
What is inside the room matters more than the fact of the opening. The dough is a poolish-style recipe with a 72-hour ferment, an old-school technique that builds the yeast separately before incorporating it into the mix, and the open kitchen is designed so customers can watch that process unfold. The menu runs California-style thin crust and Detroit pan-style pizzas alongside Philly cheesesteaks, fresh wings, salads, and soft serve. Ten beer taps and three wine-on-tap lines anchor a back bar built from the recycled top of the original Lucy's bar.
"This isn't corporate. We're in it to make something beautiful that Monte Rio deserves."
That is Perloff, talking to the Sebastopol Times a few weeks before opening. The claim would be easy to dismiss if the room itself did not back it up. One wall serves as a rotating gallery of historic Monte Rio photographs in partnership with the Russian River Historical Society, while another is reserved for rotating work by local artists. Accordion doors open the back of the building to a patio with heat lamps, ping pong, cornhole, and a fire pit, and dogs are welcome.
The reason to belabor the design is that it is the mechanism. A place that closes at nine on a Tuesday in February does not change how a town moves. A place that commits to seven days a week, year-round, with a patio you can bring the dog to, does.
What August Actually Looks Like Now
The published rhythm in town, before you add anything on top, is steadier than it used to be. From the Monte Rio Recreation and Park District calendar and the Friends of Monte Rio schedule:
- Thursdays and Fridays, Monte Rio Yoga with Kathleen Hardy and Noel Yates at the Community Center, 10:30 a.m., ten dollars a class.
- Saturdays, the same yoga at 9:30.
- Wednesdays, Redwood Empire Food Bank distribution at the Community Center, 3 to 4 p.m.
- Second Thursdays, Game Night hosted by Friends of Monte Rio, 5:30 to 8 p.m.
- Second Mondays, the MRRPD board meets at 5 in the Redwood Room, open to the public.
- Third Mondays, the Monte Rio Fire Protection District board meets there at 6.
None of that is new. What is new is that the Thursday game night now has a natural after-hour across the highway, and the Saturday yoga class ends about fifteen minutes before the pizzeria stops serving weekend lunch. Late-summer evenings in Monte Rio used to require a plan. They now tolerate a walk.
The Calendar From Here to November
The season's marquee dates are mostly behind us. It is worth knowing what has already happened, because a resident conversation this month is going to assume you were there or heard about it.
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| June 20 | RioFest, sixth year | Monte Rio Amphitheater |
| July 23 | 115th Monte Rio Variety Show | Monte Rio Amphitheater |
| Nov 2, 1–4 p.m. | Día de Muertos Celebration | Community Center |
RioFest returned on June 20 for its sixth year, running noon to six at the Monte Rio Amphitheater with live music, local food, and community booths. The bill led with Spike Sikes and His Awesome Hotcakes, joined by The Uninvited, The Okay Ultras in their debut performance together, and Battle of the Bands winner Subprime Mortgage. The night continued across the river at RioFest After Dark at the Monte Rio Theatre starting at 6.
The Variety Show came back on July 23 at the Amphitheater, hosted this year by Livingston Taylor, continuing a tradition first created in 1911 to raise funds for St. Catherine of Siena Church that has run for more than a century and blends music, comedy, storytelling, raffles, and unexpected performances beneath the redwoods. Guests began setting up lawn chairs as early as 7 a.m., and proceeds support St. Catherine of Siena, the Monte Rio Fire Services Foundation, and the Monte Rio School Foundation.
Between now and Halloween the calendar quiets down, which is the point of noting it. The town's autumn is a shoulder season that used to feel emptier than it needed to. Then the Día de Muertos Celebration lands at the Community Center on Sunday, November 2, from 1 to 4 p.m., built around music, food, art, and activities for all ages. Volunteers are being asked for setup, decorations, food service, kids' activities, and cleanup, and a couple of hours makes a difference. The organizer is Fran at [email protected].
When You Want a Longer Table
Wonderland is a slice-and-a-beer answer. Some nights you want a booth and a wine list, and the lower river has more of that than the reputation suggests.
Northwood Restaurant sits next to Northwood Golf Club, still one of the few places in west county where you can eat after eighteen holes without leaving the redwoods. Highland Dell on the highway in Monte Rio keeps its Bavarian dining room, chalet lobby fireplace, and river view. Ten minutes west, Rio Nido Roadhouse runs a low-key kitchen with a bar and stage that punches above its size on weekends.
For the longer occasion, the Guerneville anchor is the dining room at Dawn Ranch. Chefs Juliana Thorpe and Ignacio Zuzulich, who refined their craft at Lasai in Rio de Janeiro, The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley, Michel Bras in Laguiole, and most recently Mugaritz in San Sebastián, have found their culinary home there. Reservations for October open on September 1. If you have been meaning to book something for a birthday or a visiting friend, mark the calendar. That kind of pedigree ten minutes from the arch is the sort of fact that stops being remarkable the year after it lands, and this is the year it landed.
The Sign Above the Road
The pizzeria takes its name from the riverfront hamlet's slogan, which for decades has arched over the main drag on a landmark sign recently restored to its former glory. The SF Standard, in a piece published the morning of RioFest, described Monte Rio as staging a tiny comeback and said they would be happy if it stopped right there.
That is the right posture for a resident too. The town is not becoming Healdsburg. The beach is still gravel, the road still bends where it always did, and the redwoods still swallow the sound of the highway a quarter mile in from the river. What has changed is smaller than a story about a comeback and more useful. There is a room to sit in on a night nothing is scheduled. The sign above the road is telling the truth again.
If you own a home here and you have been thinking through what a season like this one means for the value of your patch of the river, or you are advising family on a lifestyle property somewhere along the lower Russian River, Continuum Real Estate is a good conversation to have. Start Your Property Search when the moment is right, and in the meantime, we will see you at the second-Thursday game night.
