Where can you get dinner on Bohemian Highway on a Tuesday night in November? Of the four sit-down dinner rooms in downtown Occidental, none currently lists Tuesday hours. The rest of the week runs on a schedule set years ago and two kitchens that opened this year.
The Occidental Community Farmers Market ended its 2026 season on Thursday, October 29. Once it closed, the week's most reliable evening crowd on Main Street was gone. What's left is a dinner calendar heavy at the weekend end. Most of that weight comes from two restaurants that have kept their weekend-only hours since the fall of 2020.
A Schedule Set in 2020
Negri's and the Union Hotel face each other across the middle of town. In November 2020 the Press Democrat reported that both had closed in mid-March, reopened in July, and were then "open only three days a week: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday."
Both restaurants' own websites still post those three days.
The Union Hotel at 3731 Main Street lists Friday from 4 to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. Negri's at 3700 Bohemian Highway lists Friday and Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 3 to 8 p.m., with dining in its bar and lounge.
The meal at Negri's has changed too. In the same 2020 article, Evelyn Negri said the restaurant had been famous for its family-style dinners, and that full dinners used to arrive with antipasto, salad, soup and a few ravioli on the side. During the pandemic, everything came portioned for one and billed separately. "I wish we could do family-style again," she told the paper. Negri's site now says family-style meals are no longer available and seating is first come, first served. Its bar menu lists pasta, pizza, meat and seafood plates, salads and desserts.
Six years on, the two oldest dining rooms in town still serve dinner three nights a week. Any dinner on the other four nights has to come from somewhere else.
Thursday Without the Market
All summer, Thursday was market night. From May 28 to October 29, vendors filled Main Street between First and Third streets from 4 to 8 p.m. The vendor list covered a full dinner's worth of options, including empanadas, paella, pizza, sandwiches, sushi burritos, baked goods and coffee.
Until the market returns, Thursday dinner falls to the two kitchens that opened this year at either end of the same stretch of Bohemian Highway.
Bohemian Bistro at 3782 Bohemian Highway starts its week on Thursday. Dinner runs Thursday through Saturday from 5 p.m., with last seating at 8 p.m. On Sunday it opens at noon, with last seating at 7 p.m. Chef de Cuisine Ray Martinez cooks four- and seven-course prix fixe menus. His cooking is built on French technique over a wood fire, and the site credits his Mexican heritage among its influences. The site also lists him as formerly of Harbor House and Troubadour. The menu changes weekly, and the site takes reservations.
Hazel is the only room on the street that serves dinner earlier in the week.
The Weeknight Room at the Old Barley and Hops
Hazel moved into the former Barley and Hops building at 3688 Bohemian Highway in August. It now serves dinner from 5 to 9 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. The Sebastopol Times reported at the reopening that Monday evenings were a new addition. Hazel's co-owner told the paper why that mattered: "With Negri's and the Union not being open as much, it's been a little bit of a nighttime food desert here, so we're happy to be back."
The menu is built for a regular weeknight meal. The wood-fired pizzas gave way to flatbreads made from a very similar dough recipe. The mains include Mary's roasted chicken, pot roast, pork schnitzel, ribeye and a burger made with Panizzera ground beef. The vegan Caesar and the fried Brussels sprouts came back, and beignets are now on the dinner menu most of the time. During the first nights, when reservations were nearly booked out, the restaurant kept the bar open for walk-ins and served food on the porch.
On Monday and Wednesday, Hazel is the only dinner room in town that lists hours. On Thursday it shares the street with Bohemian Bistro.
Here is the full week, from each restaurant's posted hours:
| Night | Hazel | Bohemian Bistro | Union Hotel | Negri's |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5–9 p.m. | Closed | Closed | Closed |
| Tuesday | Closed | Closed | Closed | Closed |
| Wednesday | 5–9 p.m. | Closed | Closed | Closed |
| Thursday | 5–9 p.m. | From 5 p.m., last seating 8 | Closed | Closed |
| Friday | 5–9 p.m. | From 5 p.m., last seating 8 | 4–8 p.m. | 4–8 p.m. |
| Saturday | 5–9 p.m. | From 5 p.m., last seating 8 | Noon–8 p.m. | 4–8 p.m. |
| Sunday | 5–9 p.m. | From noon, last seating 7 | Noon–8 p.m. | 3–8 p.m. |
Sunday is the only night all four list dinner hours. Monday and Wednesday rest entirely on Hazel, and Tuesday has no dinner at all.
Tuesday Is a Daytime Day
With no dinner service on the schedule, Tuesday's food happens before dark, and much of what's open has no posted hours.
Howard Station at 3611 Bohemian Highway describes breakfast, brunch, lunch, smoothies, coffee and baked goods. The Altamont General Store at 3703 Main Street calls itself a coffee house, bakery, eatery and marketplace, with mostly gluten-free, organic and vegan food. Bohemian Market at 3691 Main Street carries natural and organic groceries, produce and deli items. Panizzera Meat Co., at 3905 Main Street according to the Occidental community directory, sells dry-aged steaks, handmade sausage, jerky and meat boxes. It's also the source of the beef in Hazel's burger.
Wild Flour Bread, a few miles down the road in Freestone at 140 Bohemian Highway, lists hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday and Friday through Sunday. It's closed Tuesday through Thursday. So the town's best-known loaf is out of reach on exactly the nights when dinner choices are thinnest.
The Holiday Dates That Fall on Dinner Nights
The busiest dates of the season mostly land on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, when all four rooms can be open. The Occidental Center for the Arts at 3850 Doris Murphy Court fills most of those dates.
- Saturday, November 21. The Beatles Guitar Project plays the Center for the Arts.
- Thursday, November 26. Negri's site lists Thanksgiving Day as a closure. Thursday isn't one of its posted nights in any case.
- Sunday, November 29. Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands play from 3 to 5:30 p.m. The concert ends with time for a Sunday dinner, with last seating at Bohemian Bistro at 7 p.m. and Hazel serving until 9.
- Friday and Saturday, December 4 and 5. The Occidental Community Choir performs at the Center for the Arts. The Saturday show runs from 3 to 5 p.m.
- Saturday and Sunday, December 12 and 13. The Occidental Community Council holds the Holiday Crafts Faire downtown. On Saturday evening, Nina Gerber and Keith Greeninger play the Center for the Arts from 7 to 9:30 p.m.
- Saturday, December 19. Barbara Higbie and Friends perform their Winter Solstice Concert from 7 to 9:30 p.m.
- Thursday and Friday, December 24 and 25. Negri's site lists Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as closures. This year Christmas falls on a Friday, so one of its three regular nights drops out of the week.
- Thursday, December 31. Pete Sawyer and the Left Hand Monkey Wrench Gang play a New Year's Eve dance party from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. On a Thursday, the dinner options before the dance are Hazel and Bohemian Bistro.
The two evening concerts on Saturdays in December both start at 7 p.m. For dinner beforehand, that leaves an earlier seating at the Union Hotel or Negri's, both of which serve until 8. After the music ends at 9:30, every kitchen in town has closed.
If you're planning a holiday visit for out-of-town family around Occidental's dinner hours, or thinking about what a weekend place in town would look like through the winter, Continuum Real Estate is glad to talk through how west Sonoma County runs from week to week.
