Aug. 5—A telling moment unfolds spontaneously on a mellow summer afternoon at Davenport Roadhouse Restaurant & Inn, as a couple staying in one of the nine rooms upstairs asks if there is a place to hang their clothes.
New co-owner Ginny Miller smiles, thanks them, and reappears with a metal grid that will serve as a makeshift closet.
The shared ease presents a hint she and her fellow new owners—who are only a few days into this full-on adventure—are suited for the task of caretaking a rustic community treasure, if not evolving it to a better destination.
In other words, they’re here for it.
And solution-driven.
“We’re coming in with the hope of making thoughtful changes over time, but we’re never going to say, ‘What do you mean?! We’re doing this perfectly!”—it’s more like, “and ‘Thank god someone brought this to our attention,’ and we’re on it,” she says.
But this is far from the only hint.
Hint #2: Ginny Miller and her brothers Teddy and Jack have been coming to Davenport since they were groms, with mama taking their newfound passion for waves personally, and trucking them over from Woodside every weekend she could.
Good surf helped convince Teddy, now a professional photographer, to make Davenport his young family’s home a decade back. (His wife now teaches at Pacific Elementary School, where their 5-year-old attends.)
This gets at Hint #2b that something good is cooking: This doesn’t happen without local connectivity.
Teddy takes that personally in his role as bartender + server + busser + custodian who didn’t have to include “light up the private party dance circle” on the job description. (That may or may not have happened last weekend.)
Teddy self-describes his role as “floater.”
“Vibes Tech” would also work.
“I’d say [I do] a little bit of everything to make sure everyone is happy,” he says.
His sister notes something that becomes clear after a few minutes in the expansive downstairs.
“This is a community endeavor, where you walk in and see familiar faces and people making decisions on designing the space and the menu by talking with regulars and creating a direct line,” says Ginny, who spends her commute over the hill from San Francisco listening to playlist candidates for the space. “We know the location well, but it’s non-starter without someone like Teddy who understands the place even more.”
Another promising hint: The team knows hospitality—or at least knows they like it, and a that a real pro helps with the less obvious elements like staffing and bookkeeping.
Enter Gavin Parsons, operating partner, who heard about the chance to participate through shared family connections.
He’s trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York (now the International Culinary Center), cooked at the likes of The Hungry Cat in Santa Barbara and the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and observes a opportunity here, where he lives upstairs part-time.
“I get truly excited about figuring out all the creative ways to make unique places shine, through the food, through setting, through our engagement with the community, and that’s what we have with the Roadhouse,” he says. “A super special place with an awesome community, and beautiful resources right at hand.”
Ginny hits pause on that track when she hears it, feeling like he might be understating his importance.
“We couldn’t do this without Gavin,” she says. “He’s the glue that brings both the management experience and a shared vision for the heart and soul of what we’re doing.”
Hint #3: The Millers scored a known Santa Cruz pizza savant to helm the kitchen.
That would be rare enough, before considering the fact—given the hamlet’s population of 537—he’s also a Davenport resident.
The name Roland Konicke might ring familiar to fans of Uncle Ro’s Pizza. His resume also includes partnerships with community stalwarts like Companion Bakery, Pie Ranch and Fifth Crow Farm.
Ginny relays that Konicke’s “excited about something new that could be more his own”—he wasn’t available by deadline—that fits well with a menu that builds around what she calls “California comforts that you know and know how to pronounce, with California produce.”
Konicke also plays in a Davenport band with a homie that lives next door, in a group called Side Hug, which gets at Hint #4: This place is about more than food.
The longtime company line at Davenport Roadhouse annouces that it’s “only two songs” north of Santa Cruz.
Which gets at the not-so-subtle-honky-tonk flavor Teddy was streaming for the people in the dance circle.
Last weekend’s slate featured local fave live bands Friday, Saturday and Sunday—we see you Andy Furham, Dave “Nomad” Miller” and Yugi!—with some groups imagining themselves performing on the ample back patio after it receives a makeover.
A final observation takes me back to the couple wondering where to stage their clothes, and a final clue that the new Roadhouse era carries more than a nuclear family’s hopes and dreams, but an extended community’s.
The couple was OK with the improvised solution, which echoes the response since the Millers grabbed the proverbial reins to the wagon out front.
“It feels like staging a dinner party in someone else’s house,” Ginny acknowledges, then hits on the key ingredient: Locals keep on coming by to volunteer contributions with landscaping, help with the art-and-merch section and recommendations for farm-fresh produce grown by people they know.
“With our people in town,” she says, “It’s always, ‘How can we help?'”
More at davenportroadhouse.com.
About the author
Mark C. Anderson, Edible Monterey Bay's managing editor, appears on "Friday Found Treasures" via KRML 94.7 every week, a little after 12pm noon. Reach him via mark@ediblemontereybay.com.
