SEA GULL
The Sea Gull Restaurant was a popular hangout in Mendocino during the 1970s and 80s. Lots of things happened there, good and bad. I knew sooner or later this would all be converted to words. On this page you will find stories, experiences, and reflections on my time at the Sea Gull. Pictures, articles, art, and more will be posted as they become available. If you were an employee or customer during that time and have pictures or experiences you want to share, send them to me at dhj@thinkinthemorning.com. Don’t expect this to be a foodie site. I might from time to time venture into the joys of mezcal or review a favorite restaurant or offer up a recipe that I’ve found tasty, but my primary purpose is to document some of the happenings at the Sea Gull during the 70s and 80s for those who care.
Coffee
Panorama photo of Martin Schmidt's coffee art by Krissy Jones Farmer Brothers locked up the restaurant market by loaning out equipment—stainless cabinets, brewing machines, pots, and other essential accessories. The policy helped cash-poor restaurateurs by...
How I Learned To Eat Escargot
Snail shells are one of many examples of the Golden Spiral in nature. One way to approximate the Golden Spiral is with a mathematical series called the Fibonacci series. The ratio between consecutive Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio as the Fibonacci...
Henry
Part of the job of running a restaurant is ordering the food and supplies. The two biggest suppliers when I first started at the Sea Gull were Monarch and Sexton. Today both these companies are part of the giant food distributor US Foods, but they started as...
The Attic Gallery Art-In — Part III
Since I have a surfeit of pictures from The Attic Gallery Art-In, it seemed appropriate to put up one more post with pictures and no further comment. They show the astonishing talent contributed for free by the local artists of the Mendocino coast. The pictures are...
The Attic Gallery Art-In – Part II
In the first part of The Attic Gallery Art-In, I left you with a link to Complementarity and the Quantum of Life. Artists seem to have an intuitive sense of complementarity as indicated by the reference to Blake in that article. A great artist understands how to use...
The Attic Gallery Art-In – Part I
The Sea Gull burned to the ground forty years ago this year. It’s easy for me to remember the date because my friend and key employee, Lorna, was born on December 12. We took a few minutes to comment on the irony of that coincidence, but we didn’t dwell on it for...
Short Fiction: Chekhova – with assistance from Marlene Hall
The great tragedy that decimated so many of our brave brothers and sisters befell on a splendid Spring day without warning so innocuously that we failed to notice the darkness descend on us but descend it did. A giant calico cat, not black like Bulgakov’s Behemoth...
Kelley – Sculptor, Piper, Busker
Copied From Northglow, January/February 1984, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 12-22 Editor’s Note: When Michelle Robinson sent us this article about the many-faceted Kelley, she explained in a covering letter the reasons for the introduction and conclusion and the way they were...
Alan Graham aka Captain Fathom
He wandered about aloof from reality. Whether or not he knew where he was going was hard to tell. When that raucous laugh assaulted your ears, your body tensed in anticipation. He spoke with an irritating nasal tone and his face was often fixed in a stupid smile. ...
Mickie and Michael
The thing about musicians, at least the ones I know, is that they live for the music. Money, fame, name-dropping—that's not where it’s at. I was always amazed when a musician, starving, unable to pay the rent, would show up at the drop of a hat to help with a...
Clifford
Clifford came with the restaurant. He traded errands and odd jobs for food. He could have afforded to pay cash but the Sea Gull was his home and nobody paid cash for food at home. Ice cream and butter were cheaper at Safeway, so Clifford toted them down on his way...
Guest Post: A Janitor Remembers – by Mitchell Zucker
Excerpts From The Cult of the Buffalo (originally written around 1978) by Mitchell Zucker Any resemblance of the characters in this story to actual characters is not only unintentional and coincidental but also reprehensible. The Royal vacuum sucked up the night’s...