14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
NANCI & JIMELLA’S JOYOUS CURTAIN CALL
Review and photos by
THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA
MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM
n the final night of
service at Nanci &
Jimella’s Cafe &
Cocktails, a devout
regular came dressed
for the occasion. His
tie, dotted with tiny lighthouses, was
selected with purpose.
“Nanci and Jimella’s has been
a beacon,” he said, pointing to the
tie, a source of “intimate food and
friendship.”
We shared a cocktail, and the man
regaled me with his love of the restau-
rant and its people. The relationship
began with reverence for the “healthy
and elevated,” regionally inspired
cuisine that he said was prepared
with “more respect, love and heart
than anyone.” He told me that he
ought to know: As a business traveler
who logged over 100,000 miles-per-
year while dining on lavish expense
accounts, he most looked forward to
returning home to Nanci & Jimella’s.
But it evolved into much more
than food. Everything happens in
restaurants, places where we gather
to celebrate love, birth and success,
as well as to mourn and share hard
truths. With the vibrant, easy charm
of Nanci Main as host, these bonds
were tightly, genuinely forged. “We’ll
be friends for the rest of our lives,”
he said.
The man in the lighthouse tie
was just one of those dressed to
honor. Another came in a formal kilt,
adorned with shimmering clasps,
tasseled hose and a booming sporran.
One pair donned loud Hawaiian shirts
patterned with Day of the Dead skele-
tons — a cheeky play, perhaps, on the
restaurant’s demise.
To be sure, the evening was more
denouement than mourning. Nanci
is leaving the restaurant business to
“pursue her joy,” a slogan she became
fond of and posted over the restau-
rant’s exit. She leaves to write the
next chapter of an extraordinary life.
(Jimella Lucas passed away in 2013.)
O
ALEX PAJUNAS/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Nanci Main, left, and Jimella Lucas, who passed away in 2013.
Over four-plus decades as restaura-
teurs on the Long Beach Peninsula,
the duo achieved everything they set
out to do, and have the accolades to
prove it. Their marks on the Colum-
bia-Pacific region are indelible.
They began with the Ark, a restau-
rant that revolved around locally
fished seafood and seasonal produce.
Jimella penned a mission statement
stating that the Ark would seek to
create “a community connection that
galvanizes the practices of sustainable
ways. It creates good food as its goal
in life, that connects the good table to
the good earth.”
It was at the Ark that Nanci and
Jimella were recognized by the titanic
chef and critic James Beard. Grow-
ing up partly in Gearhart, Beard was
familiar with the region’s dining op-
tions. “I had doubts that anyone was
giving the gifts from the sea its due
and I was mistaken!” he wrote years
later, in the introduction to the Ark’s
cookbook. “During this first meal
there I felt — and hoped — that this
was something that we had all waited
for many years.”
A beacon indeed. Besides respect-
ing and elevating the local bounty
— which Beard noted had heretofore
been “to a great extent … grossly
neglected” — Nanci and Jimella were
pioneers as female chefs and restaura-
teurs in the area.
Through all the years, the head
chef at Nanci and Jimella’s restau-
rants, the Ark and the Cafe, was
female. After Jimella passed away,
longtime employee Katie Wither-
bee-Allsup stepped in. (When she
decided to move on, Main offered to
sell the business to the newly married
Witherbee-Allsup, who declined, opt-
ing to spend more time with family.)
Truly, Nanci & Jimella’s created
a place for women to be honored
and empowered. Many of the staff,
including servers and bartenders,
were with the restaurants for years,
even decades. The workplace,
however, was hardly adverse to men.
Three-time defending champion of
Iron Chef Goes Coastal, Jonathan
Hoffman, cut his teeth on Jimella’s
watch.
The staff’s prowess was on full
display that last Saturday in May.
Despite end-to-end bookings, they
flowed with grace, ease and effi-
ciency, all the while making time for
well-wishes, photographs and good-
byes. Lesser restaurants would sputter
beneath the crush. Nanci & Jimella’s
cruised effortlessly.
Knowing it would be the restau-
rant’s closing evening, I had made
a reservation; it was, regretfully, my
first trip. As Nanci & Jimella’s was
an established, revered quantity, the
priority of a review was diminished.
Moreover, I figured there was no
rush, and that a restaurant that had
been around for decades would con-
tinue to be. I thought they would be
amenable to my own time line. I was
wrong to wait, to postpone my joy.
Above: Caesar salad Left: Wedding Tort
Their seafood-heavy offerings
were mostly familiar, but it’s import-
ant to remember that, on the North
Coast, Nanci and Jimella’s helped
make them so. While “made with
love” is a concept I often disdain, it’s
fair to use here; every bite balanced,
everything in its right place, not only
cooked just so, but with thought and
purpose — remember the mission
statement.
Every piece of lettuce in the
Caesar salad was tossed to ensure an
equal, ideal dispersement of dressing.
The crab cakes had a snappy gold-
en-brown crust and moist centers.
The salmon in the bouillabaisse
exquisitely cooked, not a second
too long, the broth seasoned beyond
complexity, yet still humble, hearty.
Then there was the wedding tort, a
confection Nanci created a week prior
for chef Witherbee-Allsup’s ceremo-
ny. I imagined that, over the decades,
each menu item was imbued with a
similar story.
And as Nanci turns the page, a
seminal chapter of Columbia-Pacific
dining comes to a close.
In the Ark cookbook intro
(published in 1985), James Beard re-
marked that, before Nanci and Jimella
came along, the region was mostly
oblivious to its culinary potential. He
remembered “one restaurant in Sea-
side which served fish but only fried
salmon or fried clams or fried cracked
crab. No attempt was made to show
the contrasting texture and flavors of
all the dishes served along the coast.”
And while Nanci and Jimella threw
open the doors to local sourcing and
seasonal menus, decades later such
restaurants in the region remain rare.
I’m reminded of another recent
closing: my beloved Street 14.
Whether they knew it or not, by cele-
brating the North Coast’s ingredients,
both sea and land, they were part of
Nanci and Jimella’s lineage. As James
Beard did for Nanci & Jimella’s, I
trumpeted Street 14 to any and all, but
sadly had not the wattage. A friend
who finally visited, after learning
Street 14’s closure was imminent,
remarked: “I wish I would’ve known
sooner. They were so incredible. I
would’ve gone all the time.”
And while these two closings are
quite different — Nanci & Jimella’s be-
ing a joyous curtain call — the remind-
er remains as poignant as ever: Follow
your joy. It’s never too late. And, at the
same time: It’s never too soon.
And so it begins: the search for a
new beacon.