Whether you’re taking a break after the holidays or “dry curious,” many are forgoing alcohol for Dry January. But as you look at 2025 so far, you may be thinking you’ve made a huge mistake. You’re not alone facing our hellscape without even the thinnest veil of numbing booze between you and reality’s horrors. Plenty […]
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill is the managing editor of the North Coast Journal. She won the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2020 Best Food Writing Award and the 2019 California News Publisher's Association award for Best Writing.
Posted inArts + Scene
Den of Thieves 2 Drops Loot
DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA. Even on those evenings when the seemingly endless expanse of streaming options is without appeal, a heist movie will reliably hit the spot. Variations on the plotting, execution and fallout of an elaborate theft all please in their turn: twisty confidence games for the puzzle minded; stylish capers with tuxedos […]
Posted inEat + Drink
The Ivanhoe’s Next Chapter
It was Hospitality Night in Ferndale in 1997 when the last incarnation of the Ivanhoe opened on Main Street. Barb and Dave Mogni would run the iconic restaurant and bar for more than two decades until Dave’s death in 2020. But the Ivanhoe Hotel, Restaurant and Saloon has been a landmark in the town since […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Siam Orchid in Bloom
Sommai “Bee” Inboon zips from Siam Orchid’s kitchen to the tables with the sureness of a career server, her arms stacked with plates of shimmering noodles and steaming pots of soup. A diner’s appreciative grin cracks her focused expression into a big smile. Inboon, who hails from the inland town of Ratchaburi in Western Thailand, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
A Country Breakfast
Well, menus plural — there’s the regular one and a gallery of chalkboards behind the counter touting specials and “secret” items. Are they secret if they’re on a blackboard? Do you care as long as you can add smoked pork belly to pretty much anything? The 100-year-old, three-generation McIntosh Farm opened its store and restaurant […]
Posted inFood & Drink
A Sweet Toast
There’s something satisfying about slipping through the door to Humboldt Craft Spirits and being greeted by a row of pale wood barrels and, beyond them, a wooden still dotted with brass stars, like a low-key steampunk contraption. David Cook and Tera Spohr-Cook, who’ll wave you over to the tiny bar they’ve set up on the […]
Posted inNews
Through Mark Larson’s Lens
As we dip our toes into the shallow end of 2025, photographer Mark Larson offers us a look back at the year from which we’ve only just emerged. If it feels like a blur to you, don’t worry — his collection of images (the entirety of which you can see here) captured the pageantry of […]
Posted inEat + Drink
What’s Good: Pubs and Pots
Gallagher’s Headed Back to the Eagle House Amid the rise and fall and relocation of Old Town restaurants, one spot is returning to how it used to be. Gallagher’s Irish Restaurant and Pub is headed back to its digs in the Eagle House (139 Second St., Eureka) in early 2025. As Jessica Silva reported […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Hot Pot Spot
Among the teeming suggestions for food-related resolutions for 2025, consider committing to more communal eating. Sharing a meal from a common bowl or platter, and tipping our faces into the steam together, is a balm to our beleaguered bodies and minds. We’re going to need it. Enter Ginger (1835 Fourth St., Eureka), which has meandered […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Gallagher’s Headed Back to the Eagle House
Amid the rise and fall and relocation of Old Town restaurants, one spot is returning to how it used to be. Gallagher’s Irish Restaurant and Pub is headed back to its digs in the Eagle House (139 Second St., Eureka) in early 2025. As Jessica Silva reported in the forthcoming issue of My Humboldt Life, […]
Posted inNews
Top 10 Dick Moves of 2024
The size-obsessed are still squawking about who’s growing the biggest colorful conifer (spoiler: Mendocino County now has the tallest lighted living Christmas tree, see page 28) but here at the Journal, we focus on quality. Humboldt’s forest of dick moves continues to flourish, making it all the more challenging to choose the pettiest, most self-serving, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
What’s Good: Warming up and Heading Home
Rooftop’s Ramen Warm-up All summer, which includes October here, tables at Rooftop (148 E St., Eureka) were packed with those starved for vitamin D and hungry for sushi. But during the damp cold of winter, the indoor tables and counter (at last, comfy bar chairs) offer a view out of the chill and hot, hot […]