Amy Ogle is enjoying a Shelter Cove December. “It feels like we finally got our summer,” she says, noting the warm temperatures, sunshine and calm waters along the coastline. “We always get kind of a good shoulder season because the weather is beautiful.”
She’s in the right place to enjoy it, too, on the patio of the recently renovated Mario’s Marina Bar, where she has served as “ringleader” on behalf of the bar’s out-of-town owners for the last five years. In that time, the spot has once again become a local social hub with craft cocktails and lately a spot for locally sourced and pop-up dining, from sliders to sushi.
Mario’s, Ogle explains, was originally a shepherd’s hut back when there were sheep and other livestock in the hills. It opened as a bait and tackle shop serving the fishers and their then thriving industry before evolving into a bar and restaurant. What was always there was the view, a stunning panorama to the west over the Pacific Ocean and, to the south, the Sinkyone Wilderness. On a clear day, she says you can see all the way down to Fort Bragg.
“I went to Mario’s when it was an old dive bar,” says Ogle, a veteran of the North Coast’s restaurant scene. Originally, she hails from Fremont but moved to Humboldt County in 2006 at 18 to attend then Humboldt State University. She spent a year away in Portland, Oregon, to attend culinary school and returned to work in the kitchens of Luke’s Joint, the Other Place, Masaki’s Kyoto Japanese Restaurant and Larrupin’. She also tended bar at Richards’ Goat Tavern & Tea Room.
After restaurants reopened in the wake of the COVID shutdowns, Ogle was working in a restaurant in Trinidad. There, she was recruited to help reopen Mario’s. In 2021, she started the grueling grunt work of cleaning and remodeling with Alex Rush and Yaijara Padilla. “I could not have done it without them,” she says with a deep exhale.
The added banquet room has hosted events and birthdays, and with further improvements planned, Ogle looks forward to branching out even more. “We’re really getting wedding ready,” she says. “We’ve dabbled in it and done a couple small parties, but we’ve got the upper beer garden and the lower.” Both are on the cliff side and feature a fire pit. There’s a stage for bands and, of course, that view. Her fiancé Ray Kosma has done a lot of work on the building aspect as well, with a “super hyper custom” eye toward using local labor.
The resulting “nautical glam” is a nod to the bar’s past, says Ogle, “But’s fun, it’s alive, it’s very Shelter Cove.”
The same could be said for the offerings at Mario’s these days. Ogle keeps a garden at her home, where 1,000-foot elevation and warm temperatures help her grow all kinds of ingredients for the menu. Newly planted citrus trees, herbs, edible flowers, melons and cucumbers find their way into cocktails, whether mashed, muddled or stirred. For a possibly overwhelmed first timer still reeling from the scenery, she recommends the Earl Greyhound, with its sweet and salty fig leaf rim, fragrant Earl Grey tea, grapefruit and honey, with or without the vodka.
Warm weather notwithstanding, winter drinks are having their moment right now, including Ogle’s house-made eggnog with a vegan option. Kosma is Cuban, so you’ll find coquito, a traditional spiced coconut cocktail, as well. There are espresso drinks, hot cider and hot chocolate to beat an evening chill, and Ogle recommends the Eggnog Latte with whiskey.
High Tide in the Cove has found a home in the kitchen at Mario’s Marina Bar five days a week, making ceviche, fish and chips, salmon burgers and the coconut-rich Brazilian fish stew moqueca. “They’ll try anything, really,” says Ogle. The smash fries, house cut and topped everything you’d find on a smashburger from sauce to onions, is a favorite of hers. “I get mine with jalapeño,” she says with a little hum. “So good. I try not to eat them every day.”
The garden comes into play again for the menu, as does a little foraging. If a mushroom hunt goes well, the spoils show up in the specials. Likewise, the windfall from a Shelter Cove resident’s pear tree meant the Bosc beauties featured in everything from fritters to salads.
Chef Pangnou Vang’s sushi pop-ups on Sundays are drawing a following, too. Vang, formerly chef at Sushi Blue, brings skill and creativity to her takes on poké, traditional nigiri and colorful rolls, and Ogle marvels at her luck making it happen. Sundays are open music jam nights, so while Vang is making sushi, locals arrive toting instruments and tuning up to play. It is, as promised, fun, alive and very Shelter Cove.
“It’s been really beautiful,” says Ogle.
This article appears in My Humboldt Life December 2025.
