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1 week ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Many local restaurant owners can spin long stories of how they got to where they are today. Pemba Sherpa, co-owner of Cotati’s Everest restaurant, might just have the longest and most dramatic of the bunch. He was born in Nepal, and after immigrating to the U.S. in 2002, he worked at several local restaurants, including nine years at the Red Grape in Sonoma, where he learned from the late Sam Morphy.
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1 week ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Summer is rolling into Sonoma County and people are on the hunt for premium outdoor recreation to soak up all the fun in the sun. Glamping — camping’s more glamorous cousin — has been top of mind for effortless leisure in nature. And according to travel and lifestyle guide USA Today 10Best, the No. 1 place to glamp in the United States is right in Santa Rosa.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Stéphane Saint Louis has already made his mark on the Sonoma County dining scene, from cheffing at Petaluma favorite Della Fattoria and The Shuckery to launching his first restaurant, the recently Michelin-recommended Table Culture Provisions. But with two young boys in tow, Saint Louis and his wife and business partner Marta Saint Louis are just getting started. Together with co-owner Steven Vargas, who also worked at Della, they open their second Petaluma eatery, Bijou, this month.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Furry pink swings, a wall of shimmering pink mermaid scales, retro-style pink pay phones and pink velvet barstools make for an oh-so-Instagrammable moment at Pink Sugar, Santa Rosa’s first Thai rolled ice cream shop. A steady stream of teens files into the former Yogurt Farms space (1224 Mendocino Ave.), mostly checking out each other but also sneaking videos of the mesmerizing ice cream-making process.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Steve Decosse, owner of Acre Pizza and founder of Acre Coffee (now Avid Coffee), has soft opened a new, budget-friendly pasta spot at The Barlow. Decosse, who previously ran several restaurants in San Francisco, has hired chef Ian Marks to create a simple menu of classic pasta dishes with optional add-ons like burrata, pancetta, Mycopia mushrooms and meatballs.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Travel and lifestyle guide USA Today 10Best recently released a roundup of the “10 best small towns in the West.” From the mountain ranges of Utah to the Oregon coast, one Sonoma County locale shined as a must-visit for small-town luxe: Healdsburg. The list, curated by a panel of editors and voted on by readers, highlights charming, scenic western towns with diverse offerings for locals and visitors.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
On a late May weekend, the lines routinely stretch several customers deep at farmer Lao Saetern’s strawberry stand, along a busy stretch of Highway 12 at the border of Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. It’s the same story 25 miles away at popular Watmaugh Strawberries, just outside the town of Sonoma, where Torn Saetern helps run the 10-acre farm his parents started in 2001. Torn and Lao are cousins.
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2 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
I vividly remember the first-ever BottleRock Napa Valley, held in May 2013. A friend flew in all the way from New York to join me for what sounded like an exciting extravaganza — but after an hour of wandering through the dusty, bare dirt lot that was the Napa Valley Expo grounds, we left. At that point, we had already spent a good amount of money on mediocre sandwiches from what looked like shipping container booths, along with warm, grocery-store-quality wine served in plastic cups.
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3 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
The ice cream man is ready to pack up and move to his next spot. It’s 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, and so far, he has sold only 10 cups of his homemade treats. Looking up at the sun, he wipes sweat from his forehead with a towel. He’s just lugged a large bag of ice on his shoulder across a parking lot. Now, using a wooden stick, he packs ice deep in the crevices between 2-gallon buckets of ice cream, sprinkling rock salt over the top to make it last longer.
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3 weeks ago | 
sonomamag.com | Maci Martell
Justin Gill is a third-generation Sebastopol native who transformed his grandmother’s recipe for Japanese-style barbecue sauce into a multimillion-dollar business. Gill, who now lives in Santa Rosa with his wife and three daughters, grew up steeped in the outdoorsy west county culture, riding bikes through the hills and heading out to the coast to surf with friends.
