For most of 2025 and into early 2026, anyone driving Highway 116 through Monte Rio watched the same building do nothing. The space that used to be Lucy's sat empty at the town's main crossroads, the kind of vacancy you stop noticing until construction fencing goes up and you start noticing again. Fresh paint appeared. Then landscaping. Then the hum of tools on weekends. Neighbors tracked the progress on Instagram the way you'd watch a pot that refuses to boil.
What finally opened there in May explains something about this town that the postcard version, the neon "Vacation Wonderland" sign and the beach and the redwoods, doesn't quite capture. Monte Rio has never lacked scenery. What it lacked, for the better part of a year, was a place to land.
A Year of Watching Fresh Paint Go On
The space at 20391 Highway 116 had cycled through a string of short-lived restaurant concepts before Lucy's closed and the storefront went quiet. Brian Perloff, who lives nearby in Villa Grande with his partner Kellee Kessler, took over the lease and spent close to a year rebuilding it from the inside out. Perloff isn't a career restaurateur. He's a Southern California transplant who's lived in Sonoma County for more than two decades and worn a string of unrelated hats along the way, including a stint as an Olympic cycling hopeful and a run as a coffeehouse owner.
The rebuild wasn't cosmetic. The back bar is built from the recycled top of the original Lucy's bar, a small detail that matters more than it should in a town where continuity gets noticed. One wall is a rotating gallery of historic Monte Rio photographs, done in partnership with the Russian River Historical Society. Another is reserved for local artists. A line of guitars hangs within reach of anyone who wants to pick one up.
Wonderland Pizzeria opened its doors on May 22, with the BoHoss Boogie Boys playing and a ribbon cut at 11 a.m. Perloff told the Sebastopol Times he wasn't interested in shortcuts: the dough runs on a 72-hour poolish ferment, an old-school method where the yeast builds separately before it goes into the mix, and the open kitchen lets anyone watch it happen. "It's all from scratch," he said at the time.
What Actually Opened
Four months in, the early read backs up what the town seemed to be hoping for. A Press Democrat feature in Sonoma Magazine in late June described the place as Monte Rio's version of Cheers, the kind of spot where regulars show up for a cold beer on tap and the staff already knows their usual topping. One pizza on the menu, the Baxman, is named for and built around toppings chosen by Monte Rio's own fire chief, Steve Baxman.
The back patio does a lot of the work. Accordion doors open the dining room straight into an outdoor garden with heat lamps, ping pong, cornhole and a fire pit, the kind of setup built for staying rather than passing through. Perloff plans to keep adding pizzas and live music through the season, and he's said the goal from day one wasn't turnover. It was the opposite.
"We don't want that feeling where you come in, eat, and leave," Perloff said. "We want people to stay, hang out, have a beer, and spend time together."
That's a different pitch than most restaurant openings make, and it's a specific answer to what a town without a year-round gathering place actually needs. Not another scenic dinner with a river view. A place open seven days a week, dogs welcome, where showing up alone on a Tuesday doesn't feel like a mistake.
The Same Few Days, A Different Reason to Stay
The timing this year makes the case better than any single review could. The River & Redwoods Film Festival returns to the Monte Rio Theater for three days starting September 25, bringing narrative features, documentaries, shorts and filmmaker Q&As to the historic Quonset-hut theater on Bohemian Highway. It's the kind of event that used to mean driving somewhere else afterward for dinner, because Monte Rio's dining options thinned out fast once the credits rolled.
That's the same weekend that used to send people toward Guerneville. This year it doesn't have to.
A few blocks away, Curtain Call Theatre is opening its 2026 season at the Russian River Hall with The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams' memory play about family and fragile hope. The company runs on no paid staff at all. Its artistic director and associate artistic director volunteer more than 20 hours a week apiece, and the entire year of programming costs the organization roughly $25,000, a figure that only makes sense once you understand it's covered almost entirely by ticket sales, subscriptions and donations from people who live within a few miles of the stage.
Layer in the rest of what's already running and the picture of a full fall calendar comes into focus. Highland Dell Lodge, built in 1906 and the only lodging on the river still operating continuously under its original name, keeps its German restaurant serving dinner five nights a week, a fixture that predates almost everything else on this list. Lightwave Coffee & Kitchen at the Creekside skate park is open Wednesday through Sunday mornings for the crowd that wants coffee before the beach gets busy. And the Monte Rio Amphitheater, run by the Monte Rio Recreation & Park District, has hosted what the district calls the longest-running variety show in the world since 1997, with proceeds still going to local schools, churches and the fire district.
None of that is new. What's new is that between a Friday film screening and a Saturday matinee, there's finally a reason to just stay put.
What This Says About the Town
It would be easy to file Wonderland Pizzeria under "new restaurant opens" and move on. That undersells what actually happened. A town that already had a historic theater, a volunteer-run playhouse, a century-old lodge and one of the country's longest-running variety shows still spent most of a year feeling like it was missing something in between all of it. The crossroads sat dark long enough that people started measuring the town's momentum by how long it stayed that way.
What filled it back in wasn't a destination restaurant chasing river views. It was a patio with guitars on the wall and a pizza named after the fire chief, built by two people who live five minutes away and wanted somewhere to bring their own neighbors. That's a small thing to hang a whole season on, but it's the thing that changes whether a Friday night in Monte Rio means driving somewhere else or staying exactly where you are.
If you're around this month, here's what's actually on:
- September 25-27: River & Redwoods Film Festival, Monte Rio Theater, Bohemian Highway
- Ongoing this fall: Curtain Call Theatre's 2026 season opener, The Glass Menagerie, at the Russian River Hall
- Daily, seven days a week: Wonderland Pizzeria, 20391 Highway 116, patio open with live music planned through the season
- Friday through Tuesday evenings: Highland Dell's German dinner service on River Boulevard
- Wednesday through Sunday mornings: Lightwave Coffee & Kitchen at the Creekside skate park
A town's character rarely changes because of one building. It changes when a gap that sat open long enough for everyone to notice finally closes, and the people who live there realize they didn't have to leave to find each other.
If you're weighing a move to a river town where the storefronts still know your name, Poppy Real Estate can walk you through what West Sonoma County living actually looks like, season by season. Reach out for a complimentary home valuation and marketing plan when you're ready to cultivate your own piece of it.
