Where We Eat: The Elk Store

Second in Where We Eat, the places on this coast we go when someone else is cooking. This one isn’t a restaurant. It’s a general store that has been the middle of its town since 1927, and next year it turns a hundred.

We love the Elk Store. Unreservedly. But loving it means telling you how to use it, because people who wander in cold and in a hurry come away puzzled, and that’s nobody’s fault but the expectations they brought.

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Read this first: it’s worth the wait

Everything here is made to order, and made with care. That takes a little time, so come hungry, just not in a hurry.

• A panini spends about seven minutes on the press, and on a busy afternoon there may be a few ahead of yours.
• Customizing adds a few minutes, and it’s worth it.
• Cold sandwiches are made to order too, so they take about as long as hot ones.
• You don’t pick a sandwich from the deli case. Order at the counter and they’ll make it for you.

People talk about Mendo time. Elk runs on its own gentle version of it, and that’s a big part of the charm. Order, wander the shelves, pick out a bottle, and by the time your sandwich arrives, cut in half and still warm, the wait is long forgotten.

What to order

The tuna melt

Pole-caught tuna salad, olive tapenade and cheddar on sliced sourdough. SFGATE went looking for the best tuna sandwiches in California and this one made the list — singled out for the crispy frico of cheddar that runs off the edge onto the press. The tapenade is what lifts it out of lunch-counter territory: brine and olive against the fat of the mayonnaise and the cheese. It’s a properly built sandwich, and it’s the thing to order if you only order one.

The Grinder

Smoked ham, soppressata, pepperoncini, tomato, red onion and provolone with oil and vinegar, pressed on ciabatta. It’s a proper Italian sandwich: salty, sharp, a little heat from the peppers, and the press melts the provolone into all of it. Order it once and it becomes your Elk sandwich.

And a bottle to go with it

The store keeps a serious wine selection for its size, heavy on Anderson Valley and Mendocino County, so pick up a bottle for the picnic or the house:

• With the tuna melt: a crisp white or a dry rosé. An Anderson Valley Sauvignon Blanc or Gewürztraminer cuts right through the cheddar and the tapenade.
• With the Grinder: an Italian grape for an Italian sandwich. A Mendocino County Sangiovese, like Monte Volpe’s, has the acidity to stand up to the soppressata and the peppers.
• With almost anything on the menu: Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, the region’s signature. Baxter, Drew and Witching Stick were all on the racks last time we looked.

The shelves change with what comes in, so ask at the counter what’s good this week.

It isn’t only sandwiches

Walk in over the original wood floor — the creak announces you — and the range of what’s in there’s genuinely surprising for a building this size. House-made spice blends. Soap they make themselves. Local wine and craft beer chosen with actual care. Groceries if you’re self-catering a rental. Gifts that aren’t tourist tat.

There’s a real espresso bar, not a token machine — espresso drinks done properly, plus drip if that’s your morning. And the baked goods come over from a Fort Bragg bakery, which is about the only thing in the building that moves quickly, because they sell out.

Practical things that will improve your visit

• There’s no public restroom. This is the single most useful thing to know before you arrive. The park maintains one across the street and cleans it every day.
• There are tables outside — use them. More picnic tables sit across the road, and if you’re lucky you’ll get the whale bench.
• The beach is about a quarter-mile walk down, and it’s one of the great ones. Sandwich, blanket, twenty minutes downhill. That’s the afternoon.
• Hours shift with the season — roughly 8 to 6 at weekends and 11 to 6 midweek at the moment. Call ahead if you’re making a special trip.
• Sandwiches come cut in half. Yes. Always. Stop asking.

Wander a bit while you wait. There’s often someone carving wood outside the gallery. That’s Elk: about two hundred people, a store, a couple of inns, and one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in California doing nothing in particular in front of you.

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Why a store gets a whole entry

Because a town of this size only works if somewhere in it does five jobs at once. The Elk Store is the deli, the grocer, the bottle shop, the coffee bar and the notice board. Take it out and Elk is a scenic gap in Highway 1 with nowhere to stand around talking.

It has done that job since 1927, through a lumber economy that collapsed and a tourist one that replaced it. Turning a hundred in 2027 isn’t a small thing for a building that started out as the town candy store during the logging boom.

Elk was called Greenwood then — there’s a bit more of that history here, if you like knowing what you’re looking at while you eat.

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More in the series: Where We Eat. Staying in Elk or anywhere on this coast and would rather not cook? We’ll cook dinner in the house you’ve rented. See private chef in Elk, the menus, or rates.