The Riverside Press-Enterprise
A ROCK-SOLID GETAWAY CHOICE
Morro Bay has the beauty of the coast, good restaurants and shopping, adorable otters and that dramatic landmark
Nearly everywhere you go in the Central Coast town of Morro Bay, you can see The Rock.
It’s visible from Morro Bay State Park, home to thriving bird populations, thanks to its lagoon and natural bay habitats. And it’s an imposing sight from Morro Rock Beach, which stretches north from the landmark and connects with Morro Strand State Beach and North Point Natural Area. Also, it makes for a wonderful backdrop for breakfast on the ocean-view patio at Dorn’s Breakers Café, a family-run restaurant since 1948.
South T Pier, along the Embarcadero, is yet another location, and one that has a bonus: It’s among several hangouts for Morro Bay’s most popular residents — sea otters.
But when it comes to deciding which is the area’s favorite attraction, the competition is a close one. While the massive rock formation is a remarkable sight, the mustachioed otters are as cute as can be.
Yet, between the two, it likely was Morro Rock — which can be spotted 20-some miles away — that first caught the attention of the early explorers.
In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, an Iberian soldier, led the first European expedition along the coast of present-day California with the goal of claiming the land for Spain.
In Morro Bay, Cabrillo called the 576-foot-tall mound of splintered volcanic dacite “El Moro,” because it reminded him of the style of turban headwear worn by the Moors of Spain.
Out and about
One way to immerse yourself in Morro Bay is to stroll along the Embarcadero, a waterfront street where you’ll find an eclectic mix of retail shops interspersed with dining options, art galleries and museums.
There also are opportunities for fun adventures, including fishing and whale-watching excursions, kayak and paddleboard rentals, and even a narrated harbor tour aboard the 21-passenger SSV Seaview, which, as you might expect, given its name, has a glassenclosed viewing area below the water’s surface so you can spy on the fish, jellyfish and kelp.
If you’d prefer to shop, the options are many.
In the Marina Square complex, you’ll find a pair of galleries — one as you enter, the other upstairs — featuring the works of dozens of local painters, photographers, sculptors, glassblowers and other artisans. It’s not unusual to casually meet some of the creators during regular hours (11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily), and more formally during receptions from 3 to 5 p.m. the second Saturday of each month.
How about some saltwater taffy? There’s a store for that, too. Carousel Taffy features an abundance of imitation whiskey barrels piled high with 70 yummy varieties. If you can’t pick a favorite, the staff will help the decision-making process with free samples.
And, perhaps unexpectedly, there’s Hooray for Hollywood — a shop that’s more Tinseltown than quaint seaside fishing village. It’s where you’ll find “Walking Dead” and “Wizard of Oz” figurines, Elsa backpacks, and Elvis Presley handbags and umbrellas.
If there’s a dean of Morro Bay business owners, it probably would be David Thomas of The Shell Shop.
As a 10-year-old in 1955, he would collect abalone shells, a byproduct of the commercial fishing industry, and sell them for 10 to 25 cents apiece. That first summer, he made $100 — and a business was born.
Today, Thomas sells hundreds of varieties of shells and decorative corals from around the globe, and specialty items such as shell night lights and wind chimes, from a store that looks like it’s straight out of the 1960s — mostly because it is. Built in 1963, it’s said to be the oldest continually operating retail business in Morro Bay.
Last April, The Shell Shop was named 2022 Business of the Year, for the first time, by the Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce.
“It only took 68 years,” Thomas says, laughing. “Apparently they wait to see if you’re going to make it.”
When it comes to great eats, Morro Bay has a full menu. For
starters, this being a coastal fishing town, you’d be right to expect seafood restaurants that are legend. The lineup here includes a pair that have been pleasing palates for decades.
Dutchman’s Seafood House was launched in 1986 by Cornelius and Mary Van Beurden, who’d emigrated with their nine children from The Netherlands nearly 30 years earlier. It has an open kitchen design and offers casual dining for lunch and dinner. From-the-sea options include Alaskan cod — in the fish and chips and also the Dutchman’s Platter — plus oysters on the half shell and ahi poke nachos.
A couple blocks away, there are two options under the Giovanni’s banner: the Fish Market & Galley, with extensive offerings that include halibut, snapper, salmon and soft-shell blue crab; and the newer Take-out Express with a strippeddown menu that allows for quicker service. Both serve clam chowder that’s a local favorite and a multiyear winner of the annual Morro Bay Chowder Cook-off.
Giovanni Degarimore runs the business, started by his parents, Mike and Kathy Degarimore, who originally opened a small fish market in Cambria. In 1985, they purchased the current location, on Front Street near the Embarcadero, where the Fish Market & Galley and Take-out Express are.
House of Juju is a more recent arrival on the dining scene. The family-owned and -operated restaurant opened in 2015 next to Anchor
Memorial Park, a small space that honors local commercial fishermen who were lost at sea. Specialties at Juju include six gourmet burgers — which also can be ordered as sliders — with protein choices that include bison, freerange ground turkey and certified Angus beef.
You really `otter' go
Climbing Morro Rock is illegal, but it’s easy to drive (or bike or walk) nearly right up to it and park steps away from its base. Pull into your parking “spot” — it’s really just a dirt lot — and you’ll see kelp beds in the water nearby, which was a popular sea otter hangout during our visit.
Unless you rent a kayak, this rock-covered shoreline is probably the closest you can get to the fuzzy marine mammals as they frolic about or just chill on the water’s surface, wrapped in the kelp. Excursion boats (several options are available) are required to stay at least 50 feet from wildlife.
But even in a kayak, it’s best to keep a safe and respectful distance, and definitely avoid any direct interaction, says Sea Otter Savvy, a Central Coast-based nonprofit that promotes the responsible viewing of wild sea otters. The group estimates that Morro Bay’s harbor is home to 30-50 sea otters, mostly females of reproductive age.
Centuries ago, the waters off California were teeming with sea otters, but their numbers diminished greatly in the 1700s
and 1800s due to the maritime fur trade. Now, the area between Gaviota State Beach north of Santa Barbara and Pigeon Point near San Jose, including Morro Bay, has some 3,000 sea otters, by one estimate. It’s believed that all of them can be traced to a small group of 50 survivors discovered near Big Sur in 1938.
The otters are active yearround, but when planning your trip be aware that the main pupping season happens October through January, with a secondary spike in March and April.
Visiting in late July, we missed out on all that peak otter pup cuteness. But on the plus side, we avoided — and definitely didn’t miss — the summer heat back home. During a week when Riverside was pushing triple digits and Anaheim reached the mid-90s, it was sweater weather in Morro Bay, where the highs were mostly in the upper 60s and, for a couple days, in the low 70s, with cloudy to partly cloudy mornings and sunny afternoons.
Several mornings while we were there, coastal fog enveloped Morro Rock, which obscured our view. And yet, each of those days produced a wonderful show, as the sun never failed to push away the gloom before lunchtime.
Even better was early one fogless morning. We got up while it was still dark and made our way to Morro Rock Beach to watch the sunrise, as those first rays illuminated the Gibraltar of the Pacific … . That was stunning.