BIG SUR: Community staple sees big crowds as bridge reopens

On this warm fall Monday, the folks at Nepenthe in Big Sur are serving up more than just some tasty meals and a few cold drinks. Of course, it’s not officially on the menu but “gratitude” is today’s special.

Like so many businesses south of the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, Nepenthe’s co-owner Holly Fassett saw her numbers drop dramatically when the bridge closed and was later demolished after winter storms forced a mudslide. The restaurant went from doing roughly a 1,000 meals a day before the closure…”and then all of sudden nothing,” Fassett said as she spoke with KION’s Paul Dudley on the restaurant’s sunny balcony, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. “It just came to a screeching halt. We kind of went through all the stages of grief, you know, like shock and then accepting it, and going through all of these different emotions.”

On Friday, the bridge reopened for the first time since March. That same day, crowds started flocking back to the world-renowned restaurant, which had sat virtually empty for months.

“Oh my God, totally back to summertime numbers, really busy,” Fassett said, “It’s pretty overwhelming actually because just got used to eight months of not being open.”

“(It’s been) months of waiting for this, so it’s really good and I am happy for Nepenthe and all the businesses down here,” said Bob Tasner, a Carmel Valley resident.

The community of Big Sur isn’t completely back to status quo. The Mud Creek slide is still preventing people from driving all of Highway 1, but Fassett says they are expecting to be 85 percent of normal “because a lot of people are saying ‘we just want to get to you, we don’t care about getting all the way south.'”

The Mud Creek slide should be cleared up by next summer, according to Caltrans.