I’ve known of this restaurant for ages and have never eaten here until today.  I’d been here a long time ago to attend an event in the upstairs community center room, but hadn’t stopped to eat…silly me, I’ve been missing out all this time!

The Mercury Cafe opened at this location on Halloween Day, way back in 1990.  This location is far more than just a restaurant: it’s a community center, a gathering place, a music and poetry venue, and much more.  I just may be going back to take some belly dancing classes too!  Check out their website for a monthly calendar, most things are free, but there is a small fee for a few events.

Today we drove up to The Mercury, there is a pay parking lot right next to the building, on the weekend it’s just $2 for the whole day so it’s not much to complain about.  There is free parking on the streets too if you can find it.

Mercury Cafe Dining Area

We were seated immediately, the restaurant wasn’t busy at all for being a Saturday around 1pm.  I love that.  We were seated in a booth by the empty bar.  The restaurant is decorated in a really unique and warm way.  There are a lot of red and white Christmas-style lights draped from the ceiling and lots of mirrors on the walls reflecting things around.  Several of the walls are painted red with large red roses.  And for our auditory pleasure there was a flamenco guitar player playing in the dining area.  For some reason there are a lot of pumpkins around the dining area, that’s not odd if it’s October, but this is the middle of February!  In general, the place it totally eccentric, warm, and friendly. Read the rest of this entry →