Dick's Place / Rubaiyat Beads

Overview

Dick's Place, the Main Street bar with the neon cocktail glass, began as the liquor store Dick and Dora Cecchi opened in 1934, soon after Prohibition ended. It is one of Mendocino's oldest bars, known for its ocean view, its jukebox, its regulars, and decades of stories. Next door, the Cecchi family's former home now holds Rubaiyat Beads.

According to the earlier website history, Dick's Place is an unpretentious bar that serves beer, wine, and cocktails, with a jukebox of soul, R&B, and country music. Rubaiyat Beads sells beads, semiprecious stones, jewelry supplies, textiles, rugs, incense, and imported goods. Recent listings describe the property as about 3,235 square feet on roughly 0.16 acres, running from Main Street back to Albion Street, with the bar, the shop, and a one-bedroom residence.

Location

The property stands on the ocean side of Main Street, near the Mendocino Hotel and across from the open headlands. The bar's windows look west over the bluffs to Mendocino Bay.

History

The following history comes from the earlier website history, which drew on Kelley House Museum research and SFGATE reporting.

Riccardo "Dick" Cecchi was born in 1894 in Fornovolasco, Italy, and came to California at age ten. In 1908 he moved to Elk to live with his uncle, Ottavio Viviani, and spent about twenty years in coast logging camps. He met Dora at the Irmulco camp, and they married in 1921. They had three children: Lena, Pete, and Irene.

The Cecchis opened their liquor store on October 15, 1934, received an on-sale license in 1936, and in 1937 bought the bar building and the house next door, where the family lived. One resident was always told that after Prohibition they didn't want to call it a bar, a tavern, or a saloon, so they kept the name everyone already used: Dick's Place. In 1938, the year the Mendocino mill closed and WPA crews arrived, the family added an Italian café. A shot of whiskey reportedly cost a dime. Dick and later Pete tended bar, Dora cooked, Lena washed dishes, and Irene waited tables.

After Dick's stroke in 1961, the family stopped serving food and Pete ran the bar. Dick died in 1967. Pete, a World War II veteran, was remembered as wary of the counterculture newcomers. He sold the bar in 1983 but kept working there for several years. Ownership passed for a time to people connected with the Mendocino Hotel and changed again in 2005. Eula Lenihan, a bartender since the mid-1990s, met Mike Lenihan at the bar in 2003. The couple bought Dick's Place in 2013 and called themselves its caretakers. The property was listed in 2025 for about $3.5 million and relisted in April 2026 for about $2.95 million.

The neon cocktail glass predates Mendocino's sign rules and was allowed to stay. The bull horns above the bar are said to come from a Comptche bull that once knocked Dick down. Pete's ashes are reportedly kept above the bar. One Halloween, a costumed rider brought a horse through the door, and the old floor held.

Kelley House Museum material identifies Rubaiyat's entrance as the former Cecchi home. Residents remember the shop's earlier moves differently. One places it in Fort Bragg on Redwood Avenue, against the alley. Another says it began where Frankie's Pizza is now, moved to a small building just east of there almost forty years ago, closed for a few years, and reopened across from Mendosa's before moving to Main Street. A third says it has been on Main Street only about twenty years. One resident says the owner, Ruby, died during the COVID years. When Rubaiyat moved into this space has not been established.

Timeline

1934 — Dick and Dora Cecchi open a liquor store on Main Street.

1936 — The Cecchis receive an on-sale license and begin operating as a bar.

1937 — The family buys the bar building and the house next door.

1938 — The Italian café opens.

1961 — Dick suffers a stroke, the café stops serving food, and Pete takes over the bar.

1967 — Dick Cecchi dies.

1970 — Summer of '42 is filmed in Mendocino.

1983 — Pete Cecchi sells the bar.

2013 — Eula and Mike Lenihan buy Dick's Place.

2025 — The property is listed for sale for about $3.5 million.

2026 — The property is relisted in April for about $2.95 million.

Community Memories

According to the earlier website history, Summer of '42 was filmed in Mendocino in 1970. One resident says Jennifer O'Neill drops her grocery bag near Dick's. When the camera pans past the bar, a white blur in the window is the resident's brother Jim, who had been asked to stay back from the glass and took that as a challenge. Another resident had lunch with Jennifer O'Neill, who said she could feel the old saloon's vibe while filming out front. A third remembers the spot as an ice cream store.

One resident who arrived as a young hippie in the late 1960s remembers the jukebox blasting "Okie from Muskogee" to keep newcomers away. Another had a first legal drink there, bought by Pete, and is now seventy-one. As 16-year-olds, another resident and a girlfriend used to park out front to watch the characters until the bartender's stare reminded them they couldn't come in. That resident says Dick's has always felt out of time. A former regular says it was the only one of six local bars where you could still smoke, until the state ended cigars and Scotch around 2000.

Residents nicknamed it "Ricardo's by the Sea" and "Richard's by the Sea." One resident proposed there on New Year's Eve 1989. Another had the best martinis there on a 1984 honeymoon, and another celebrated a fiftieth birthday there and likes it best during the day. A resident first brought there by a late spouse in the early 1960s returned this April with a daughter for a drink in that spouse's memory. That resident points out the photograph of Plumas County's Williams Loop, near the family's home, on the wall. At the 1990s Mendocino Music Festival, one volunteer defended the neon sign when people talked of removing it, saying it had been there longer than the festival. Regulars praise the Bloody Marys, one couple stops in weekly, and Monday nights bring an open mic.

At Rubaiyat, one resident remembers Ruby as kind and helpful and as a Mendocino Theatre Company actress best remembered for her solo Shirley Valentine. Another used to trade frybread for beads there.

Why It Matters

Dick's Place has served Mendocino for more than ninety years. It began as a Depression-era family business and outlasted the logging era, the counterculture years, Hollywood, and the end of smoking in bars. With Rubaiyat in the old Cecchi home next door, the property still shows where one immigrant family lived and worked side by side under the neon glass.

For more local history, photographs, and archived articles, explore the complete Fort Bragg History collection.

See the full archive: www.infortbragg.com