The Purple Rose

Overview

The Purple Rose at 24300 North Highway 1 was one of those north-of-town roadside places that became much more than a restaurant.

Set along Highway 1 in the Cleone and Mill Creek area, the building had the kind of location that made it a natural gathering spot. People could pull in, park, eat, linger, and almost count on seeing somebody they knew. It was not a fancy downtown storefront or a polished tourist stop. It was a roadside neighborhood place, and that is why so many people remember it clearly.

In more recent years, the building was widely known as The Purple Rose. Public sale material shows the property selling in September 2023, which fits with the sense that the Purple Rose chapter had closed and the building was moving into a new stage.

Location

The building sits at 24300 North Highway 1, north of Fort Bragg in the Cleone area. This stretch of Highway 1 has always had a different feeling from downtown Fort Bragg. It is more spread out, more roadside, and more connected to nearby neighborhoods, the coast, camping areas, and the people moving between Fort Bragg, Cleone, MacKerricher, and points farther north.

That location helped shape the business. A restaurant here could serve locals, travelers, workers, families, and people headed up or down the coast. It was the kind of place where the highway brought people in, but the neighborhood kept them coming back.

History

The building's best-remembered recent life was as The Purple Rose, but the story goes back farther.

Before The Purple Rose, local memory remembers this place as Margie's Pie Place. That earlier chapter gives the building much of its deeper local meaning. Obituary material connected to Rosamond Thompson mentions Country Antiques in Cleone adjacent to Margie's Pie Place. Another obituary notes that Walter and Margie McClanahan moved to Fort Bragg in 1968 and opened a restaurant in Cleone called Margie's Pie Place, later known as The Purple Rose.

Those pieces help anchor what many people remembered in the comments: this was not just a restaurant that happened to change names. It was a long-running roadside food and gathering place with roots reaching back to the late 1960s.

The memories around The Purple Rose years are especially vivid. People remembered margaritas, favorite burritos, pre-prom dinners, familiar staff, and the feeling that half the neighborhood might be there on the same night. It was one of those places where the food mattered, but the social part mattered just as much.

The shared memories also push the site back before the restaurant era. Some remembered Hill Electric at the property before Margie's Pie Place, and others recalled a fishing tackle shop in what later became the bar area. Those details give the building the layered feel of many older roadside properties: one practical use after another, each leaving a little trace in local memory.

The Building Today

The Purple Rose chapter appears to have closed before the property sale in September 2023, and the building has since moved toward whatever its next use will be.

Even without the restaurant operating under that name, the place still carries the memory of what happened there. For many people, this address is still tied to Margie's Pie Place, The Purple Rose, family dinners, neighborhood meetups, and the kind of small-town restaurant life that is hard to recreate once it is gone.

Why It Matters

The Purple Rose matters because it was one of Cleone's remembered gathering places.

Not every important local landmark is inside town limits or on an old commercial block. Some sit along the highway, serving people who live just outside town, people headed home from the beach, people meeting friends, and families who return to the same tables over and over.

This building's history tells a north coast roadside story: Hill Electric, a fishing tackle shop, Margie's Pie Place, The Purple Rose, and all the meals, drinks, staff, and regulars remembered in between. It was a practical building, but it became a social one.

At 24300 North Highway 1, the history is not only in the business names. It is in the way the place worked as a neighborhood room — the kind of spot where people pulled off the highway and found Fort Bragg, Cleone, and Mill Creek life waiting inside.

Sources: Original post text and research provided by Gee Bee. Community memories from the original Facebook discussion, including recollections of Margie's Pie Place, The Purple Rose, Hill Electric, the fishing tackle shop, favorite meals, margaritas, pre-prom dinners, familiar staff, and neighborhood gatherings. Additional references include obituary material connected to Rosamond Thompson, Walter McClanahan, and Margie McClanahan, along with public property sale material showing the 2023 sale.