The Brickery
961 Ukiah Street, Mendocino — The wood-fired brick oven behind Café Beaujolais that began baking bread in 1990 and became a garden pizza spot in 2017.
Last updated: August 23, 2026
Behind the garden path and the quiet sign is one of Mendocino's better food stories — a brick oven that began with bread and eventually found another calling making pizza.
Overview
The Brickery is the garden-side, wood-fired part of Café Beaujolais at 961 Ukiah Street in Mendocino.
Today it operates in the gardens behind the historic restaurant, serving wood-fired pizzas built around seasonal ingredients, along with soups, salads and other changing offerings. Smash burgers have also developed their own following and are currently offered on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
But The Brickery did not begin as a pizza place. It opened in 1990 as the bread-making side of Café Beaujolais, using its brick oven to produce the restaurant's house-made breads. The bakery produced country sourdough, cherry walnut bread, brioche, Austrian seed bread and other creations that became part of the Café Beaujolais name.
That helps explain a memory shared in the original post from someone who remembered buying Café Beaujolais sourdough years ago. The bread was not just something served with dinner — for a time, it was an important part of what The Brickery itself was known for.
Location
The Brickery is located on the Café Beaujolais property at 961 Ukiah Street, on the east side of Mendocino village.
The main restaurant occupies an 1893 Victorian farmhouse surrounded by a large garden. The Brickery sits behind the house in that garden setting, making it feel somewhat hidden from the street even though it is only a short walk from Ukiah Street.
Today the garden is deliberately part of the experience. Café Beaujolais describes The Brickery as a relaxed outdoor gathering place, with tables spread through the landscaping and a setting designed to welcome families, children and dogs.
History
The story begins long before the brick oven. According to Café Beaujolais' own history, Pete Hanson built the house at 961 Ukiah Street in 1893. Hanson operated a shoemaker shop on Main Street and lived here with his family.
In 1928, Lewis Anderson and Kate Bannerman purchased the property. With Dr. Preston, Bannerman operated the house as a maternity home, and many Mendocino-area babies were reportedly delivered here during the following decade. That gives this restaurant property a chapter very different from the food history most people associate with it today.
Bartley and Florence Swartz acquired the house during the 1940s. Its transformation into a restaurant began in 1968, when the Pitsenbarger family purchased the property. They lived upstairs while converting part of the downstairs into a small café, serving dinners on weekends. They called it Café Beaujolais simply because they liked the sound of the name.
The restaurant's best-known early chapter began in 1977. Margaret Fox was only 25 when she purchased Café Beaujolais. She began serving breakfast and lunch and developed the restaurant into a nationally known Mendocino dining destination. She also created a mail-order business that helped carry the Café Beaujolais name well beyond the North Coast. Dinner service was added in 1984 with executive chef Christopher Kump.
Then came the part of the story directly connected to The Brickery. In 1990, Café Beaujolais opened The Brickery and began baking and selling bread from its wood-fired brick oven. For years the oven was closely associated with Café Beaujolais bread — country sourdough, cherry walnut, brioche and Austrian seed bread.
Ownership of Café Beaujolais changed again in 2000 when longtime customers Steve and Ashley Jenks purchased the restaurant and updated the interior. Chef David LaMonica purchased Café Beaujolais in 2006 and continued expanding its line of house products.
In late 2016, Peter and Melissa Lopez and their son, chef Julian Lopez, purchased Café Beaujolais. Julian became executive chef, while the family began restoring and improving the historic property and gardens.
The Building Today
That change in ownership led directly to the modern version of The Brickery. In 2017, the Lopez family decided to put the existing brick oven to another use: pizza. The restaurant says they wanted to introduce a thin-crust, Neapolitan-inspired wood-fired pizza to Mendocino. They already had the oven, so they experimented with pizza — and it caught on with both locals and visitors.
At the same time, the gardens surrounding The Brickery were revitalized with drought-tolerant and flowering plants, helping turn what had been principally a baking operation into the casual outdoor pizza garden people know today. The menu continues to change according to what is fresh and available, working with local farms and seasonal ingredients.
Why It Matters
The building at 961 Ukiah Street has been a family home, a maternity home and a restaurant. Café Beaujolais became a Mendocino institution. And tucked behind it, one brick oven has managed to have two distinct careers of its own — first baking the breads people carried home from Mendocino, and now turning out the wood-fired pizzas people come back for.
Community Memories
The original post replies make it pretty clear what people remember most today. Several singled out the pizza. Another vote went straight to the smash burger. And one longtime Mendocino visitor remembered the sourdough bread — a nice connection back to the reason The Brickery was created in the first place.
Timeline
1893 — Pete Hanson builds the house at 961 Ukiah Street.
1928 — Lewis Anderson and Kate Bannerman purchase the property; it operates as a maternity home.
1940s — Bartley and Florence Swartz acquire the house.
1968 — The Pitsenbarger family opens Café Beaujolais.
1977 — Margaret Fox purchases the restaurant.
1984 — Dinner service begins with chef Christopher Kump.
1990 — The Brickery opens as the bread bakery.
2000 — Steve and Ashley Jenks purchase Café Beaujolais.
2006 — Chef David LaMonica purchases the restaurant.
2016 — The Lopez family purchases Café Beaujolais.
2017 — The brick oven is turned to wood-fired pizza and the gardens are revitalized.
Sources & Original Research: Café Beaujolais official history — 1893 Hanson house, maternity-home period, founding of Café Beaujolais, Margaret Fox era, ownership history, establishment of The Brickery in 1990 and subsequent changes; The Brickery, Café Beaujolais official website — history of the brick oven and bread operation, introduction of wood-fired pizza in 2017, garden development and seasonal sourcing; Café Beaujolais current website and hours. Community memories and food history contributed by Tracy Gilmore, Nancy Beck and Barbara Kutzer Gleed in replies to the original Buildings and Businesses in Mendocino, Ca. with history post. Original post photographs, community replies, continuing research, and compilation by Gee Bee.