Welcome Inn

A small East Redwood bar remembered through loggers, fishermen, bartenders, early-morning regulars, and the cluster of nearby drinking spots once nicknamed the "Barmuda Triangle."

Overview

East Redwood Avenue has always been one of those Fort Bragg streets where the working town showed through.

Not the polished version, but the real one — bars, cafés, small restaurants, and places where people came in early, stayed late, and knew one another by name.

The Welcome Inn fit that stretch perfectly.

Its compact footprint, flat roofline, and straightforward commercial appearance make it look like one of those practical mid-century buildings that was never trying to impress anybody. It was built to be used, and for years it served as a familiar stop for people whose workdays did not follow ordinary business hours.

History

What makes this address especially interesting is that the Welcome Inn was not just a bar standing by itself.

Local memory ties it directly to the Welcome Inn restaurant next door, in the space that later became Lee's Chinese.

According to a family recollection shared in the original discussion, the restaurant opened in the early 1960s. The building was reportedly constructed by Ed Mertle for the commenter's mother to operate.

At the time, the bar and restaurant were connected. Children could walk between the two spaces, passing the peanuts, jerky, soft drinks, and Shirley Temples along the way.

That detail says a great deal about how casual and familiar neighborhood businesses could feel in Fort Bragg during that period.

The bar was not sealed off from the rest of community life. Restaurant business, bar business, family routines, and neighborhood friendships all overlapped inside the same small commercial setting.

The Welcome Inn belonged to a time when downtown businesses often felt less like separate establishments and more like connected rooms in the life of the town.

Community Memories

The comments filled in the kind of details that rarely appear in business directories or property records.

People remembered bartenders named Carlos and Will. They remembered early mornings, working people coming through the door, and the easy familiarity of a place where regular customers were expected.

One early recollection described the Welcome Inn as opening at six in the morning, making it possible for someone to stop for a quick drink before heading to the river for steelhead.

Later comments clarified that early opening was not unique to the Welcome Inn. Fort Bragg's bars commonly opened at six during the town's logging, fishing, and mill years.

That schedule made sense in a community where many shifts began or ended before sunrise. A six-o'clock bar opening was not aimed at vacationers. It followed the hours of fishermen, mill workers, loggers, night-shift employees, and people whose working day might already be half over by the time other businesses opened.

The surrounding block was also remembered as a much livelier bar district than it appears today.

Several nearby drinking establishments operated within a short distance of one another, and local people jokingly called the area the "Bermuda Triangle" or, more accurately, the "Barmuda Triangle." The exact number depended on the year and on which establishments someone counted. Memories mentioned the Welcome Inn along with other nearby bars, including El Sombrero, the Hoare House, the Ship's Wheel, the Old Coast, and Milano's.

For local police officers, bartenders, regulars, and anyone moving between those businesses, East Redwood could produce more than enough stories for one small stretch of downtown.

The Welcome Inn also had a less flattering nickname remembered with affection and humor: the "Unwelcome Inn." Like many old local nicknames, it probably said less about the official business and more about the teasing, rivalries, incidents, and personalities attached to the place over the years.

Why It Matters

The Welcome Inn matters because it represents a kind of Fort Bragg business that is easy to underestimate when looking only at the building.

On paper, it is a modest mid-century commercial structure on East Redwood Avenue.

In memory, it was connected to a family-run restaurant, filled with bartenders people still remember by name, and open during the early hours that matched the routines of a logging, fishing, and mill town.

It was also part of a tightly packed downtown bar district where several establishments operated close together and where stories moved almost as freely as the customers.

The Welcome Inn belonged to an older rhythm of Fort Bragg life — shifts ending at dawn, fishing trips beginning before daylight, restaurant and bar spaces connected by an interior doorway, and familiar faces moving from one establishment to the next.

That is the history worth preserving.

The building may look ordinary, but the life that passed through it was anything but.

Sources: Original post text provided by Gee Bee. Comment threads provided by Gee Bee, including contributor memories from Joni Goble, Heather Capps, Jim Nailor, Kelly Hilliard, Mikael Haye, Jeffrey Allen, Sarah Eliason, Navin Johnson, and Anna Roeth.