Our Story,
To Our Valued Friends And Guests
We value your business and consider each of you our extended family. Our home is your home. Everyone who walks through the front doors or comes to work for us is highly favored and deeply loved by us. Every day we tell our staff to pause for a moment and look around and notice what you see! What you’re seeing is the way life ought to be. It’s the way God intended it to be. So many smiling faces, laughter with friends, date nights, family gatherings, birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, and more! We love it and we love YOU!
The Paige Family
History of Friar Tuck’s
Friar Tucks Restaurant and Bar is in the Historic District of Downtown Nevada City. The Historic District is a 16-acre area listed in the National Register of Historic Places in the US.
Friar Tuck’s was created by Greg Cook in the winter of 1973 with half sawn, stained 2×4’s in star shapes with small lights stapled to the ends served as chandlers. Service was on torch burnt plywood tables and rolled out burlap served as our soft ceiling. Old-timers consider these fun times to be the ‘burlap days’. Friar Tuck’s was created from two passions, wine, and music. As one of the first wine bars in Northern California, we are honored to have received the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator magazine for 19 years running. Live local music has always been a foundation of the Tuck’s experience 7 days a week since the 70’s.
In 1982 Greg married Rona. Together, they owned and operated the restaurant & bar. In the early 80’s the restaurant doubled in size and a full liquor license, Steak, fresh seafood, and more were also added. In 2002, a huge fire burned the entire building to the ground, leaving only a few teetering brick walls. The entire building had to be rebuilt. Miraculously, the entire project took only 14 months. The gorgeous solid mahogany bar you see was custom made for us in Arcadia, California by Wallace and Hinzs craftsmen who specialize in building authentic reproduction bars that were classics in the 1800’s. The Sherwood Forest Room, with its mystical tree and trellis, was built here by clever local artists and completely lit with fiber optics. The brick you see is from the original demolished restaurant and dates back to 1860. We have two wine cellars with hundreds of selections and one cellar can be seen at the end of the bar.
In 2015, Greg & Rona’s daughter, Carissa Cook, moved back to Nevada City and was hired on as the Director of Operations. She grew up in the Restaurant and spent 14 years working in various aspects of the hospitality industry during which time she also became a sommelier. On December 30, 2016, the founder, Greg Cook passed away. Rona and Carissa Cook continued to operate Friar Tuck’s Restaurant.
On April 11, 2019, the Paige family saw the amazing blessing of the Lord on what the Cook family has been to the community through Friar Tuck’s and assumed the new ownership with the desire to continue to carry out the passions and visions that have made Friar Tuck’s an institution for 44 years. Ken and Donna Paige are the Proprietors and Chad their son is General Manager. We are proud to say that Friar Tuck’s is one of the oldest privately and family-owned restaurants in California. The Paige family graciously welcomes you and we are pleased to be your hosts.
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
The building that Friar Tuck’s restaurant is in is a bit of a misnomer in that the historic building is really new. The building on the corner of Pine and Commercial Sts. in the downtown historic district was originally two buildings built out of brick in the heart of Nevada City c.1860.
By 1911, when the gold fever had cooled, one building had become the home of Nevada City Hardware and the other Newton’s Shoe Store. That year, the Nevada City Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks #518 (BPOE) purchased the two buildings, joining them by removing both roofs, connecting them, and built a second story lodge hall which was the Elks Lodge for over 100 years; one of the oldest Elks lodges in the west. The lodge hall had numerous street-level storefronts which changed often over the years.
In the mid-1990’s the Nevada City Elks built a new facility on Hwy 49 just outside of town and the first new owners in100 years took over the building. The new owners, a local engineer, and a local builder purchased the building and did a major remodel converting the upstairs former Elks Lodge into the offices of the Nevada County Probation Department.
At 4:20 am on March 20, 2002, a monster fire gutted the entire building including Friar Tuck’s Restaurant, the Herb Shop Boutique next door, Off Broad Street Theater behind us, and, of course, the upstairs Probation Department. Absolutely nothing was left except for a few remaining teetering brick walls. It took 100 firefighters, 25 fire agencies, and 17 hours to extinguish the fire. The water needs to extinguish the fire nearly drained Nevada City’s reservoir that is the source of the city’s drinking water
It was no surprise that CNN had helicopters overhead all day and the front page the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle featured the fire. The entire town almost burned down.