Cove Cafe 2012
Check out our new menu items for 2012. “Not just a hot dog stand anymore”…we take pride in creating every sandwich and salad to order! Nothing is made ahead of time and we feel confident you can taste the difference. We make our soup everyday. We make ALL of our salad dressings (feel free to ask for a recipe) and believe our Ceaser dressing ROCKS! We dry rub Snake River pork shoulder for 24 hours, roast it in the oven for 8 hours in our very own secret recipe sauce (involving beer and cocoa cola) and then shred it by hand to make our “Way Down South” barbeque pork sandwich. These are just a few of the ways we “don’t take shortcuts” to “make your food the best”. We care and it shows in the taste. We love to talk about our food so stop by and say hello.

Despite some iffy weather the Cove Cantina and Oyster Bar opened to rave reviews Memorial Day weekend. We have installed a brand new catering trailer with a full service kitchen to expect lots of new menu items as we start to get the hang of it. Jed Keltner, our Angel Island Company Maintenance Supervisor, did an amazing job of getting everything up and running. The trailer was actually built in Indiana, driven to California, inspected at the Civic Center, put on a barge and sailed to the island. Jed then pulled it off the barge and backed it into it’s new home. We then preceded to build a structure around it that makes it look right at home with the historic buildings on the island. Come see for yourself. Open every weekend it’s not raining!

After much discussion the Cove Cafe Menu board has moved to behind the counter. It’s bigger and hopefully easier to identify when waiting to place your order in the cafe. You’ll find all your favorites: Garlic Fries, Big Plate Nachos, Kobe Hot Dogs and our almost famous Barbeque Pulled Pork Sandwich. Look for new items such as the Thai Noodle Salad with Ginger Sesame Dressing, Cashews, Green Onion & Cherry Tomato. The Cove Cafe is open 10-3 seven days starting in April.

If you don’t already know, Angel Island has a pretty fantastic food offering, including salads made from fresh produce grown on the island and seasonal fruit smoothies. Yesterday The Marin Independent Journal featured an article covering the Cove Cafe, the weekend cantina, and the culinary talents of Dee Wagner. All in the most complimentary fashion we could hope for. Thanks, Tanya Henry, for the glowing review. Click here to read the full article.

“Come September, old feelings can come back, like those September days as a youngster when you rode a bike to school. Now is a good time to get on a bike. A few strokes of the pedals and turns of the wheels, and the memories come back. Suddenly, you’re 10 years old again.

The best place to experience this phenomenon in the Bay Area is Angel Island, where you get a mix of adventure, spectacular views, history and a 5.5-mile ride with plenty of stopping points – and, of course, no cars.”

Check out the rest of this this SF Gate article for a mile-by-mile outline of how to do the trip.

When my crew took over operation of the cove cafe in 2008 the facility was in big need of a overhaul. Enter my good friends Shawn Hall and Jann Eyrich. Shawn and Jann have been creating wonderful spaces for years in the bay area most often in upscale restaurants in San Francisco and wine country but I convinced them to turn their amazing talent lose in my humble cafe. They transformed the place, built me and office out of tin and salvaged doors and did most of the work with “green” salvaged materials. Our “new look” has an old weathered feel which ties in wonderfully with the history of the island. My favorite piece is a 100 year old counter top salvaged from a hardware store in Sabastapol. It makes me happy just looking at it…