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B.I.T.C.H. WOMENS CLUB OF FRENCH GULCH MAKES THE PAPER INA BIG WAY. http://www.redding.com/news/2009/oct/06/bitch-club-helps-those-in-need-empowers-women/
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d.a.t.e. Record Searchlight, Redding, CA. 2/19/2009
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Dining Out: Historic hotel serves up delicious dishes
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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Dining Out: French Gulch Hotel
Bob Lenzio and Marguerite Johnson of Redding enjoy the top sirloin dinner recently at the French Gulch Hotel, now under new ownership and management. View gallery »
French Gulch Hotel
• 14138 Main Street, French Gulch
•Phone: 359-2112 or 877-353-2112
•Web site: frenchgulchhotelbandb.com
•“A nice change of pace,” said Bob Lenzio and Marguerite Johnson of Redding, describing their decision to drive 15 miles west of town to dine at the French Gulch Hotel. Comfortably ensconced in the dining room of the historic hotel, which dates to the 1880s, the couple ordered the hand-cut top sirloin dinner ($14.50).
The place is under new management. In November, Michael Smith and John Pearson bought the hotel and restaurant from Carol Jandrall and chef Andrew Bouchard, who had owned it for 11 years.
Smith and Pearson, formerly of Tacoma, Wash., had scoured the Internet for a bed-and-breakfast property with a restaurant attached. “It looked like something out of the cowboy movies,” said Smith, a Sacramento native, of the rambling two-story hotel on the main street of French Gulch (named for the French Canadian miners who arrived there in 1849).
They’ve added a coffee bar and an eclectic gift shop, redesigned the menu to focus on “homemade comfort food” and have begun redecorating the dining areas and the guest rooms. The hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Recommended: The hand-cut sirloin that one of my dining companions ordered – a lean and tender cut prepared just as ordered and served with a baked potato, zucchini and choice of a robust salad or a hearty homemade vegetable soup. My seafood platter consisted of a tasty tilapia topped with lemon slices and two large prawns served tempura style.
For dessert, the three of us shared a sinfully rich Bananas Foster.
The new owners are still tweaking the menu, but here’s a general guide: meat loaf on Wednesday night, spaghetti on Thursday and prime rib on Saturday.
Smith makes soups from scratch and boasts of his “ridiculously big” nachos appetizer. At $4.50, it’s “like a meal in itself.”
Locals tend to gravitate to the adjoining “saloon,” which features the bar from the Empire Hotel, a competitor of the French Gulch Hotel when it was owned by Richard Feeny in the 1880s. The bar, built in England, reputedly was shipped, disassembled in crates, around Cape Horn to San Francisco, where it was transferred to wagons for the trek north.
Thankfully, Smith and Pearson intend to keep the tradition of a Sunday brunch on Easter, Mother’s Day and other special occasions.