Alta Journal has a lovely remembrance of the Casino Bar and Grill in its July issue, in which author Cody Reiss, a former Chez Panisse cook, calls the Bodega institution, “The Last Great Roadhouse.”

He writes, “There are some places I hope will never change. One of those is Casino Bar and Grill, which has been serving ice-cold beer and homestyle food to the small community of Bodega since 1949.”

Along Bodega Highway between Sebastopol and the coast, as Reiss notes, “For a long time, Casino’s most notable feature was Evelyn Casini, who bought the restaurant with her husband, Art, in 1949, when she was 22. Evelyn stood behind the bar and in front of a narrow flat-top grill for 75 years.”

Reiss heard about Evelyn and Casino from a coworker at Chez Panisse, first visiting in 2021. He returned every time he drove up the coast.

Evelyn Casini passed away on September 3, 2024 in her Bodega home, survived by a daughter, son, grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter. Her granddaughter-in-law, Brandi Mack, runs the Casino Bar and Grill now.

“Mack is practical and ambitious, with plans to upgrade the bones of the bar in ways she hopes might expand its business,” Alta details. But Mack also reassures that, “When I am thinking about changing things, I put the community members in mind. I put Evelyn in mind.”

For many years, famed Sonoma County winery Chef Mark Malicki ran the small kitchen for weekend pop-ups, the dinners drawing crowds from near and far. He tells Reiss that he looks back on his time at Casino fondly, feeling that he got to “play a really small part in the history of the state.”

Malicki describes the special spot as a community center, where “hippies, rednecks, techies, and ranchers can all mingle over a drink or game of pool.”

Arthur (Art) P. Casini died in 1983 at the age of 66. A native and lifelong resident of the town, except while serving in the Army during World War II, he was considered the unofficial mayor of Bodega.

“There were children, there were old folks, there were ranchers, there were professionals,” his obituary in The Paper described of his funeral. “There were slightly aging hippies from the hills, there were shopkeepers, there were people dressed in suits, there were people wearing work clothes… to pay their last respects to Arthur Casini… He was the heart of Bodega.”

Art and Evelyn bought Casino in 1949 from Art’s cousin. They painted it a soft off-white with yellow trim and all the stonework bright blue, as Gaye Lebaron detailed in 1992 in the Press Democrat. During the epic January 1982 flood of the area it served as a refuge.

The year of Art’s passing, The Sonoma West Times wrote about the “independent and resilient” who have been drawn to Bodega since the early days of California statehood.

“Since its establishment as ‘Bodega Corners’ in 1853, the small community of Bodega has drawn hardworking, enterprising, and individualistic people into its rolling valley,” the story began.

“Following the departure of the Russians in 1841 after a generation of fur trading and food exporting, Captain Stephen Smith, a seafaring man from Baltimore, obtained an eight-square league land grant from the Mexicans, known as Bodega Rancho. The year was 1843. Then came the determined Irish, who introduced potato cultivation to the region, followed by Swiss dairymen and Northern Italian farmers.”

Smith’s Bodega Rancho comprised 35,787 acres from south of Bodega Bay to the Russian River, including the seaport. By the early 1860s, the area had become the most populous part of Sonoma County.

“By the mid-1870s, the town included several saloons, three churches, a new schoolhouse (built in 1873 at the cost of $5000), a Masonic, Odd Fellows and Good Templar’s Lodge, a shoemaker, blacksmith and wagon shop, one hotel, two private boarding houses, a livery stable, two physicians, a butcher shop, post office, and three stores. The population was about 250,” the story added.

The railroad came to Valley Ford-Freestone a few miles east in 1876. By the turn of the century, Italians had become well-established in Bodega running dairies, selling their products through the Bodega Cooperative Creamery, itself established in 1895. The Casinis were among those early dairymen, along with the Albinis, Fomasis, Bordessas, Mantuas, Franceschis, and Camozzis.

Evelyn’s father was rancher Joseph Piazza, who came to Bodega from Italy when he was three years old.

The Sonoma West Times notes that not long after the dairies began to diminish, “came the influx of ‘liberal, long-haired’ newcomers in the late 1960s.”

There was tension between the newcomers and the old guard, but as the story continues, “two of the old-timers are viewed as real heroes who helped smooth the way for community acceptance. Those local heroes are Peter Albini and the late Art Casini.”

Some of the “hippies” bought a 1,000-acre ranch to serve as a commune of families living together on the land, known at the time as the Sharp Ranch, later as Bodega Pastures. Peter Albini helped advise them on agricultural pursuits.

Meanwhile, “Art’s Casino… emerged as a real important gathering place for old-timers and newcomers to get to know one another,” said a longtime customer at the time, adding that, “Art was everyone’s dad or granddad… People like Art and Evelyn set the tone for accepting people for who they are.”

Evelyn worked as a short-order cook from the beginning. In the 1990’s she invited the Bodega Theatre Company to develop theatre in the Casino and put on plays in the back room.

Art and Eveyln both served as members of the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department, where membership was equally divided between men and women, the only coed department in Sonoma County, which had grown out of a Mothers’ Club consolidating forces with the fire department. The two were honored for 50 years of community service in 1982.

Along the way, Casino Bar and Grill drew national attention, as when it was in a 2003 Boston Globe travel piece about Sonoma County.

“The most unusual business in the town of Bodega, for instance, was Casino,” says writer Judith Gaines. “This isn’t a casino at all but a bar and pool hall with a whimsical play on its proprietors’ last name, Casini. Today, the place is full of ‘things nobody wanted in their homes’ said owner Evelyn Casini – mainly a lot of antlers, antiques, and old photos.”

Casino Bar and Grill is open 365 days a year with lunch served every day from 11 am to 4 pm and dinner pop-ups nightly 5 pm to 8 pm. There’s no website, so follow on Facebook, Instagram, or just stop by. 17000 Bodega Highway, Bodega.