Nepenthe
Bill and Lolly Fassett bought Orson Welles's cliff cabin out of his divorce from Rita Hayworth and opened a restaurant on the rock on 24 April 1949.3 People come for the view, the ambrosia burger and the South Coast margarita.4
Why go
The cabin came first. The Trail Club of Jolon built it in 1925, a writer named Lynda Sargent rented it and let a broke Henry Miller sleep there, and Welles and Hayworth bought it on a whim in 1944 as a private getaway.3 The Fassetts wanted a home. Kirk Gafill, their grandson and the third-generation owner, puts the purchase plainly: They bought it out of the divorce settlement from Hayworth. It was going to be a home.
3 Bill had been through Cornell's hotel school and wanted a hamburger stand down at the highway, and the Monterey County planner told him to put it up the hill where nobody could see it.3 They hired Rowan Maiden, who had spent three years in Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship, and Lolly made the adobe bricks by hand and laid them with her children.3 It did not make money for thirty or forty years. Her granddaughter Romney Steele: They borrowed every winter to stay afloat.
4
Order this / avoid
- Order: the ambrosia burger and a South Coast margarita, which are the two things the Weekly names when it lists what Nepenthe is known for.4
- Avoid: driving down while the highway is shut. Check the road first, every time; this stretch has been closing and reopening for years.2
What locals & experts say
- Lolly Fassett, on why the place is public at all:
It's too good not to share with everyone. We don't own the view.
4 - Aengus Wagner, Nepenthe's wine and service director, to KQED on 27 August 2026:
It's not fun to close a restaurant ever, let alone twice in a month, let alone that being your busiest month of the year when all your employees are collecting their acorns for the winter.
2 - Kirk Gafill, third-generation owner, on the building:
Everything, the name of the restaurant, the look of the building: the interior as exterior, the feel and image of the building, it has always been a collective effort.
3
Good to know
- Closed since 27 August 2026. The Timber Fire has burned more than 19,000 acres at 23 percent containment, and the CHP shut Highway 1 at 1pm that day from just south of Andrew Molera State Park to Deetjen's Big Sur Inn. Wagner told KQED the restaurant is closing at least through Sunday, three weeks after a ten-day closure that ended on 20 August.2
- No reservations, ever. Walk-in, first come first served, for lunch and dinner both. Normal hours are 11:30am to 10pm daily, lunch until 4:30pm.5
- Three businesses share the property: Nepenthe, Cafe Kevah for brunch, and The Phoenix gift shop. Gift certificates do not move between them.1
Verdict
should-visit — Three generations have run one building on one cliff since 1949, and the family is better documented than the kitchen: no critic has written down what the ambrosia burger tastes like. That is enough for a rung you plan a drive around and short of the top one, which wants somebody arguing for the cooking in print. Check the road before you go, because the room is dark while the Timber Fire burns.