What defines a golf course restaurant? If at first you think it might be a little stuffy—collared shirts, starched white attire—you’re not alone. That’s also what longtime restaurateur and caterer Johnny Carmona thought it might be when the CEO of Pajaro Valley Golf Club approached him in 2022 about taking over the club restaurant, the Cypress Grill. “When you think of a golf course you might think, is this place stiff? Are there a lot of rules?” Carmona recalls wondering. “But really, it’s a place to come and hang out in your community.” After more than a decade, he left his longtime Watsonville space, Carmona’s BBQ Deli, and opened up Carmona’s Grill at the golf course near Pajaro. The menu approximates classic diner fair—breakfast omelettes or steak and eggs, then burgers, tuna melts and club sandwiches. There’s a bar and live music most weekend nights. In short, the new venue was on a golf course, but that did not mean Carmona’s really had to change the vibe: “We just wanted to create the same,” Carmona says. “It’s a professional service, but with a family approach. That’s the most important thing: treat them like a customer, but treat them like a normal human being.” There is perhaps a reputation that golf course restaurants need to overcome if they want to attract anyone and everyone who may not play golf or belong to a club or know the rules of the game. But anyone can show up, and a mix of golfers and non-golfers contributes in its own way to the ambiance. “I don’t want to bullshit you with a ratio, but it is a high number of people who don’t golf,” Carmona says of his customer base. “It is nice—a lot of our normal customers go to the driving range and learn how to play.” A lot of people who visit the golf mecca of Pebble Beach are golfers, fulfilling a bucket list experience of playing an iconic course (followed by a bucket list “19th hole” visit to the Tap Room, a steakhouse renowned for its prime rib chili and decorated with a lot of historical golf memorabilia). But the resort includes seven other res16 THE BEST OF MONTEREY BAY ® EAT + DRINK 2026-2027 CLUB CALL Golf course restaurants are there to serve golfers, but also invite the general public in. By Sara Rubin Del Monte Bar and Grill
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