By Lauren Mechling
Do you hear the silence? That’s the dinner bell. The one that stopped ringing long ago. These days, it’s all about lunch. Take Mokonuts, the tiny lunch-only spot in Paris where it’s impossible to book a table. London is all abuzz about The Yellow Bittern, the 18-seater where midday meals are meant to be three hours long. Closer to home, Paige’s Place is another popular restaurant where it’s lights out after lunch.
“Our capacity is fixed by shared parenting,” says Eric Danforth, who opened the cozy spot he characterizes as “very DIY and iterative” in Otis in January 2024 with his wife, Megan McClure. The couple met at a Maine wilderness lodge where they were both working before moving to Monterey, close to Danforth’s childhood home.
In the evenings, McClure works as a residential advisor at Gould Farm, a therapeutic residential community in Monterey. Danforth cooks dinner for their two children, ages 4 and 7.
Located in a ranch-style former diner, Paige’s serves the bacon, eggs, and potato plates you’d expect from a blue-plate special kind of spot. But how many other restaurants host Sunday night “Players Circle” where locals make music together?
“As long as you can play in time and play in tune, you’re good,” says Danforth. The food is better than good. Toasted slabs of locally baked sourdough come topped with fresh ricotta and local ramps, morels, or herbs snipped from the restaurant garden.
Depending on when you visit, the breakfast parfait could feature berries, stone fruit, or the rhubarb that Danforth’s father grows in his home garden.
Another summer special: a wait for a table. “Starting Memorial Day, it’s nonstop between 7 and 2,” says Danforth. “It’s safe to say I’m not going to be taking a lunch break.”
