A Marin County restaurateur most known for operating the Marshall Store, a no-frills oyster shack that was named one of the top 50 restaurants in America by the New York Times in 2021, is set to open a more upscale restaurant concept in Point Reyes Station in the hopes of reviving the small Northern California town, as first reported by the Marin Independent Journal.
Bar Auklet is the latest venture of Shannon Gregory, who, in addition to the Marshall Store, operates Out The Door and Route One Bakery & Kitchen in Tomales. Named after the rhinoceros auklet seabird that inhabits the Farallon Islands, the establishment will focus on seafood and meat cooked over a live-fire grill inside the spacious 2,000-square-foot kitchen, Gregory said. As his family owns the 117-year-old Tomales Bay Oyster Company, there will, of course, be oysters on the menu. Gregory said the restaurant is slated to open the first or second week of June.
“The Marshall Store has always been so limited on what we can do because we don’t really have a kitchen,” Gregory told SFGATE in an interview. “I’ve always enjoyed cooking meat and fish over a live fire, so there was an opportunity here.”
Bar Auklet will take over the former Station House Cafe, at 11180 Highway 1, which moved back to its original location across the street in 2023. The building was bought by the Point Reyes Good Luck Fund, a nonprofit organization founded by Marin County local and tech mogul Chris Hulls. His intention is to preserve and steward old businesses in western Marin, such as the Old Western, a local watering hole that is more than a century old. For over a year, Hulls was looking for the right partner to take over the former Station House Cafe space, according to Gregory. Finally, in January, he signed the lease.
“The Good Luck Fund has been buying up a lot of the closed businesses around Point Reyes Station and I like what they are doing around here,” Gregory said. “They’ve been generous with the rent and doing, like, a correction around the neighborhood because things have gotten out of control, like the costs of doing buildouts and stuff — hence so many businesses leaving.”
Gregory said the 4,000-square-foot interior will remain the same, with two separate rooms, but will be redesigned by the group that designed State Bird Provisions and the Progress in San Francisco.
The head chef is slated to be Anthony Paone, who Gregory worked with at the butchery-focused Cafe Rouge before it shuttered in 2016. For dinner, menu items will include a crudo, sashimi, an oyster pan roast and scallop ravioli, to name a few. For lunch, which likely will be pickup only, the team plans to offer sushi and bento boxes via Instagram, Gregory said.
“We want to support our local base first,” Gregory said. “But we think, we hope, people will also drive in from, like, Petaluma and other places up here in Marin and Sonoma County.”