Broken surfboards and battered wet suits are d
écor at Rosy’s at the Beach, not the debris they’d be if Rosy
weren’t involved.
Broken surfboards and battered wet suits are décor at Rosy’s at the Beach, not the debris they’d be if Rosy weren’t involved.
Rosy Bergin is indeed involved, along with her husband, Rich, with every aspect of their popular and successful 5-year-old fish house in the Downtown. Who would have thought that fish would be so popular in an inland town of mostly Italian restaurants? But that is apparently the case.
Enter from the Monterey Road door, between East Third and East Second streets, or from the rear parking lot and you will find the temperature plunging and the air freshening. You know you’ve arrived At the Beach.
Walls painted French Racing Blue, with striped paper below, are hung with paintings and photographs of, well, beach scenes. The large second room sports a colorful striped patio umbrella and there are fish here and there – metal, ceramic and stuffed. Rosy said she and her sister Joyce are responsible for designing the rooms.
“We wanted to reflect the beach but still keep a bit of Ida’s elegance,” Rosy said.
The Bergins took over the Ida’s Restaurant space when Ida Williams retired.
Rosy doesn’t surf though she did play beach volleyball professionally until just before her second child, Patrick was born. Patrick is now in fifth grade.
But, aside from the décor, the restaurant revolves around a chalkboard hung next to the wetsuit, telling of the day’s fresh catch, which Rosy will prepare almost any way. Sometimes it’s hard to see the board through the hordes of customers since Rosy’s is almost always full of people looking for what’s good and fresh from sea and stream (and field and coop).
Lest non-fish eaters shy away, Rosy’s menu accommodates the devoted carnivore – not only are her hamburgers renowned, but she kept the popular prime rib and pasta from Ida’s and added steaks and chicken. Vegetarians, too, will find favor in the Portobello mushroom sandwich.
But back to the fish. Rosy’s salmon tacos could get in the ring with Santa Fe’s Coyote Café’s and Baja Fresh’s fish tacos and come out ahead. On the menu at both lunch and dinner, seven days a week, the salmon tacos with their jicama/cabbage slaw, avocado and salsa, march out of the kitchen in a never-ending parade.
There was some concern among customers when the recent warning against eating farmed salmon more than once a month appeared in the news. Would taco lovers have to go cold turkey?
“No,” Rosy said. “We have always served wild salmon.” Whew, what a relief.
Farmed salmon have long been accused of polluting their environment but recently medical researchers have found that the salmon also concentrates toxics way beyond what is considered safe. So, Rosy’s salmon is safe to eat.
Their trademark iceberg lettuce salad with crumbled blue cheese and balsamic vinaigrette was Rich’s invention.
“He tried it first at home,” Rosy said. But since it is not everyone’s cup of tea, a mixed green salad is also available.
Kids are welcome, too, with a kid-designed menu and crayons to draw on the white paper table covers. Browsers, the human kind, can check out the complete menu – including some very appealing desserts – at www.rosysatthebeach.com/
The Bergins met because Rosy was a business major. After taking a business degree from Santa Clara University, she entered San Jose State University to work toward an MBA. Looking for a subject on which to write her graduate business plan, she found Rich’s wholesale seafood company.
“So I wrote the plan on his business, then went to work for him,” Rosy said. The rest, they say, is history. The two were married in 1983, and then opened Gourmet Seafood that became Rosy’s Fish House on Story Road in San Jose in 1984.
“The background in business really helped,” she said. Later they added the Shark and Rose in San Pedro Square, downtown San Jose.
“We worked all the time,” Rosy said. The Bergin’s oldest son, Robert, now a senior at Bellarmine College Prep, spent his earliest years at the restaurant.
“Rich carried Robert around in a backpack while he cooked,” Rosy said.
The couple moved their family to Morgan Hill about seven years ago because they found a piece of property they loved.
“It was so pretty here,” Rosy said. For two years she would drop Robert off at St. Catherine’s School and hop on the freeway to San Jose.
“We never really came into Morgan Hill; I just knew the back roads,” she said. One day she did drive downtown and fell in love with the Mushroom’s Grille and Bar building on West Main Avenue.
“I said to Rich, ‘let’s open a restaurant here,’” she said. Alas, Mushroom’s new owners had just signed the lease and the building was no longer available. But about the same time Ida Williams’ well-established restaurant on Monterey Road came up for sale. The Bergin’s moved in, decorated a bit and opened up.
From the first it was a success.
“We had a built-in clientele and a great location,” she said, “and even though we didn’t have a sign for the first six months (city building codes) people still came. People kept coming in and Ida’s regulars became our regulars.”
The sign – no surprise here – is a surfboard.
Rosy said they tried to keep all three restaurants going at once but it became just too crazy and involved. So they sold the Shark and Rose and Rosy’s Fish House to concentrate on the hometown place.
The bar at Rosy’s, as it was with Ida’s, is a civilized place where anyone would feel at home. Its only drawback is that they won’t let you in after 9 p.m. – too early to take advantage of people leaving the Morgan Hill Playhouse after a performance, lecture or recital. They do, however, get points for being almost the only full-service restaurant open every day in Morgan Hill. Both Rosy and Rich act as bartenders and both choose the wine list.
“It’s challenging,” she said. “Wine tastes and price levels are constantly changing – you really have to choose wisely – and listen to your customers.”
A restaurant with great food can still fail if its serving staff does not please customers. Most are local and everyone must be just right.
“They have to be a perfect match,” Rosy said. “We work as a team so there has to be a personality match – and they do a great job.”
Rosy is not just involved in her restaurant. She has fully embraced the downtown too, as a card-carrying member of the Downtown Association, encouraging others to take a step and build their business in the ever-improving and always quaint five-block stretch along Monterey Road between East Dunne and East Main avenues.
Morgan Hill is not the first town Rosy has boosted with her enthusiasm: during the Rosy’s Fish House years she was an active member of the Story Road Business Association.
The Bergins would like to add a second story to their elderly building, with an enclosed room in back and an open patio fronting on tree-lined Monterey Road.
People could gather to watch the passing scene, the Fourth of July parade or just an evening sunset, Rosy said, but technical difficulties need to be worked out first. Closing the restaurant, which is on the east side of the road, during construction would be a problem unless a temporary space could be found. And where to put the staircase is another puzzlement.
The Bergins are confident that they will find the solutions and all will be well. In the meantime they invite everyone to drop in to check out their motto: Seafood, Spirits and Self-Esteem.
Rosy’s at the Beach, 17320 Monterey Road, open every day. Restaurant hours: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. In the bar: until 10:30 Sunday-Thursday; Friday and Saturday until midnight. Parking is available on the street and behind the Monterey Road shops from East Third Street north to East Main Avenue and behind most buildings on the west side. Details: www.rosysatthebeach.com or 778-0551.
