The Bakersfield Voice

Bakersfield Breakaway: Pismo Beach and Avila Hot Springs

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Welcome to The Splash Café ... again!
We’ve been here a dozen or so times, and have long since memorized the rules.
Rules? Yep, there are rules, and here they are:
1. Place your order at the register;
2. Take a seat at any table;
3. Listen for your name to be called;
4. Respond by raising your hand or by calling out;
5. We’ll bring your food to the table.
So begins yet another trip to Pismo Beach. My husband, Doug, takes a place in line and waits to order lunch while I fight my way through the packed café in search of an empty table. As anyone who’s been there knows, this is no easy task because the Splash Café frequently has a line that goes out the front door, around the corner and all the way to the back.
Why? It’s the clam chowder, of course.
At the back of the restaurant, I spot one available table and dive for a nearby chair as if my life depended on it. The young couple next to me pretends they didn’t notice my public act of desperation, and so I return the favor by pretending they didn’t ruin the best clam chowder in town by adding gobs of tabasco sauce. 
Eventually, Doug finds me perched on a stool, back flattened against the wall, and hiding behind an abandoned newspaper. He slaps a couple of ice cold beers on the table and we wait, as the rules say, for our names to be called. When our soup arrives, the cafe — packed and noisy — transforms into perfect ambiance while we savor our steaming bowls of award-winning chowder.
Our trip was spur-of-the-moment, but with the economy in its current lousy shape, just about any hotel was cheaper than usual. So we got a room with a view at the Shore Cliff Lodge — balcony with rail-perching seagulls included — and spent most of our weekend relaxing. Seated all day and much of the evening on the balcony, we soaked up the California rays when it was sunny and wrapped ourselves in hotel blankets when it wasn’t.
I searched for that rare sighting of an otter with my binoculars, trailed gliding pelicans into the sunset, and mellowed to cool jazz floating out of our room from Doug’s laptop.
We forgot about the lousy economy as well as the woeful state of the nation and allowed ourselves to get lost in simple pleasures.

The next morning, we drove to Avila, took a leisurely stroll along the beach, and then indulged in a 30-minute soak at the hot springs. Good to thaw those rickety winter bones, soak away the gloomy national mood, and just forget everything … if even for a weekend.
If You Go— The Splash Café, 197 Pomeroy, Pismo Beach, CA 93449, (805) 773-4653 Clam chowder in a bread bowl costs $7.27 (with tax) http://www.splashcafe.com