Page 137 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SPRING 2021 REDISCOVERING CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST

Where Neverland Meets Mayberry
NILES
Story & Photography by Amy Laughinghouse
o, where are you girls headed?”
the taxi driver asked, casting a
“Ssidelong glance at his passengers
as we inched through rush hour traffic beneath
the paper lanterns and painted pagodas of San
Francisco’s Chinatown. “Niles,” my friend Shareen
chirped. “You know it?”
“No, I don’t know. Nobody knows, except you,”
the cabbie retorted with a genial roar that shaved
the sharp edge off his words.
At any rate, Shareen wasn’t bothered. For fif-
teen years, she lived in what may be the most
anonymous town in California’s East Bay area, and
I suspected she was secretly pleased to have an
opportunity to extoll its quirky virtues to our un-
enlightened chauffeur.
Although Niles gained silver screen fame as the
Hollywood of the Silent Film Era, over the past
century it has sunk into an almost willful obscu-
rity, eschewing change and eager to retain its own
distinct personality.
Mayberry Meets Neverland
“I describe it as Mayberry with an edge,” Sha-
reen said of the town she once fondly called
home. “It’s full of hippies, bikers, and musicians,
and it’s a great place to raise your kids.”
That adds up to an intriguingly eclectic destina-
tion, whether you’re a fan of live music, silent
films, old trains, antiques, or nature walks around
the Quarry Lakes. The best entertainment,
though, may be just hanging with some of Califor-
nia’s more colorful characters—and that’s saying
something.
Niles is the kind of town where you can grow
old without acting old, jamming with musicians
late into the night and grooving to old time rock n’
roll at a biker bar alongside leather-clad hipsters
with artificial hips. No one in Niles seems to feel
their age, until the inevitable hangover the next
morning.
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