Famed SLO County ‘dive bar’ is adding a beer garden — and it has a new owner

The Merrimaker, Baywood’s famed ‘dive bar,’ has a new owner who’s adding a beer garden to the business and has other plans for the longtime neighborhood spot as well.

The owner is a familiar name in these parts.

Jennifer Dorn purchased the landmark corner bar and about an acre of adjacent land from the Lee family and opened the doors quietly on Aug. 19. The property now extends along Santa Maria Avenue from 2nd Street to 1st Street.

The Dorn family is well known locally with flagship restaurant Dorn’s Breakers in Morro Bay run by Jennifer’s brother Chris, as well as Ducky’s in Morro Bay and Mersea’s in Port San Luis.

Trained with a degree in the culinary arts, Dorn said plans also include food service once a full kitchen is added to the two-story apartment building in the back. No doubt, fish, synonymous with the Dorn family name, will be on the menu.

Make merry inside or out

For now, the big change at the Merrimaker is the addition of the sprawling fully landscaped beer garden with an outdoor entrance behind the bar that will be available once the liquor license is fully in place.

This will add another spot in laid-back Baywood where people can enjoy food and drink in an outdoor setting.

And music will be part of the scene, too, starting this Labor Day weekend when Beverage Control will allow Dorn to hold a special Saturday event in the beer garden featuring a band starting at 3 p.m.

Already completed from the old days is the remodel of the bar itself, both the exterior and interior carried out by former owner Bill Lee.

Lee purchased the tavern in 2019 but died in 2021. He also landscaped the big yard in back and fenced it off, setting the table now the addition of the beer garden

The new hours at the Merrimaker, located at 1301 2nd St., are Monday from 2 to 10 p.m.; closed Tuesday; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 4 to 11 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.

John Lindt is the editor of the news website Sierra2theSea.net.