Ghost restaurants of Sonoma: Juanita’s

Juanita Musson, a true character who passed through Sonoma,

brought color, chaos and good food to her various restaurant ventures. After her first two restaurants – the first in El Verano, the second in Fetters Hot Springs – burned down in 1969 and 1975, respectively, she opened Juanita’s at Jack London Village’s Grist Mill.

Regulars would either be shocked or thrilled to see a monkey on her shoulder, a parrot here or there, or – when she was so moved – a hoisting of her muumuu to show off her enormous bosom.

Bawdy and brilliant, and alternately kind and frightening, Juanita was capable of dishing out huge slabs of prime rib and T-bone steaks, as well as good drinks.

At a roasting of Musson at what had been the Little Switzerland restaurant on Grove Street, Tommy Smothers and several retired deputy sheriffs lauded her for her generosity of feeding and housing people when they were down and out, or just hungry after a shift, and of the regular stories of people walking into her home and being greeted by her nearly naked.

Those who experienced Juanita, always remember her with a smile.