Eatin’ with friends at Weaverville’s Nugget Restaurant is a Cheers-like experience
- Jerry Sanchez, Sr.
- 17 hours ago
- 2 min read
Shasta County residents Gary Nickle and Mike Moffat, both senior firearms instructors who teach in Trinity County, have been taking that pleasant, 45-mile (westerly) Highway 299 drive twice a month to have breakfast and sometimes lunch at the Nugget Restaurant, a local downtown Weaverville favorite, with classic diner charm, cozy atmosphere, and big, delicious plates of comfort food. “It’s a perfect way for Mike and me to start our day,” says Nickle, who’s been a regular at the Nugget since 1983. “And both of us dig the Nugget ‘cause it’s got that Cheers-like vibe, where everybody-knows-everybody’s name, favorite dish, and even where their favorite sitting place is,” he adds.
The Nugget Restaurant’s recipes are mostly a culmination of Leonard McChautian’s creativity who, for forty years, has been furiously cooking at the Nugget Restaurant, satisfying thousands of tummies with breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner options that feature menu highlights such as chicken fried steak and eggs for breakfast, ample steak sandwiches with all the trimmings, for lunch and a stunning array of comfort food (and desserts!) for brunch and dinner.
According to the Weaverville Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page, the historic mining town of Weaverville, with a current population of almost 4,000 people, was founded in 1860 during the California Gold Rush, and the building that the Nugget Restaurant now occupies was originally used as a stagecoach stop between Redding and Eureka during the late 1800s. In the early 1940s, the building was transformed into a small restaurant, eventually evolving into what is now the Nugget Restaurant.
As told by long-time Weaverville resident, Dave Shuman, who serves as the current president of the Weaverville Rod and Gun Club, Trinity High School used to be located across the street from the Nugget and during the 1960s, the Trinity High School students dubbed the Nugget as “the place” to have lunch, after school cokes on the Nugget’s outside deck, a sort of a place to hang out, if you will. And, as Shuman was purported to have mused, “Oh if those walls could talk!”
So if you, say, live in Shasta County or thereabouts, and love to take pleasant, Spring-like drives, why not hop onto State Highway 299 going west for about 45 miles to downtown Weaverville, 790 Main Street, where you’ll find the Nugget Restaurant, open 7 days a week from 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.…..and if you’re into big delicious plates of comfort food (and who isn’t), coupled with a Cheers-like vibe and attending comradery, then the Nugget Restaurant is for……………YOU.
