by Whitney Merrill

Paul Bauer getting ready to close Cafe Classique for the day. Photo: Whitney Merrill.

It’s a little after 4 a.m. on a foggy coastal morning as I head out to the airport for a business trip. At this hour, you’d expect everything on the coast to be closed — but the OPEN sign is on at Cafe Classique. When I enter I am greeted by the smell of baking, the sound of music playing, and a warm hello from owner Jim Bauer. As he walks by with a tray of freshly baked bagels he asks me, “Have you been playing your piano?” and smiles. We chat as I get my coffee, and after getting a few words of encouragement and some pointers on pairing rhyming words, I head back out into the “heavy mist” of the coast. As a writer who also has a full-time high-tech job and a family, I find that I am newly inspired by those words of encouragement and the cup of coffee. For Bauer has found a way to balance and blend three key ingredients in his life: his music, his work and his family.

“It wasn’t always that way,” Bauer says as I sit down in his upstairs music studio to interview him. He met his wife Karen during a tour of duty in the military and spent the next 12 years as a stay-at-home dad in El Granada, carrying his daughter around the house as he completed his chores and hummed his music. Four years ago, the couple had the opportunity to purchase the cafe, located just off of Route 1 across from Pillar Point Harbor. After a two-week crash course from the previous owners, they were open for business.

Bauer is clear that it was not easy in the beginning, but that he found a rhythm in getting up early every day to create the fresh-baked goods that are a hallmark of the cafe today. “I’ve never smelt fresher air than when walking to work at 3 a.m.,” he says. “I love to make bagels. I love the dough, looking out the window at the fog, the hawks and the people walking by.” I hear Bauer’s commitment to the community as he tells me, “I’m here to serve the neighborhood: the surfers, the fisherman, the people going to work.”

Jim Bauer ready for the day. Photo: Whitney Merrill.

As the cafe’s business was expanding to include a full breakfast and lunch service with beer and wine, Bauer put in a music studio upstairs where he could write and mix his own songs. However, his true passion has always been to inspire and teach other local musicians the craft of songwriting. He started early with his own children, telling his two sons, Paul and James, that he needed musical backup and that they could each choose an instrument: “either base or drums.” The years as a musical “house-dad” clearly influenced his daughter, as Bauer proudly plays me one of Kayla’s original songs. But the idea was always to expand this passion into  the local community, and this is why he launched the Songwriter’s Stage.

The stage is built right into the heart of the café, with the goal of providing a supportive and comfortable place for people to share their original music and potentially launch their musical careers. Bauer says, “There are so many people around here that are writing their own material.” The stage includes a sound and recording system with the ability to produce live broadcasts and streaming video via the cafe’s Web site.

Cafe Classique is open from 4 a.m.-1 p.m. weekdays and until 2 p.m. on the weekends. You can eat inside and enjoy the local art and music, or you can sit outside on the covered patio with ocean views. The atmosphere is always lively and the Songwriter’s Stage “officially” opens in the afternoons from 1 to 3 p.m., but if you want to perform just e-mail, call or say “hi” to Bauer and come in with a few songs to try out. There could not be a friendlier environment to share your music — while also enjoying great food and drink! As Bauer says, “We’re just a little place on its own little mission with respect for the music.”

Photo: Whitney Merrill.