Dinner at The Cozmic Cafe

I drove down to the Cozmic Cafe last night to meet Maryellen...Amanda....and Sara...after we exchanged our goodie bags with each other..we got comfortable in one of the back rooms...where there is a nice fountain....lots of books...and the entrance to the old mine....the old mine????? Let me tell you about this place....For years and years it was called Pearson's Sodaworks. John McFarland Pearson was an early Placerville businessman who emigrated from Scotland in 1852. He got his start as an ice merchant cutting ice from mountain lakes and the American River near what is known today as Riverton and Ice House Road. Pearson would haul ice into town by horse and wagon, and then sell the ice blocks to the town's people.

In 1859, Pearson built the Pearson Soda Works building at 594 Main St. where it still stands today. The soda works building was constructed using a mixture of fieldstone, rectangular blocks, bricks, and assorted rubble, with walls 22 inches thick. In 1897, Pearson's sons added a second floor to the building. That was the same year Pearson branched out into the soda business, selling soda water, cream soda, and various syrups, and the second floor of the building was used as a bottling room.

The building has several interesting features; like a 135-foot abandoned mining tunnel carved into the hill behind the building that served as a cooler. It also has iron doors that helped support part of the second floor, and a water driven elevator that once transported the heavy cases of soda from the bottling room to the storage areas.
More recently the Soda Works is the home of The Cozmic Cafe...serving coffee...teas...lunch and dinner...and evening entertainment (open mic night)...This is one of the several buildings in town thought to be haunted! The ghost here is said to live in the abandoned mine shaft in back of the building. Above are some of the pictures I took last night.