Meet Your Merchant: Relaxing at the Cove

Doug Cramer sat at a table inside his recently opened Paradise Cove Cafe on Monday in a beach shirt and sandals. His attire fits his philosophy: "As long as you're doing business, the stress is less," he said.

Cramer and his wife Jamesa also run Mom and Pop's in downtown Carson City and spent more than a year planning Paradise Cove, a tropical-themed restaurant in the Carson Mall.

The restaurant is filled with plastic parrots, sea shells and palm trees juxtaposed with a mural along an entire wall that features an ocean view.

As for the menu, Paradise Cove offers sandwiches like the Caribbean jerk chicken breast and the Tiki bacon cheeseburger. It also has rice bowls, tacos, chicken platters and seafood dishes such as crab cakes, glazed salmon and coconut breaded shrimp.

And, of course, tropical drinks like the pina colada and the Mai Tai.

The restaurant has co-sponsored rock and blues concerts with the Carson Mall and other merchants and will continue to offer the entertainment on Fridays through September and October.

Besides city redevelopment funds, the Carson Mall offered the restaurant financing to open the location at the Carson Cove, a collection of eateries on the Stewart Street side of the facility.

"When we looked at the demographics we thought it was right and they made us an offer that we could not refuse," Cramer said.

Cramer said the economy has taken its toll on both of his restaurants, but Paradise Cove is performing as well as Mom and Pop's, which is open for breakfast and lunch.

"It's a little tougher than I thought it would be," he said.

Doug Cramer got his start in the restaurant business as a young man. After living in the Lake Tahoe region as a self-professed ski bum for five years in the 1970s, Cramer moved back to home to Los Angeles to work for his father's restaurant, Pop's.

He eventually took over the business. Years later after moving back to Carson City, Cramer opened Mom and Pop's with his wife Jamesa in 1999.

Today, Cramer said he has learned a lot from the restaurant business, but his motto is the same: "Good food, fair prices, comfortable atmosphere."

If you go:

Paradise Cove Cafe

Where: 1200 S. Stewart St.

Contact: 775-841-1199

Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday