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The signage is pink, the rooms are pink, and the rose-patterned carpet is pink. But none are as quintessentially pink — or recognizable — as the long, hand-peeled ribbons of custom-dyed white chocolate atop the pink Champagne cake at the Madonna Inn.
The Central Coast’s quirkiest landmark is famous for its 110 candy-colored guest rooms themed to the likes of cavemen, carousels and pioneer America, but this maze-like, kaleidoscopic lair of chroma and whimsy is also home to some of the most iconic food on the Central Coast.
The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.
Husband-and-wife team Alex and Phyllis Madonna opened their white wooden hotel with only a dozen rooms on Christmas Eve in 1958. Through the years more rooms would debut, along with additional wings to meet the demand. In 1960 they began construction on the main structure, which now houses a steakhouse, a copper-and-wood-accented cafe, a bakery, a cocktail bar, a wine cellar, a food-focused gift shop and a dance floor, in addition to private-events spaces adorned with gold, stained glass and, of course, plenty of pink.
“Our inn may not suit everyone’s taste, but from the number of pleased guests we’ve had from practically every country in the world ... we feel that we have contributed to the joy of traveling,” the late Alex Madonna once wrote to The Times.
At the Madonna Inn nearly everything is made on-site, and what isn’t is often sourced from nearby specialists. San Luis Obispo’s long-running Cattaneo Bros. makes the linguica sausage that’s served as an appetizer at Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House and a filling for the Copper Cafe’s omelet. Some of the fish is caught from the nearby coast. Castoro Cellars’ local San Miguel facility makes the hotel’s house-brand wines.
At the Silver Bar guests swivel on pink-and-wood stools to sip vacation-perfect cocktails such as the signature Pink Cloud, which comes topped with whipped cream and the motel’s ubiquitous house-dyed pink sugar. Monstrously thick wedges of cake make their way from the bakery to nearly every table at every restaurant, while whole cakes rest in bright pink cardboard boxes, lids only half-closed at an angle and taped to the sides — a testament to the size of these famous baked goods.
And no cake is as famous here as the pink Champagne cake.
Behind the scenes at the bakery
It’s a bit of a misnomer; there’s no pink Champagne in the cake at all. Bakery manager Margie Peau says it was served during the hotel’s “Champagne hour” and the name stuck. Since its inception roughly 50 years ago, the recipe remains nearly identical and closely guarded. Layers of springy, fluffy white cake are surrounded by a butter-yellow Bavarian cream and whipped cream, all frosted and coated in shards and ribbons of custom-dyed pink chocolate and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, a textural, creamy delight.
Last year musician Kacey Musgraves swooned over “the layers and ruffles of [her] favorite pink Champagne cake” in her song “Dinner With Friends.” Dozens of copycat recipes are spread around TikTok, Instagram, personal blogs and publications such as America’s Test Kitchen. Everyone wants a taste, with some guests driving hours for the treat.
“I think it’s just so unique,” Peau says. “We have a lot of people who came as children, and now they come back as adults and they’re just kind of in awe of it. Nothing has changed; it’s like going back in time. They’re getting the same cake that they got when they were little kids, and now they’re bringing their grandkids and they’re getting the same cake.”
They come in all shapes, sizes and colors: full sheet cakes, half-size cakes, round cakes and wedding cakes, single layers, double layers and more. Peau once weighed a 12-inch German chocolate cake, which rang in at 25 pounds.
Eleven people comprise the bakery team, and they make hundreds of cakes throughout the week for slices — 80 on weekdays, 100 on weekends. They churn out as many as 65 cake orders each day for weekend pickup, plus additional cakes for events held on-site.
“We always have an extra stash of cakes that we can sell whole when people are like, ‘Oh shoot, I forgot to reserve my cake for my kid’s birthday’ or something like that,” Peau says. (But to be safe, place your whole-cake order online at least 48 hours in advance, or three weeks out during the summertime peak.)
The work begins at 4 a.m. when the first shift arrives at the pint-size bakery, with most working around a small center table.
“It’s tiny!” Peau says. “It was for a couple people; it was definitely not for this volume back then. We are always in each other’s space for sure, but we like each other a lot back there.”
During the holidays the bakery can feel even more cramped as it cranks out seasonal additions, such as 1,600 mini cupcakes and muffins for Easter and Mother’s Day brunch and hundreds of additional pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The bakery team whips up nine flavors of pie, plus danishes, eclairs, giant cinnamon rolls, cream puffs and cupcakes, all of which gleam from their wood-and-glass cases at a corner of the Copper Cafe. Once they sell out for the day, they’re done.
Its tandem restaurant, the Copper Cafe, is where locals often stop by for breakfast: copious corned beef hashes, cheesy linguica omelets, fruit-topped Belgian waffles and other Americana set to the clatter and clang of a busy diner. This one just happens to have a roaring fireplace at one end.
Crown-jewel steak
Just beyond the bakery and the Copper Cafe is the inn’s culinary crown jewel: the ornate Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House, a red-pink-gold dreamscape of a restaurant decorated with a 28-foot-tall golden faux tree at the center of its dining room, cherubs, candlestick lights and seasonal decor hanging from its sprawling branches.
Beto Zamacona started as a dishwasher at the Madonna Inn when he was barely 18 years old. After 25 years, he’s now the head chef at the steakhouse.
According to Zamacona, the inn’s popularity exploded over the last five years. Pre-pandemic busy nights were Friday to Sunday; now, he says, they’re busy Thursday to Monday, and sometimes serve 300 guests at the steakhouse alone. Fifteen years ago, he cooked for only 35 to 50 guests on weeknights.
“It’s getting insane,” he says.
Reservations often book up weeks in advance, especially for weekend dining; it’s not uncommon to spot guests feasting on the steak dinners with gold-jacketed baked potatoes at the nearby bar or cafe, which serve as overflow seating.
Zamacona grills hand-cut steaks Santa Maria-style over a red-oak live fire, from behind stained-glass rose window panels. Given its proximity to the Central Valley, the restaurant’s vegetables are almost always locally grown. He and his team cook rib-eyes, swordfish steaks, prime rib dinners, lamb chops, fried chicken, generous shrimp cocktails and more — most of which have been served there for decades — plus monthly specials that Zamacona creates under the guidance of the head chef of the entire property, Jacqui Burns.
The steakhouse also caters events, and Zamacona says he’s cooked up to 850 filets of steak for a single party. At Christmas and Thanksgiving, the steakhouse serves at least 1,400 people each day.
There’s attention to detail and kitsch in everything here. Decorating the dining room each season takes two to three weeks: bunnies and multicolored paper Easter eggs in spring, pastel pumpkins and cartoonish scarecrows in fall, Santas and twinkling lights and faux-snowy trees toward the end of the year.
“There’s something magical when you walk in there,” says server Jamie Jorgensen. “You look around and you’re just like, ‘Wow, who thought of this?’”
She began working at the steakhouse in 2013, where she met and fell in love with Zamacona. They married four years later, and still work in the restaurant together.
Jorgensen regularly serves a mix of locals and tourists, including repeat customers she recognizes from years past. Some come to dinner in dress that’s themed to their rooms, others in midcentury glamour. One couple, she says, travels from Oregon twice a year, dining in the steakhouse every night of their weeklong visits.
Like her husband, Jorgensen didn’t foresee working at the steakhouse for so long — but she certainly hoped she would. It is, she says, unlike anywhere else.
“It’s really difficult to walk in there and be in a bad mood,” she says. “I always tell people you have to stop at least one time and check it off your bucket list.… If you want to see some people dolled up on a weekend, come on over to Madonna because we have the glitter and the sparkle and the rhinestone.”
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