Friends and customers of Singletree Café’s Nancy Van Praag these days are remembering her in two different ways. Most are already missing her kitchen mastery, especially her full breakfast plates and her flavorful assortment of barbecued meats. Others are thinking first about her “big heart” and endless generosity to faithful customers, her employees and her adopted Healdsburg community. Van Praag, a native of New York and a Sonoma County resident for 30 years, died Aug. 22 after a long and complicated illness. She was 70 years old.
Van Praag and her domestic and business partner, Delores Rodriguez, operated the Singletree Café in Healdsburg over the past 25 years, serving homestyle breakfasts and lunches to faithful customers and lucky visitors. They also hosted several community fundraiser events and Van Praag was known to reward her most devoted customers with a lifetime of free meals.
Van Praag was a seasoned veteran of the food industry, having worked her way from her native New York cross-country to San Francisco and eventually to Sonoma County. She and Rodriguez founded and operated the Breeze Inn BBQ joint in Guerneville where Van Praag also served as a board member and chair of the Russian River Chamber of Commerce. For several years, Van Praag roasted ovens full of turkeys for the free Guerneville community Thanksgiving dinners.
“She had a heart of gold,” said Singletree regular Beth Berkson. “She gave her heart and soul to this community during the fires, at Thanksgiving and other times. She knew all her customers’ names and she was great with her employees, too.”
Another longtime friend and customer, Diana Fincher, said, “Nancy really deserves being remembered for all the contributions she made to the community and her employees. Lots of people will miss her for lots of reasons.”
Van Praag’s generosity and the popularity of Singletree’s affordable breakfasts and lunches were not enough to save the business through a recent series of interruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfire evacuations and two major street construction projects that obstructed the entrance to the café’s parking lot and entrance. After spotty hours during the pandemic, with both Van Praag and Rodriguez suffering from declining health, the couple closed their restaurant last year.
Singletree’s slow demise began in 2017 with the two-year construction project of the five-way roundabout at Healdsburg Avenue and Vine and Mill streets. Many other businesses along the south entrance to Healdsburg also were impacted and another restaurant, Café Lucia, closed its doors at the time.
Singletree’s menu read like a slice of Americana. Eggs, bacon, ham and hash browns were at the top and early bird diners could snatch a $4.95 full plate special on weekdays. Van Praag also paid tribute to the fabled Ingram’s Chili Bowl restaurant that closed its doors in north Santa Rosa two decades ago. She kept the Ingram’s style chili on her menu and she offered Ingram’s el Dorado special, an open-faced cheeseburger topped with onions and chili and a mountain of home fries on the side.
A series of benefits to boost the restaurant’s traffic proved to be a temporary lifeline. In 2018, staff and volunteers of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival staged a benefit with all-day live music and promotions, raising several thousand dollars.
“They (Nancy and Delores) are incredible people and were very supportive of our annual jazz festivals,” said festival founder Jessica Felix. Nancy volunteered for several years, feeding breakfast to the festival performers.
“She fed them endless breakfasts. We had a 10-day festival, so that’s a lot of breakfasts each year,” said Felix. “She loved the music and the musicians and she was also very generous to her employees. Healdsburg won’t be the same without Singletree.”
“Whenever we had visitors we would take them to breakfast at Singletree,” said Berkson. “No one ever left hungry.”
Minerva Velasco remembers being hired by Van Praag as a dishwasher 16 years ago, “She taught me everything, how to cook and serve and run the business. She was a very nice boss.” Velasco was with Singletree until the very end and she now looks after Rodriguez, who is in a residential care home.
Van Praag was born March 8, 1951 in New York and she leaves no known living relatives. A private cremation was held and no memorial plans are anticipated.
