That celebrating you hear echoing from Oldtown is as much relief as revelry. A community institution, the definitive (and only true) Salinas pub, the one and only Penny Farthing (422-5652), is back in play.

The soft opening of the longtime bar-and-grill institution happened yesterday, March 3, after months of darkness followed its sudden closure last May.

At a glance, Hugh Thomas, whose Dunwoody Restaurant Group runs seven pubs near Atlanta, doesn’t appear the most natural dude to do it, but he actually enjoys a bushel of Salinas history, having descended from England when the Penny Farthing Tavern originally opened to help steady the launch and later opening one-time Oldtown hotspot Crayons.

His concept: gastropub, stocked with craft beers and an all-local wine list (like Crayons) – and items like steaks stuffed with roasted garlic and triple-cream blue cheese. But don’t think he’s getting too fancy. The Penny is perfectly situated as it is, as he told his Salinas-based partner Kevin Gerszewski – who he met at the Penny – when he got the call: “The Penny’s gone out of business?’ I said. ‘That’s ridiculous, it’s part of the fabric of Salinas.’ We said, ‘Let’s buy it.’ Tony [Sutton-Deakin] had it for 20 years; all you have to do is keep it on the rails.”

He’s got indomitable Desmond Carreras of Tuck Box fame doing that as operating partner, with an eye to open sibling ops in Carmel and Monterey.

“In my business, it’s economy of scale,” Thomas says. “It’s easier to run three than to run one.”

But the Penny’s value is greatest on East San Luis Street. “This is a Salinas landmark. Everyone likens it to Cheers,” Carreras says. “And we’re taking it back to its original feel, before it got turned into a ‘nightclub.’” Expect the Salinas Jaycees’ annual pub crawl (755-1000) – which starts at Banker’s Casino Friday at 7pm – to melt the Penny when it gets there.

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The stunner at Saturday’s Big Sur Chanterelle Cook-off was not that Dory Ford took top honors for his sultry mushroom strudel with frisee salad and vanilla-bean vinaigrette – or that my fellow judge Eric Schlosser didn’t know what the golden ’shroom tasted like at the start (“OK, I get it now,” he said halfway) – it was that Ford is leaving Ventana (667-4242) after less than a year.

After a two-week jaunt in Peru “researching,” he’ll take two weeks to tie up loose ends at the South Coast spot where he says he was essentially forced out by food-and-bev head Steve Johnson – not much love lost between the two – and then take his apron to his own operation.

Aqua Terra is its name. Its game is a little harder to define – by definition. “We’ll cook anything from land and sea,” Ford says, “anywhere on land and sea.”

Translation: Any catering, party or other eating endeavor is doable. “A dinner for two on the bluffs of Big Sur? Plate-served seared chicken for 900?” Ford says. “I’m reversing the order: Instead of one from column A, B and C, you tell me what you want.”

At the cook-off, the masses wanted Treebones Chef Chris Watts’ “chanterelle-pork Napoleon,” earning him People’s Choice. As Pig Wizard (aka Jonathan Roveto) filled the Big Sur Lodge with smoke from his hibachi, meanwhile, the judges filled his mantle with Most Creative Recipe and Best Presentation for a bacon-chanterelle-marsala sausage wrapped into a dough-crusted pinwheel.

The fest had foodies and fungiphiles alike glowing like the downed powerlines that delayed some arriving appetites, which bodes well for future iterations and the second Big Sur Food & Wine Nov. 5-7, orchestrated by the same team, pointman Toby Rowland-Jones, wine director Matt Peterson and X-factor Alicia Hahn among the all-star squad.

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Independent ally Kathleen Richards-Wentz at East Bay Express, who broke news that Yelp allegedly offers to manipulate its contributor feedback for advertising money, now reports that a class-action lawsuit was filed against Yelp by two firms in L.A. federal court. It “alleges unfair business practices,” she writes, “and that the company ‘runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of “advertising contracts,” in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews.’”… Only four days left to enjoy the wowser wines (like a ’91 Harlan Estate Bourdeaux) and superb steaks (maybe a 22-ounce porterhouse) at Kurt’s Chop House (625-1199), which shutters Sunday, March 7. The good news: Kurt Grasing’s other upscale outlet, Grasing’s Coastal Cuisine (624-6562), charges on at Sixth and Mission… Lula’s Chocolates (626-3327) is doing free, fine and fresh chocolates March 5 in the Crossroads 4-6pm and displaying Natural History Art – Birds, Butterflies and Botanicals by Carmel’s Erin E. Hunter… The up-and-comers at the Culinary Center of Monterey (333-2133) are unfurling flavor Thursday and Friday 11:30am-1:30pm. This week, they’ll aim at artisan breads and specialty soups – tortellini florentine and shrimp bisque. Mary Pagan’s sweet spot is worth seeing – and it’s fun to help students with aptly-termed feedback – so the fact that a taste of all 12 via a $10 bottomless bowl ($3.50/cup; $6/bowl) means it may be the day(s) to get down there… Taste of Monterey’s first ever Pinotfest cometh 4pm Saturday, March 13, at the InterContinental, $40 ($30 for club members), 646-5446 x12… And as the proverb goes, “he who eats alone, chokes alone.”