Italian restaurant planned for Hotel Stockton

By Roger Phillips

9-21-2016

STOCKTON — Bearing a plate of pasta and a warm loaf of fresh-baked bread, Rima Barkett is hoping to succeed where many others have failed.

The wife of developer Anthony Barkett said this week she plans to open a downtown Italian restaurant by year’s end in the landmark Hotel Stockton space formerly and unsuccessfully occupied by Paragary’s, Sass Bar and Grill, and French 25.

“I decided to do it because it’s a jewel that is not being taken full advantage of,” Rima Barkett said. “Even though Stockton already has some really good restaurants, I think one more would do it a world of good.”

BellaVista will be the second restaurant for Rima Barkett, a 52-year-old native of Versilia in northwestern Italy. Barkett owned Café Luna on North Sutter Street for nearly four years before shutting it late in 2006.

Café Luna had become a popular downtown eatery by the time it served its last plate. When Barkett closed Café Luna, she said she did so for “personal reasons,” including a desire to “have more freedom” in her life and to write a cookbook.

Barkett said Wednesday that BellaVista will open once it is granted a full liquor license, a process she said she expects to take 60 to 90 days.

“People have been asking me to reopen Café Luna for many years,” Barkett said. “Now when I say we are going to open Café Luna’s sister, BellaVista, they are very excited.”

Between now and the opening, work crews are brightening the restaurant site’s formerly somber interior by applying paint and installing new light fixtures. Barkett also said she is awaiting the delivery and installation of cooking equipment being shipped from Italy.

BellaVista is one of several restaurants and establishments expected to open downtown in the next few weeks and months. But its high-profile location by the movie complex, fairly or unfairly, seems destined to make it a barometer of sorts for the overall progress of downtown revitalization.

“Italian food is in the top tier of favorite cuisines for Americans, so I fully expect a great response,” said Cindi Fargo, director of the Downtown Stockton Alliance. “I think Stockton needs more quality dinner houses and great places for business lunches. This certainly will be that.”

When it opens, BellaVista will be the fourth restaurant in eight years at the Hotel Stockton site.

Paragary’s Bar & Grill opened in 2008 as an upscale, white tablecloth restaurant. Sacramento-based Paragary’s received a $2.5 million subsidy from Stockton but nonetheless closed within two years.

Sass Bar and Grill was the next flop in the city-owned building, surviving half as long as Paragary’s.

By comparison to its predecessors, French 25 was a raging success. The Cajun-inspired restaurant had been open for three years when it closed its doors for the final time three months ago.

Landlord Anthony Barkett and French 25’s owner, Bruce Davies, have blamed the closure on their inability to agree to terms on a lease.

Anthony Barkett said that after French 25 closed, he had been “open to other offers” from restaurateurs other than his wife but found there was “very little interest.”

“The truth is, I know she can do a better job than pretty much anybody,” Anthony Barkett said. “The question was, ‘Do we really want to get back in the restaurant business?’ Ultimately we decided we did.”

Rima Barkett said she will serve a range of Italian dishes, growing some of her own vegetables and herbs on BellaVista’s rooftop terrace, which also will host special events. Barkett said she also plans to offer curbside pickup for takeout diners.

Focaccia bread and pastas will be homemade, and produce that is used in recipes will be locally grown. Once the liquor license comes through, Barkett said, all she will need is hungry diners for lunch and dinner. She is confident they will turn out.

“My target customer is somebody who enjoys good food and the quality of the food,” Barkett said. “Pricewise it’s going to be medium. You can’t go higher than medium in Stockton. It’s not going to be cheap. I’m not selling cheap food. But people who can afford to go to restaurants in Stockton will be able to afford to go to my restaurant.

“I know I am taking a risk. I believe Stocktonians need a place like this and deserve a place like this.”

http://www.recordnet.com/news/20160921/italian-restaurant-planned-for-hotel-stockton