Downtown Has Appetite for Eateries

Goodbye, Chart House. Aloha, Steakhouse.

After several restaurant failures, downtown Ventura is on the rebound. Three new eateries offering a variety of fare are hoping to open by this summer, providing yet another boost to downtown revitalization efforts.

They include Aloha Steakhouse, Cafe Fiore & Martini Bar and Joe’s Crab Shack. Starbucks is also planning to open a coffee shop on Main Street.

By filling key development sites, the new restaurants will help attract other businesses, officials said.

New residential development will help by providing more foot traffic in the downtown area.

“All of a sudden, something clicked within this community and we got discovered,” City Councilman Sandy Smith said. “We were always thought of as this quaint little town and suddenly everyone realized we’re on the beach.”

Last week, the council approved a new lease agreement that will reopen the beachfront site of the old Banana Belt restaurant, which closed two years ago.

Aloha Steakhouse, to open on that Harbor Boulevard site, will feature casual fare during the day as well as steak and wine dinners in the evening.

“This will be a nice restaurant for Ventura,” said Jim Avrea, who has joined with partners Nathan Stockmier and Jose Sandoval to open Aloha.

The three have a long employment history with the Chart House on San Jon Road, which closed its Ventura restaurant last week because of declining business. A Joe’s Crab Shack is planned on the same site.

The Chart House restaurant chain, formerly owned by Chicago-based Angelo and Maxie’s Inc., was purchased last summer by Landry’s Restaurants Inc. for $45.5 million.

Landry’s, based in Houston, also operates Landry’s Seafood House, Rainforest Cafe and a number of other restaurant chains.

Jeff Cantwell, Landry’s senior vice president of development, said the decision to close the Ventura Chart House before conversion plans were finalized was strictly financial.

“We were basically subsidizing it at this point, so we had to close,” he said.

Cantwell said the site is one of five of the chain’s under-performing restaurants being converted to Joe’s Crab Shack, which will offer several crab selections, steaks, chicken and sandwiches for about half the price of Chart House fare.

“Ventura was doing approximately 50% to 70% less in sales than a good-performing Chart House was,” he said. “We think a lot of it was because they lost sight of what the original Chart House concept was.”

Cantwell said his company is eager to start a $1-million renovation of the site but the initial conversion plans were rejected by the city’s Design Review Committee.

Revised plans call for enlarging the building, removing two large trees near the front entrance and hanging crabs and nets on the building’s exterior to give it a more nautical look. The committee deadlocked at 2-2 over the revisions, so Landry’s is appealing to the City Council on Feb. 24.

“Basically, the design committee doesn’t want to change the restaurant,” Cantwell said. “But you can’t just change the name and expect it to be successful. We hope the council sees this as an opportunity. We think it will do really well in this community.”

Meanwhile, a new Italian restaurant is set to open by June on the site of the former 66 California restaurant on California Street.

Cafe Fiore is the brainchild of Saverio Posarelli and Maria Fiore. Posarelli owns several other Los Angeles-area restaurants, including Padri’s in Agoura Hills, where Fiore has been general manager for five years.

Plans call for a rustic, southern Italian-style eatery that will offer traditional pastas as well as a number of fish dishes.

There will also be an extensive martini menu and a selection of California wine. Prices for lunch and dinner will range from $7 to $23.

Fiore said the restaurant will offer live jazz four nights a week to fill the void left after the popular jazz bar from 66 California closed last year.

“We know it did very well as a jazz place, so we wanted to keep that component in our restaurant,” Fiore said. “Cafe Fiore’s design will be very lush but also very homey.”

This establishment marks Posarelli’s first venture into Ventura County.

“We have a lot of clients who come to Padri’s from Ventura, so we think this will be great for the community,” Fiore said.

Frustrated by bureaucratic delays that have stalled renovations, Fiore said things are finally moving forward.

The City Council approved a lease agreement last week that allows for an extended patio area to accommodate more outdoor diners.

“It’s hard to understand why the city doesn’t try and speed things up, because everything takes so long,” Fiore said, “but the momentum is finally growing.”