Fate of Japantown restaurant building remains uncertain
The year started off on a disappointing note for fans of Wenzhou Fish, Noodles & More when they learned that the restaurant in San Jose’s Japantown closed its doors after just 16 months.
First-time restaurant owners Max Soloviev and Carol Chen said the difficulty of running the business impacted their family life with their two young daughters much more than they expected, and they decided to re-prioritize.
Wenzhou opened in August 2016 in a historic building on
North Sixth Street that was probably built in the late 1800s and began life as a Japanese boarding house. It was later a Chinese restaurant, which thrived in Heinlenville — San Jose’s Chinatown — and last served as a Cuban restaurant before Soloviev and Chen purchased it in 2009. They set about restoring the building in 2014, a process that took considerably more time than they expected and required them to put $2 million into the project. So the couple is hoping to find a new restaurant to move in. “We will lease the space and try to sell the business to someone who, as we think, have high chances to survive,” Soloviev said in an email. “It may not be Wenzhou anymore.”
Chen said the ideal candidates would have a good experience in the restaurant business, as well as a respect for the history of the two-story building. “Our restaurant was originally part of Chinatown, which is now more known as Japantown,” Chen said, “and we feel that if someone could take it to the next level, e.g. upscale fusion cuisine style, he or she would have high chances to make the business grow and help us maintain this beautiful landmark.”
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HOLD THAT DO-RE-MI >> 3Below, the new stage-and screen operation in the renovated Camera 3 space in downtown San Jose, has postponed its opening weekend event, a singalong screening of “The Sound of Music” that had sold out three shows for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“There are still things that need to happen in the venue to make it ready for our guests,” producer Shannon Guggenheim said in a letter to ticketholders. “We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve created, but it’s just a little premature to do so this weekend.”
The venue will now open with the live production of “Sondheim on Sondheim,” which begins an 18-day run on Jan. 18. “The Sound of Music” has been moved to Feb. 8-11, and people who already had tickets will have theirs automatically transferred to the new dates.
The three-auditorium complex underwent a pretty big makeover over the past couple of months, with new chairs, carpet and lighting installed, and there were updates made to the lobby, restrooms and exterior of the building at Second and San Carlos streets.
“We had plenty of contingencies in place knowing that any ‘home improvement’ project always takes longer than planned because things always come up,” Guggenheim said. “But even with our years of experience renovating theaters, we could not have prepared for some of what we were hit with by forces beyond our control.”
That included two burglaries of tools and equipment while the venue was unoccupied, and a delay in 3Below’s fire inspection, which didn’t happen until Monday and left little time to make corrections.
COUNTY SUPERVISION >> It’s an election year, and a forum featuring the candidates from one of the hottest local races — to replaced termed-out Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager — is taking place Monday.
The forum at Harry’s Hofbrau on Saratoga Avenue will feature all five candidates for the District 4 seat: Jason Baker, Dominic Casserta, Susan Ellenberg, Pierluigi Oliverio and Don Rocha. The Q&A forum, presented by the Santa Clara County Democratic Club, will be moderated by Yeager himself. He’ll lead a discussion based on questions that candidates were given in advance, as well as opening the discussion to questions from the floor. The forum runs from 7 to 9 p.m. and is free to attend.
TAKE A BITE OUT OF SAN JOSE
>> Nearly two dozen San Jose restaurants are taking part in #SanJoseEats, the city’s part of California Restaurant Month. Each of the eateries — ranging from Left Bank at Santana Row to Henry’s Hi-Life — will be offering a creative twist to their regular menu or a discount starting Jan. 15 and running through Jan. 28.
“#SanJoseEats is an opportunity to explore our area’s vast culinary landscape,” Team San Jose CEO Karolyn Kirchgesler says. “Our history is the ‘Valley of the Hearts Delight,’ and our future is innovation. We are thrilled to work with local growers and restaurants to explore where the two intersect.” Check out the list of restaurants and their offerings at www.sanjose.org/sanjoseeats.
READ ALL ABOUT IT >> City Lights Theater Company’s upcoming production, “Alabama Story,” is about a controversy that erupted in the South in 1959 over “The Rabbits’ Wedding,” a children’s picture book by Garth Williams that depicts a marriage between a black rabbit and a white rabbit. So it seems like a natural fit that City Lights actors Karen DeHart, Erik Gandolfi and Jeremy Ryan will read both that book and “Bunnies’ ABC,” another book by Williams, at a special story time event at the Rosegarden Branch of the San Jose Public Library.
The reading will happen at 6:15 p.m. on Jan. 23 and is aimed at preschool kids and their families. The play by Kenneth Jones, which stars DeHart as the librarian who defended the book, runs Jan. 18-Feb. 18. Get more information at cltc.org.
AND THE PIZZA’S GOOD, TOO
>> Pizza My Heart owner Chuck Hammers was at Rosie’s Cafe in Sparks, Nevada, this week when a college student sat down at the counter next to him wearing a Pizza My Heart T-shirt. They chatted a bit, and Hammers asked him how he liked the pizza. The student, who lives in the Central Valley, told him that he’d actually never been to one of the chain’s 23 locations but has been collecting the shirts since 2010. And yes, he was a bit embarrassed after Hammers told him who he was.