Restaurant has leased choice downtown site
New `vibrant' Italian eatery could help bolster revival in area
SAN JOSE >> A company behind several top-notch Santana Row restaurants has leased a prime downtown San Jose site, a deal that's poised to bring “vibrant” Italian dining to the city's urban core.
Vine Hospitality, which owns and operates the Left Bank, LB Steak, Camper, and Meso Modern Mediterranean family of restaurants, has leased groundfloor space in Miro, an iconic double-tower residential development in downtown San Jose.
“We're not quite ready to talk about the name, but it definitely will be a very vibrant Italian concept,” said Obadiah Ostergard, chief executive officer with Vine Hospitality. “It will be fun for us, with all of our roots in the Mediterranean and France. We love our protein, and there will be steak also.”
The restaurant company leased about 6,800 square feet that will front on East Santa Clara Street at the corner of North Fourth Street. The lease was arranged through Nick Goddard, a broker with Colliers, a commercial real estate firm, and Matt Conti, an executive with Bayview Development Group, Miro's developer and principal owner.
The new Italian cuisine site potentially will be able to entice diners living in the brand-new Miro towers above the restaurant. The 630-unit development has 326 dwellings in one tower and 304 residences in the other high-rise.
“This will truly be a step up for downtown dining,” said Ted Mahon, chief investment officer with Bayview Development Group. “In terms of activating Miro, getting this restaurant on the ground floor is very important to us.”
The lease marks the second major retail deal for the Miro ground-floor space. Last fall, Starbucks opened a coffee shop at North Fifth Street and East Santa Clara Street that totals 2,500 square feet.
“After anchoring Fifth street with Starbucks, we set our sights on an upscale, full-service bar and restaurant,” said Conti, vice president of development with the Bayview company. “We're excited to have landed this local bestof-class operator, with a fresh new Italian concept.”
Another key group of potential customers: the hundreds of people who work in or visit San Jose City Hall, either during the day or for meetings in the evenings.
“This brings dining excitement and a high-quality restaurant operator to downtown San Jose,” said Goddard, a Colliers senior vice president.
Chef Roland Passot, a classically trained French chef with decades of restaurant experience in France, Illinois, Texas and the Bay Area, will lead a culinary team to craft the food and dining approach at the new downtown Italian restaurant.
“Roland is one of our owners and our culinary genius behind all of our concepts,” Ostergard said. “He will be a driving force behind our new restaurant. We are very motivated to be open as quickly as we possibly can.”
The restaurant is expected to accommodate about 170 seats, Ostergard estimated. Vine Hospitality is working to craft the interior and exterior design of the dining establishment.
“We will have a little retail component in the restaurant that will be fun,” Ostergard said. “We want to expand every piece of the day, from casual lunch, dinner, great late-night bites, an awesome bar scene. It will be full service. We will be open on the weekend.”
The retail element will be just a small part of the dining experience. It will, however, offer a change of pace from the traditional dining operation.
“We will be making our own homemade and handmade pasta in-house,” Ostergard said. “It would be grab-and-go food to take upstairs to your home, or to take it back to your office.”
One thing is certain: The new restaurant will feature outdoor dining, since the site will have plenty of frontage on East Santa Clara Street.
“The sidewalk is great,” Ostergard said. “It is super wide. There is a great overhang from the deck above us.”
The project's developer believes the new restaurant can be a crucial catalyst in the effort to revitalize this eastern section of downtown San Jose.
“The outdoor seating wrapping around to Fourth Street and the anticipated aesthetic of the restaurant will make this part of town feel much more vibrant,” Conti said. “We expect them to become a fixture for not just our Miro residents, but the greater surrounding community.”
Vine Hospitality, buoyed by its long-term success with restaurants in the destination mixed-use village of Santana Row in western San Jose, believes that the downtown district is about to get its turn in the economic sunshine.
For one thing, Google's proposed transit-oriented neighborhood near downtown San Jose's Diridon train station is only about a mile away down Santa Clara Street.
Adobe, another tech titan, is dramatically expanding its downtown headquarters campus at about the same distance from the Miro complex.
“We really believe downtown San Jose has turned the corner,” Ostergard said. “There is a lot of excitement in the downtown.”