GILROY
– A team of community-minded restaurateurs is putting the
finishing touches on a revamping project that could turn Gilroy’s
Old City Hall into a linchpin for revitalizing a lagging
downtown.
GILROY – A team of community-minded restaurateurs is putting the finishing touches on a revamping project that could turn Gilroy’s Old City Hall into a linchpin for revitalizing a lagging downtown.
By late September or early October, Gilroy-raised Glen Gurries and French-born Daniel Barduzzi plan to open two restaurants in the 1906 Flemish baroque-style building at Monterey and Sixth streets. If Gurries and Barduzzi can replicate the success they’ve had with restaurants along the Central Coast, a renewed interest in Gilroy’s downtown could begin, freeing Garlic Town’s core from the almost seedy reputation community leaders want to see shed.
If Gilroyans and out-of-towners turn a cold shoulder to the restaurant, the casual Courtyard Grill and the fine dining venue The Clocktower Restaurant could be the two latest victims on a struggling Monterey Street that has seen its share of revived establishments matched by vacant buildings and exiting businesses.
“Frankly, with their vast amounts of experience and all they’re putting into the restaurants, I can’t even fathom this not working,” said Chris Mickartz, marketing manager for the restaurant. “They’ve done their homework. They have a lot of backing. No one has a crystal ball, but everything is right for this to be a success.”
Good deals
Timing does seem to be on their side. The latest phase of the downtown streetscaping project includes the corner of Monterey and Sixth streets and will conclude by November. Gurries and Barduzzi will finish their interior design work and other upgrades before then, but will only have to wait less than a month before the sidewalk is beautified like the building.
“Ideally it’d all be done at the same time,” Gurries said. “But we’ll probably do a soft opening anyway” by October and then move into full swing as the streetscape project gets done.
In May, the City of Gilroy entered into an agreement to rent Old City Hall to Gurries and Barduzzi for a bargain $3,000 a month. The restaurateurs get up to $2,000 of the rent credited for improvements they make that remain with the building if or when the tenants leave – and the upgrades are vast.
In theory, Gurries and Barduzzi could pay as little as $1,000 a month for an amount of square footage that would cost $4,000 for renters mostly anywhere else in the core downtown.
City Treasurer Mike Dorn says the city can justify the deal because the sweetness of it goes both ways, especially if the restaurants bring more customers – and therefore sales tax revenue – to downtown.
“Based on price per square foot, it’s a great deal,” Dorn said. “But it’s great for the city, too.”
Dorn said the city wanted to move away from playing landlord at the roughly 10,000-square-foot building to multiple tenants. Instead, the city wants to lease to one business.
Dorn can remember the tenant-versus-tenant feuds city staff had to mediate over the years.
In one instance, an electrical breaker to the freezer was inadvertently turned off, causing ice to melt and food to spoil. Two impacted vendors blamed each other, and both vendors expected the city to cover the cost of cleanup and lost inventory.
“That was the type of thing that would happen all the time, and we would have to get in the middle of it,” Dorn said.
Working overtime
Gurries and Barduzzi have been working day and night at the restaurant – sometimes overseeing renovations and other times getting their hands dirtied themselves – as they balance the demands of a separate catering business which last week saw them work a 350-person million-dollar Bugatti Veyron car show in Carmel Valley.
“We were painting late into the night last night,” Gurries said Thursday. “I’ve lost count; I’m not keeping track of the time we’ve put into this.”
The frenetic pace of their day is covered by a calm confidence both men exude, a sort of intuitive sense that their latest venture will be a successful one.
Barduzzi has 40 years experience as a chef, restaurant owner and resort manager. Born in Avignon, France, Barduzzi studied at hotel and culinary schools there before eventually moving from an award-winning restaurant in Massachusetts to take a food and beverage director job at The Lodge in Pebble Beach.
Gurries, who has 18 years experience in the restaurant business, is the only child out of six who was not born in Gilroy.
“There was about a year and a half when my folks moved to Marin County, but I was raised here. This is where my roots are,” Gurries said as he walked in the renovated courtyard of Old City Hall and pointed out the scaffolding on the wall of the building next door. “A classmate of mine, Brian Cox, is the guy doing this work here.”
Big plans
The scaffolding was up so the side of the new building could be painted to match the light brown adobe style planters now in the courtyard.
A formal menu with prices has not yet been set. Some items included on the finer dining Clocktower menu will include abalone soup, lettuce “glassiere” with sliced tomatoes and warm goat cheese crouton, stuffed calamari with “coulis” of roasted red bell pepper, grilled Black Angus Filet Mignon with portabella mushroom red wine reduction and chocolate mousse with raspberries and hot chocolate sauce.
Gurries and Barduzzi are making the courtyard “a place where someone working or shopping at the outlets can come and have a great meal without emptying their wallet,” Gurries explained.
“The courtyard space has been here a while, but no one has fully utilized it,” Gurries said.
Gurries and Barduzzi will.
The physical courtyard will make up the majority of the seating for the Courtyard Grill and will have a separate, lighter fare menu put together by the same chef – French-trained Jerome Fressinier – as the higher end Clocktower restaurant.An outdoor grill and wood burning pizza oven will add to the menu options and the delicious aroma in the outdoor space, as heating lamps will be placed near tables to make outdoor dining a comfortable experience even in winter and fall.
As welcoming and impressive as The Courtyard may be, plenty more creative attention to detail can be found throughout the rest of the building. Antique hutches, ovens and bar equipment have been brought in to add historical style to the interior. And the old city safe now serves as a wine cellar that will store brands from many of the local vineyards.
Old City Hall used to serve many functions, including town jail house. Gurries and Barduzzi, who are furnishing and decorating the interior with the help of Jan De Luz and Charles Gruwell, aren’t covering up that sordid fact. Instead, they’re exploiting it.
Men and women’s rest rooms now occupy the same space as the old jail cells. Black metal doors and bars contrast with the off white walls which still show inmate graffiti.
“We didn’t add that, we’re leaving up what was already there from the inmates,” Gurries said.
In the hallways of the jail house area, Gurries and Barduzzi will place TV monitors showing a live video feed of the chef and his cooks at work in the kitchen.
“It’s kind of a reverse surveillance system,” Gurries quipped. “The ‘inmates’ are watching the people who keep the place running.”
On Tuesday, Gurries and Barduzzi were at Bedolla Tile in Gilroy checking out one of the more prominent upgrades of Old City Hall furnishing. The owner of the shop, Frank Bedolla, donated two roughly 10-by-12-foot slabs of granite that will be placed atop both the downstairs and upstairs bars.
“Everybody from city staff to local merchants have been very warm to us and to what we’re doing,” Gurries said regarding Bedolla and other donations like historical photos from the Chamber of Commerce. “We feel very fortunate.”
No snobs allowed
Gourmet cuisine, valet parking, wine lockers for customers who want to store their own wine, and potentially an upstairs members’ only room are just some of Old City Hall’s newest charms. As high quality as Gurries and Barduzzi want all of them to be, the last thing the owners want is an air of exclusivity.
“We’re not trying to be a snooty place,” Gurries said. “We want people to come by for drinks and appetizers not just lavish meals. We want this to be a community hangout and meeting point.”
Gurries, who lived in Mexico for a time and speaks Spanish fluently, also wants to see Gilroy’s Hispanic community feel welcome at Old City Hall.
“We’re going to make an effort to have a lot of bilingual people on staff and we’re going to encourage them to speak to people in their native tongue,” Gurries said. “We’ll even have people who can speak French,” he added, referring to his French-born partner.
