“You end up meeting the people on either side of you.”īentley’s is the latest in a long string of sentimental closings around here. “This is the best seat in town,” he says. “When we walk in here we know 70 percent of the people,” Jim adds before launching into his pork (ordered medium, he says, because it’s a bone-in chop).Īnd if you don’t run into someone you know, you’ll make friends quickly if you eat at the bar, according to Tony Spencer and wife Chris McDonnell of Atherton. Sitting across the room were football great Jim Plunkett and his wife, Gerry, who have been frequent guests since Bentley’s early days. “It’s like family, a community here,” she says.
The combination of cuisine and camaraderie is a big draw. They’ve held milestone birthday dinners and other family events here for years. “This place is a landmark,” said Alan Kushnir of Woodside, enjoying a final meal here with his wife, Carole, and a final chat with Bentley, who circulates through the dining room every evening. He opened the first John Bentley’s in 1995 in Woodside’s historic firehouse, then bought the former Fabbro’s, located in a former Prohibition speakeasy on El Camino Real in Redwood City, and moved John Bentley’s there. But he made a name for himself, so to speak, at two eponymous restaurants. The San Francisco native started his career at the city’s Lipizzaner, the Clift’s Four Seasons, Michael’s of Sunnyvale and then the Los Altos Bar & Grill. Then he adds simply, “I’ve had a very blessed and incredible run,” and says his family deserves all the thanks for allowing him to pursue this dream. I’ve been doing this the better part of 40 years. “It’s just time,” he says, then ticks off the reasons, as if anyone needs to defend a decision to retire from the grueling restaurant business. The Peninsula chef who has been serving up four-star cuisine for decades - with, his customers say, stellar service to match - is calling it a career and closing his namesake restaurant in Redwood City. Or one more of those juicy pork chops.īecause after March 31, John Bentley won’t be cooking for them any longer.
They’re coming for one last appetizer of tuna tartare.
0 kommentar(er)
