Restaurant Proposed for Peirano’s Site

After sitting empty and dilapidated for a decade, the historic Peirano grocery downtown could reopen as a Mediterranean-style restaurant as early as May.

The Ventura City Council, acting as the redevelopment agency, on Monday will consider a proposal to renovate the crumbling downtown landmark and transform it into an eatery that could serve as a catalyst to revitalize the western end of Main Street.

“That building has a lot of history and a lot of baggage,” said planning and redevelopment manager Tom Figg. “This will be a long-anticipated close to a rather tumultuous 10 years.”

If the agreement is approved, Oxnard-based KL Associates would begin to rehabilitate the 120-year-old building as soon as possible. Reconstruction is estimated to cost $782,881.

When negotiations began with KL Associates more than a year ago, there were no prospective tenants, Figg said. But in the last four months, everything has started to come together.

“Now we have a bona fide tenant . . . waiting in the wings,” he said.

Figg added that there is no commitment yet.

But Jonathan Enabnit, who wrote a letter expressing interest in the building, said Thursday afternoon that he is “very serious” about moving into Peirano’s.

So serious, in fact, that he has already picked out a name, a floor plan and part of the menu for his restaurant.

“The restaurant we have in mind is something very unique,” he said. “We’d like to have some French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese dishes--a very eclectic menu with a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.”

He plans to call the restaurant “Jonathan’s at Peirano’s.”

If all goes as planned, he intends to have a large alfresco patio, so customers can eat under the stars. Inside, he plans to have portions of the dining room elevated on platforms, so diners can see out and passersby can see in.

He plans to erect a fountain in the center of the restaurant.

The restaurant would take about 70% of the space in the shuttered Peirano Wilson building.

Enabnit said he and his wife hope to see an upscale wine store go in next door.

“That way we could feed off each other, and we would be able to bring ‘War and Peace’ out on the wine list,” he said.

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Enabnit, who has created and managed restaurants such as Nona’s Courtyard Cafe in Ventura, the Las Posas Country Club in Camarillo and the Savoy Dinner Theater in Santa Barbara, said he thinks Ventura is ripe for a restaurant like the one he imagines.

“Culinarily speaking, Ventura has always been a kind of meat-and-potatoes community,” said Enabnit, who has lived here since 1990 with his wife. “But the city’s on a culinary upswing right now.”

Perhaps Ventura is not ready for arugula and radicchio, but he can definitely see people eating something more creative. “Maybe some Mediterranean lamb with a fresh jalapeno mint sauce--something with a little pizazz. Pair that up with something Greek, maybe some stuffed grape leaves, and then top it off with perhaps a checca pasta,” he said.

Figg said that if the city acts promptly, there will be a chance to start work before the rainy season.

The city paid $150,000 in 1987 for the market, which was run by three generations of the Peirano family.

But the building, across from the San Buenaventura Mission, has been boarded up for years as the city debated what to do with it.

The aging brick shell has fallen into such disrepair that passersby can scrape adobe from between the bricks with fingernails. During a recent blaze, firefighters feared the building would collapse.

The discovery of a tiled 18th century Chumash lavanderia, or laundry, under the store in 1991 thrilled history buffs but threatened to drive restoration costs even higher.

Figg said the lavanderia will be preserved and documented, but it may not be encased as had been suggested.