SLO County grocery store owners team up with chef to open new restaurant. Here’s the scoop
A new partnership aims to replace a popular Cambria restaurant with a new mostly organic, farm-to-table eatery.
If escrow closes as expected Oct. 15 on the sale of The Café on Bridge Street, the agreement will link two couples with ties to multiple San Luis Obispo County businesses.
Located at 4286 Bridge St. in a former Victorian-era home, the new Brydge restaurant will be the result of a partnership between Joe Vergara and his wife Joleen Tafoya, who own Soto’s True Earth Market and Vyana Wellness Collective massage spa in Cambria, and chef and sommelier Elaine Rivera-Glenn and her wife Christina, who’s the senior director of brand marketing at Daou Family Estates in Paso Robles.
The latter two are loyal True Earth customers. In fact, the market and its focus on organic, local and healthy foods were deciding factors in the Rivera-Glenns’ decision to move to Cambria five years ago.
“True Earth was that important to us,” explained Elaine Rivera-Glenn, a former Daou executive chef.
In fact, Rivera-Glenn was shopping in the market when Vergara approached her and asked, “Would you ever think about joining us?” in opening a restaurant.
“Her eyes lit up and she said, ‘Are you kidding? Yeah!’ ” Vergara recalled
“Sometimes,” he said, “the signs are just too obvious to ignore.”
Who are partners in new SLO County restaurant?
Vergara and Tafoya met in 2013, creating a blended family of five children, all of whom work together in the family enterprises. In separate interviews, each spouse called the other “the love of my life.”
Elaine and Christina Rivera-Glenn met at a Sausalito restaurant where both of them worked. They married 11 years ago.
The four partners share a friendship and vision, Vergara said, of using food as a “bridge between people, bridging organics with people and farms with the people.
“At Vyana, there’s holistic health,” he said. “True Earth is about shopping for health. Brydge will cater to health with wholesome food and an uplifting atmosphere.”
“I love bringing people together, surprising and delighting them with the discovery of foods and products,” he said. “I believe in optimism, positivity, business as socially beneficial and treating members of your team with respect and appreciation.
“Overall, I have tremendous gratitude and appreciation for the people who decide to patronize a business, and will always have the goal of enriching their lives through their experiences in our businesses.”
According to Vergara, True Earth has spent seven years building relationships with the farmers, ranchers and others who supply the market with locally grown and produced items.
“Brydge will give them another local forum for their meat and produce,” Vergara said.
And there’s another benefit.
As True Earth’s relationships with its suppliers have deepened, he said, the market has been able to “earn” lower prices for products and “really leverage our purchases of organic, local ingredients.”
True Earth will pass those savings on to the restaurant, he said, helping to keep prices down for customers.
Elaine Rivera-Glenn called the partnership “really wonderful … in a gem of a community.”
“It’s exciting for me as a chef, to have such a pulse on the land, the community, the farmers and ranchers and what Joe and Jolene have built at True Earth,” she said.
What’s next?
Once the former Café business changes hands, the new team will swing into action revamping the building on Bridge Street, a tidy cottage surrounded by gardens and a steep, wooded hillside.
According to a Cambria Historical Society report, the property known as the Thorndyke House was built in the late 1870s or early 1880s. It’s housed numerous restaurants over the years.
The structure was the first home for Robin’s Restaurant, now located at 4095 Burton Drive in Cambria.
When Gerry and Marty Main bought the building in the mid-1980s, the building housed her restaurant, The Little House on Bridge Street. In 1995, the house became The Tea Cozy.
Brian and Abby Lucas bought the business that became the Café in 2015.
The restaurant’s last day as the Café was Sept. 29.
By late November or December, the Brydge partners hope to have finished updating the building and have the new restaurant open.
“I’m kind of a wizard with small spaces,” Elaine Glenn-Rivera said. “No matter where you are, you need more space, so you make do. That’s what we’ll do at Brydge.”
The partners envision their roles as separate but blended, with Elaine Rivera-Glenn at the helm of Brydge and Vergara continuing to head up the market and deli. Christina Rivera-Glenn and Tafoya will function in support roles at Brydge.
They fully expect, however, that there will be times when Brydge is an all-hands-on-deck enterprise.
Vergara and Tafoya say they look forward to having more and longer interactions with their customers than are possible at the busy market.
“That was one of the missing pieces Jolene and I always felt at the market,” Vergara said. “We love customer service, and you only have so much interacting time when you’re stocking shelves, saying ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ at the register.”
At True Earth, “We saw three mindsets from people who want delicious, healthy food,” he said, “buying the groceries, buying a premade meal at the deli or being waited on and enjoying each other’s company while they dine.”
The team emphasized Brydge’s firm focus on fine dining, healthy fare and using as many local and organic ingredients as possible.
Elaine Rivera-Glenn said the partners hope to attract a wide range of diners.
“(It’s) not just vegan, not just breakfast and lunch,” she said. “(It’s) more a place where you can go to have a variety of super delicious foods, executed well.”
They’ll encourage their guests to share their favorites, Rivera-Glenn said.
“We decided on this concept because we love how food brings people together and the conversation that follows,” she said. “The idea is sharing food, conversation and experience.”
For instance, Rivera-Glenn said, Brydge might recommend selecting four to six different dishes for three people to share.
Each dish will be “a smaller portion than an individual serving and definitely more than a taste,” she said. “The idea is to try more things as opposed to committing to a singular item …
“This is a relaxed space where the timing of food is as it comes — creating a live vibe.”
According to Rivera-Glenn, Brydge will be initially open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.
“We’ll add on dinner later,” she said. “I’m super ambitious, but I’m a realist. We’ll start with a smaller menu, get it right and then evolve. It’ll be really exciting.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
