Giuseppe’s in SLO is moving; Pismo restaurant still closed for now

It’s been both a tragic and hectic several months for the DiFronzo family business.

Almost three months after a fire gutted the popular Giuseppe’s Cucina Italiana restaurant in downtown Pismo Beach, its separate San Luis Obispo location is making a major move to the historic Sinsheimer Bros. building on Monterey Avenue.

Palazzo Giuseppe will relocate to its new home at 849 Monterey St. in early November, according to manager Giuseppe DiFronzo. DiFronzo is the son of Giuseppe’s restaurant owner, Giuseppe “Joe” DiFronzo.

“It’s more than we planned for, but everyone has come together in a really great way,” the younger DiFronzo said of the timing of the move from Court Street, where the restaurant currently operates.

Once relocated, the restaurant will also operate under a new name, Giuseppe’s Cucina Rustica.

DiFronzo said his father has long wanted to move the San Luis Obispo restaurant into the Sinsheimer Bros. building.

“I know since he moved up here in the ’80s, he’s loved that building,” DiFronzo said. “Even as a little kid I can remember, we would go to church at the Mission and I would see that building. I always thought it was just such a beautiful building, with the green facade and everything.”

The two-story structure, built in 1884 and retrofitted in 2010, is still owned by the Sinsheimer family. The upstairs floor is fully occupied with office space, but the ground floor has not been occupied since 2008.

Joe DiFronzo leased the space from the Sinsheimer family last year. Giuseppe DiFronzo said on Friday he was unaware of how much his father was renting the property for, or the cost of relocating the business.

With the move, the restaurant will also be relocating into what could promise to be a new retail hub downtown: A Francesca’s store, a Lululemon Athletica store, an H&M clothing store, a Williams-Sonoma kitchenware and home furnishing store and Paso Robles bistro Thomas Hill Organics are all slated to open nearby this fall as part of the Chinatown project. A Marine Layer store opened last week.

The new restaurant will remain true to its predecessor in terms of food and atmosphere, DiFronzo said, though it will be slightly larger at 6,558 square feet, according to previous Tribune reports.

“It’s going to have that same Giuseppe’s family vibe our customers have come to expect,” he said.

Though the DiFronzos began planning to relocate the San Luis Obispo restaurant in April, they faced a significant setback in June when a fire broke out early in the morning at the Pismo Beach restaurant on Price Street and gutted much of the popular establishment.

At the time, Joe DiFronzo told The Tribune he hoped to rebuild, but the uncertainty over the structural integrity of the building and how much it would cost to rebuild put the restaurant’s future up in the air. The elder DiFronzo told The Tribune he had some insurance on the restaurant, though he did not yet know how much.

Now, Giuseppe DiFronzo says they are “definitely” planning to reopen the Pismo Beach location, though a specific date has not been set.

“We really miss being up and running in Pismo Beach,” he said. “Right now, it is all paperwork.”

The restaurant’s website features a notice informing customers of the temporary closure and says the restaurant will reopen in 2017.

This story was originally published September 19, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Giuseppe’s in SLO is moving; Pismo restaurant still closed for now."