New SLO County restaurant started by chef, market owners serves food ‘crafted to share’
After several months of planning and hard work, the chef and her partners behind the new Brydge restaurant have brought mostly organic farm-to-table cuisine to a Victorian-era house in Cambria.
Located at 4286 Bridge St. in the former home of The Cafe on Bridge Street, Brydge held a soft opening on March 11 under drizzly skies.
The new eatery originally planned to open the night before, but Cambria was slammed hard by a strong storm that drenched the area and caused flooding, evacuations, landslides and more.
“It just seemed smarter to wait,” Brydge chef and partner Elaine Rivera-Glenn explained.
After all, she’d already spent years waiting for the opportunity to operate her own restaurant.
As a cook and chef, “I’ve asked myself, ‘Will I ever have my own place? Where will it be? What will it look like?’ ” Rivera-Glenn said. “Now, to be living four minutes away from ‘the baby’ is such a good feeling. To be responsible to the community by dedicating my skills and have a piece of it, is really just a joy.”
Who’s behind new SLO County restaurant?
Rivera is the driving force behind Brydge now, but she has support from her wife Christina, who’s the senior director of brand marketing at Daou Family Estates in Paso Robles, and from Joe Vergara and his wife Joleen Tafoya, who own Soto’s True Earth Market and Vyana Wellness Collective massage spa in Cambria.
The four partners, who all live in Cambria, share the chef’s vision of using food as a “bridge between people, bridging organics with people and farms with the people,” Vergara, whose grocery store is known for working with local food producers, told The Tribune in October. “Brydge will cater to health with wholesome food and an uplifting atmosphere.”
As the site of their restaurant, the quartet chose a tidy cottage surrounded by gardens and a steep, wooded hillside.
According to the Cambria Historical Society, the property alternately known as the Thorndyke, Williams and Bright House was built in 1877. It’s housed numerous eateries over the years.
The structure was the first home for Robin’s Restaurant, which moved to the historic Souza House at the corner of Burton Drive and Center Street in Cambria.
The building also served as home base for The Little House on Bridge Street, The Tea Cozy and, most recently, the Café on Bridge Street.
Since closing escrow on the building in October, Rivera-Glenn and her partners have been doggedly cleaning, remodeling the tiny kitchen and revamping the seating area, which is divided into three small rooms.
They switched the vintage tables previously used by the Cafe for sleek new black ones and added custom benches built by Cambria craftsman Dave Bidwell.
Rivera Glenn praised “all of the wonderful local partners we’ve worked with and gotten to know” in the course of launching the restaurant.
“It takes a village, and this village has the most talented and sincere people around,” she said.
There’s a stock of 40 folded serapes, each one measuring 4 feet wide and 6 feet long, that diners can use as pillows, lap robes or wraps.
“It will be very cozy in here,” Rivera-Glenn said.
She’s been “finding ways to be efficient with space within the charming, small rooms,” she said. “We’ve taken great care to design the restaurant to highlight and celebrate its innate historic features.”
They’ve also built an attached shed, crisply painted barn red to match the restaurant. That shed houses refrigeration and sorely needed storage space.
The kitchen has a new oven and a new dishwashing machine. “(Those) are not very sexy, but we are super excited about them,” the chef said.
Brydge currently has a staff of 15 employees, Rivera-Glenn said.
What’s on the menu at Cambria eatery?
Rivera-Glenn, a former Daou executive chef, defined the food served at Brydge as contemporary casual cuisine.
“Our fresh and focused iterations of retro and micro-seasonal plates are inspired by the organic and small farming community blooming in this seaside village … and across the Central Coast,” according to the Brydge website.
A sample menu for March available on the site lists 15 small plate items for sharing, six lunch platters and four house suppers.
Prices range from $8 for a velvety chickpea soup flavored with local olive oil, black garlic and herbs to $78 for a two-person supper of Wagyu ribeye steak and smushed potatoes.
Small plate options include tiny spicy meatballs, savory clams, a spinach-and-artichoke cassoulet and a salad with chicories, avocado, radish, sprouts, snap peas and quinoa in a lemon-tahini dressing.
Brydge recommends that each diner orders two to three of the starters.
For lunch, customers can choose from sandwich options including cheesesteak, kimchi grilled cheese, Gulf shrimp roll and a mushroom burger.
“We’ve enjoyed meeting so many wonderful people who have stopped by and told us about their favorite sandwiches from the years at the Café,” Rivera-Glenn said. “The items won’t be the same, but we promise they’ll be just as craveable.”
Other supper offerings include an eggplant cassoulet, clam or plant-based sausage spaghettini and a roasted half chicken served with rice, beans and fried plantains.
Beverage choices at the restaurants currently include coffee, tea, sodas and flavored kombuchas.
There’s also a “selection of spirit-free options” listed on the restaurant’s website under the heading The Dry Bar, including a Ginger Lime Spritz with yuzu, a Pear Blossom Fizzy with pear, orange blossom and elderflower tonic, and a Ms Red with tomatoes, herbs, spices and Castelvetrano olives.
“We hope to share a wine and beer menu to offer soon,” the website says.
Brydge creates ‘ways for people to connect’
On Brydge’s opening day, however, “The first customer wanted a fried egg,” Rivera-Glenn said with a laugh.
The chef was happy to oblige, in accordance to a philosophy mentioned on Brydge’s menu: “We’re accommodating folks — let’s talk about what sounds good — and we’ll give it our best.”
That might mean substituting polenta for potatoes, using gluten-free bread or pasta or making a dish without any dairy products.
Rivera-Glenn said that she won’t serve all the dishes on the menu every day, and individual selections will change frequently depending on which ingredients look the best.
She and her partners plan to constantly refresh their menu with carefully curated and prepared dishes and encourage new connections between “the earth, our community, each moment and one another.”
“Everything at Brydge is crafted to share,” Rivera-Glenn said. “We love creating ways for people to connect over the table.”
They hope that concept will bring people together to share food and friendship in a spot with great vibes.
“The energy here feels so good,” Rivera-Glenn said.
Brydge is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Monday. For more information, call 805-203-5381 or go to brydgerestaurant.com.
This story was originally published March 15, 2023 at 12:27 PM.
