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After 20 years in Santa Barbara, Ca’ Dario Trattoria & Pizzeria is expanding into The Good Land.
The Italian restaurant is planning to open a restaurant near the corner of Storke Road and Hollister Avenue, next to the French Press and the Chevron gas station.
“I figure there’s a market out there,” owner Dário Furlati told BizHawk. “People are getting tired of driving from Goleta to Santa Barbara.”
Whether it’s the Penne alla Boscaiola or the Ciotola di Mare, the Goleta restaurant will offer the same menu “more or less,” he said.
Furlati plans to open in August. The flurry of residential development in Goleta, along with new hotels and restaurants opening in the nearby Hollister Village and Camino Real Marketplace, have made western Goleta the hot-spot for nightlife and activity.
The timing is right.
“I think it is a good market for us,” Furlati said. “People want to find a good place to go eat.”
Ca’ Dario recently celebrated 20 years at its Santa Barbara location, on the corner of East Victoria and Anacapa streets downtown.
Born in Italy, Furlati grew up in a family of restaurant owners and entrepreneurs. His uncle owned a butcher shop, where he learned how to run a business. He operated restaurants all over the world, including Italy, France, Switzerland and England, before coming to the United States in 1985. He worked at a food distribution company for a few years, then moved to Santa Barbara in 1988.
Furlati has owned several restaurants in Montecito and Santa Barbara, including Bucatini on Lower State Street, before he sold it in 2005.
He’s still a regular in the kitchen and loves to cook his favorite dish, risotto.
“It’s just fun to me,” Furlati said. “I love to cook. I like to please people. To me, it is like hosting a party every night.”
The Goleta restaurant will be a full-service restaurant, with a wait staff. People who work all day deserve a staff that waits on them, he pointed out. The new business will host about 80 people, and Furlati plans to hire about 25 employees.
“I love food and people,” he said. “It is going to be exciting for Goleta to have something. It is going to look good. It is an open kitchen so you can see what is going on there. I am very excited right now. I wish myself luck.”
AutoZone Opening in Old Town Goleta
AutoZone is opening inside the former antique and furniture store on the corner of Pine and Hollister avenues in Old Town Goleta.
Crews were busy making interior and exterior renovations this week.
The spacious shop is on a prominent corner, across from 7-Eleven and near Santa Cruz Market. More important, it’s a stone’s throw away from two other long-time auto parts stores: Larry’s 8-Day Auto Parts and O’Reilly’s Auto Parts.
Is there room for a third, corporate-owned auto parts store in town, or will one or more of them get screwed?
“Of course, it can’t be good,” said Phil Unander, owner of Larry’s Auto Parts, 5855 Hollister Ave. “We are concerned, but we have no choice. It’s a free market.”
Larry’s was the original auto parts store in the area, opening in 1976. It’s the last independently owned and run auto parts shop in Goleta and Santa Barbara. Unander said AutoZone will attract a different clientele.
“We bring the knowledge and the service,” he said. “My guys have been with us 15 to 20 years.”
He said his store would offer some of the same parts, but others would be higher quality.
“You can go to a fine steak house or you can go to McDonald’s,” he said.
Unander isn’t backing down. It is what it is, he said.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” he explained. “I have no plans to retire. My wife (Jackie) doesn’t want me to be home all day.”
A representative from the Santa Barbara AutoZone said the store might open in mid-July. Calls to the regional office in Orange County were not returned by BizHawk’s deadline.
New 7-Eleven Planned in Goleta
Yet another 7-Eleven is planned to open at 5342 Hollister Ave., just west of South Patterson Avenue near South Coast Deli across from Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital.
Starbucks and the Venti Mocha Frappuccino may anchor corners all over Santa Barbara, but in Goleta, Slurpees rule.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
