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Montecito has a new restaurant — Coast & Olive, at the Montecito Inn.
Owner Jim Copus held a grand opening on Thursday.
The spot was previously home to the Montecito Cafe and The Monarch.
“We’ve always had aspirations to do it ourselves and have the restaurant fit better with the hotel,” Copus said. “We just decided this was the right time for us to do it ourselves.”
The location, at the front of the Montecito Inn, 1295 Coast Village Road, has been vacant for about one year.
For now, Coast & Olive will only serve dinners, but plans also call for breakfast and lunch.
The Copus family also owns the Montecito Inn.
“We’re a hotel,” Copus said. “We really want our hotels to service breakfast.”
Copus said the menu is California cuisine, with inspiration from the French Riviera. He wants the eatery to be a “locals restaurant.”
“We want it to be a place that the locals can embrace,” he said. “We want it to be a place where people would feel comfortable coming more than once a week.”
He also said the spot is elegant and “a restaurant for all occasions.”
“You might feel very special coming here for your anniversary, but it’s comfortable and casual, and you might also feel comfortable coming in four times a week for lunch,” he said.
There are also cocktail and kids menus.
“This is our new baby,” Copus said, “and we want to do it well.”
Oakberry Acai Bowls Opens
Oakberry Acai Bowls, a franchise chain, has opened inside Paseo Nuevo mall in Santa Barbara.
The bowls are organic and all-natural with no colorants or transfat. The store offers three bowl and smoothie sizes: the Classic, the Works and the Oak. Patrons can choose unlimited toppings, including banana, granola, coconut, chia seeds and honey.
The company has 220 locations globally, with 200 in Brazil and others in places such as China, Miami and Orlando.
The shop, at 819-B, is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Franchise owner Ana Luiza, her husband and their two children moved to Santa Barbara from Brazil last summer.
Heartbreak for Romanti-Ezer
It’s a bad romance for Romanti-Ezer. The Mexican food restaurant on the corner of Ortega and Chapala streets in Santa Barbara has closed.
“We are with deep sadness to inform you about this decision,” a sign on the window states. “This was not an easy decision to make, due to COVID-19. We tried as hard as we could to keep the doors open, and unfortunately, as many small businesses, we were not able to continue keeping the doors open.”
The company plans to continue to run its food truck.
Another 7-Eleven
State Street in Santa Barbara soon will be home to another 7-Eleven convenience store.
The store, in the 700 block of State Street, was previously the site of Panera Bread. The property managers divided the space, and 7-Eleven plans to take up half of it.
It will be the 12th 7-Eleven between Goleta and Carpinteria.
— 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.
