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Los Arroyos has made it into the Goleta market.
The Mexican restaurant is preparing to open its fourth location around Mother’s Day at 5764 Calle Real.
The 18-year-old establishment is taking over Paloma Restaurant & Tequila Bar, which closed several months ago.
Marketing and public relations director Maria Rickard-Arroyo, who founded Los Arroyos with her ex-husband Tony Arroyo, said Paloma’s owners are old friends of theirs.
“Even though we’re in the same industry, we have enormous respect for each other,” she said of the new restaurant’s predecessor.
Paloma’s owners had let them know that they had to sell the establishment for personal reasons, and the space never hit the market. For a time, the Arroyos had been seriously considering another spot in Goleta.
“It was one of those great friendship connections that gave us the opportunity,” Rickard-Arroyo said.
“We’ve tried for years to get into Goleta, and we’re excited to be here.”
Los Arroyos Mexican Restaurant & Take Out has restaurants in Santa Barbara at 14 W. Figueroa St. and 1280 Coast Village Road, along with one in Camarillo.
The Goleta location will be priced like Figueroa Street, but have the full service, restaurant and bar of Coast Village Road, Rickard-Arroyo said. It will feature televisions showing sports, a patio, a full bar menu and a 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. happy hour Monday through Friday.
Some of Paloma’s staff members are also being retained.
“It’s the same authentic food and drinks that we serve, the same comfortable family environment,” Rickard-Arroyo said.
Café Ana to take over former Coffee Cat
Taking over the former Coffee Cat at 1201 Anacapa St. in Santa Barbara will be Café Ana, tentatively slated to open in November.
The corner coffee shop, a favorite of Santa Barbara County employees who work across the street, closed for good last August after some financial struggles.
“The shop needed a financial investment. It’s hard to close it,” owner Krista Fritzen told Noozhawk at the time.
New tenants Katherine Guzman-Sanders and Julian Sanders have not yet broken ground on their “full overhaul” of the place, but have ambitious plans.
“Café Ana is definitely going to be an all-day café,” Guzman-Sanders said.
That means the installation of a full kitchen to provide breakfast and lunch before an evening wine bar. Down the road, they plan to incorporate dinner, too.
“The opportunity just presented itself, so we dived right in,” Guzman-Sanders said.
She and her husband have spent their whole careers in the hospitality industry with restaurants, hotels and wineries up and down the state. Sanders himself is a third-generation Santa Barbaran.
“What better way to bring it all back together?” Guzman-Sanders said.
Bottlest opens in Buellton
Friday marked the opening of Bottlest Winery, Bar & Bistro at 35 Industrial Way in Buellton.
The establishment is a revamp of the former Terravant Winery Restaurant, and features an all-new staffing and management line up.
Bottlest characterizes its lunch and dinner menus as “wine country bistro,” features a full bar menu, and offers local, international and Bottlest-brand wines.
The Bottlest Club will also replace the existing Terravant Wine Club.
“Our motivation for the name Bottlest is derived from Terravant’s many-year history of sourcing ultra-premium varietals and grapes from all over world — and our desire to ‘bottle’ the best of those wines,” Terravant Wine Company president Lew Eisaguirre said in a statement.
To start, Bottlest will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the bar open until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Santa Barbara Community Bank’s parent company purchased
Santa Barbara Community Bank now has a grandparent.
The 21 E. Carrillo St. bank is a division of Ojai Community Bank, which was acquired last month by holding company Sierra Bancorp.
The Porterville-based Sierra Bancorp owns Bank of the Sierra and has been buying up small Central Coast banks: Last year, it purchased San Luis Obispo County’s Coast Bancorp, and the year before, it bought Santa Paula’s Santa Clara Valley Bank.
Ojai Community Bank’s divisions also include Ventura and Santa Paula community banks.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.