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Eleven-year-old Kyle Ferro loves salads and cheeseburgers, but when you ask him to name his favorite part about the restaurant his parents opened in his name, Kyle tends to get distracted.
Instead of answering, he says hello to a passing patron, who greets him by name.
“This,” said his mother, Deena Ferro, smiling and watching her son chat up a customer. “He’s so friendly. He’s just a people person. He wakes up every morning and says he wants to go to Kyle’s Kitchen.”
Deena and Jay Ferro opened Kyle’s Kitchen at 5723 Calle Real in a former Quizno’s Subs space in Goleta last month as a quick family-friendly dining option inspired by Kyle, a special-needs fifth-grader at Mountain View School.
The casual concept complements the parents’ other health-minded business, Silvergreens restaurants, which first opened in Isla Vista 20 years ago before adding a downtown Santa Barbara location in 2008.
Colorful chalkboard walls showcase a simple menu — burgers, soups, salads and milkshakes — as well as the name of the local nonprofit the Ferros have chosen to spotlight each month.
Kyle’s Kitchen will donate a portion of each month’s proceeds to a rotating list of organizations, helping raise awareness and giving back to a community that has been so good to their family of five — soon to be six, since Deena Ferro is pregnant.
“We’re so passionate about the mission behind it,” she said.
Pacific Beverage Company Plans Expansion
The Pacific Beverage division of Jordano’s Inc. has purchased a seven-acre site in the Cabrillo Business Park for the future development of a 100,000-square-foot beverage distribution facility, according to Mark Mattingly, executive vice president of Pacifica Commercial Realty.
The local real estate firm represented both the buyer and seller — Sares Regis Group, owners of the Cabrillo Business Park — in a land sale late last year that Pacifica dubbed Goleta’s largest in 2014.
The new building will serve the growth of Pacific Beverage operations, currently co-located with rapidly expanding Jordano’s food service distribution facility on Ekwill Drive in Goleta.
Designed by beverage distribution design firm HDA Architects, the new warehouse will feature extensive use of Santa Barbara stone and glass and serve as the beverage company’s headquarters.
Karl Storz Dedicates Street
Goleta’s Karl Storz dedicated its new street sign Thursday, changing Raytheon Drive to Karl Storz Drive.
Karl Storz bought the building at 1 S. Los Carneros Road for its Karl Storz Imaging Inc., production and product development facility, offering room for anticipated growth.
The move is considered to be a significant milestone, since the company now owns the approximately 102,066-square-foot, two-story facility after previously leasing three facilities in Goleta.
PathPoint Appoints Executive
Stephanie Boumediene, MPH, has joined PathPoint as the nonprofit’s vice president and director of development.
Founded in Santa Barbara in 1964, PathPoint provides support services for people with disabilities, economic disadvantages and mental illness to live and work as valued members of their communities.
PathPoint celebrates the potential of more than 2,100 people throughout San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Kern and Los Angeles counties.
Boumediene, who was raised in Santa Barbara, will be responsible for the planning and implementation of a comprehensive annual fundraising plan for the growth of each of the six PathPoint divisions located throughout southern and central California, with a focus on major gifts fundraising.
Medical Office Building Sold
Lee & Associates commercial real estate firm this month closed a deal to sell a medical office building in Santa Maria.
The nearly 3,000-square foot, free-standing medical office building at 300 S. Stratford — located in the southeast portion of Santa Maria adjacent to Marian Medical Center — was acquired by an exchange buyer after only 45 days on the market.
The buyer was attracted to the property due to the high quality tenant, leased investment potential and aggressive capitalization rate, according to Steve Leider and Marty Indvik of Lee & Associates-Central Coast, who represented the seller.
lynda.com Gets Investment
Carpinteria-based online learning company lynda.com Inc. has received an investment of $186 million led by TPG, a global private investment firm with offices in San Francisco and $65 billion of assets under management.
Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity and Meritech, existing lynda.com investors, also participated in the round of financing, which will be used to accelerate acquisitions, growth and new content initiatives, and to continue to build the world-class team that supports those efforts.
With this investment, lynda.com plans to further increase its sizable library of more than 5,700 courses and 255,000 video tutorials (inclusive of English, French, German and Spanish content) and to grow its customer base.
Public Market Plans Fitness Workshops
Santa Barbara Public Market will begin hosting a “Live Well” health and wellness event series this weekend.
To help the community kick off the new year in a healthy way, market will host workshops on two consecutive weekends, beginning this weekend on Saturday and continuing next Saturday, Jan. 31.
The Public Market has partnered with two leading health and wellness experts, Dr. Izzy Lira and Nora Tobin, for the event series, which will feature free low-impact group workouts (space is limited, first-come, first-serve), healthy food samplings from market merchants, as well as additional health and wellness programming, demos and offerings from local vendors in their event space, The Kitchen.
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.