by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
After eights months of trying to introduce downtown workers to a new lunchtime fare, Panini Oh! owner Jerry Moran is closing the doors of his Laura Street eatery. But not for long.
Moran will permanently close Panini Oh! April 19 but will spend the next couple of months remodeling the facility to accommodate his next venture, which is actually a throwback to what made Moran successful in the first place. By early July, Moran plans to be back in business as La Cena Ristorante, a revised version of his former La Cena restaurant on St. Augustine Road in San Jose.
“It’s not a bad thing, but a fork in the road,” said Moran of closing Panini Oh! (He originally intended to operate both Panini Oh! and La Cena, but the strip mall in which La Cena was located was sold and the space was leased to another restaurant.)
While that may sound like a setback, it actually represented an opportunity for Moran to take his 20-plus years in the restaurant business and focus on making Panini Oh! a success. However, Moran ran into obstacles he could not have foreseen: shortly after he opened, the events of Sept. 11 occurred, downtown workers proved to be loyal to their old haunts and their eating and spending habits didn’t reflect what Moran was offering.
“I miscalculated the conditions downtown,” said Moran. “Restaurants are volume driven and we had our good days. But, we were not able to realize consistent sales. And, I guess I made some mistakes with our coffee and ice cream. It seems every office building has a coffee shop and it looks like everyone downtown is on a diet because we didn’t sell much ice cream. I had a tremendous amount of money in both of those.”
Finding decent help also contributed to the restaurant’s slow start which, in turn, created a general perception that Panini Oh! wasn’t worth the extra buck or two the sandwiches cost. By the time Moran got the service issues corrected, it was too late.
“Initially we had some service problems,” explained Moran. “I had some people that were in another world. I couldn’t get anyone to work. I feel bad because it was a good concept, but we had some service problems.”
If it sounds like Moran is bitter, that’s not the case. Panini Oh! was an experiment that didn’t go well, but opting to go back to fine dining suits Moran and a couple of loyal staffers just fine.
Moran said there were several reasons for the decision to go back to upscale dining — a venture that outside of Bravo! in the Adam’s Mark Hotel and Juliette’s in the Omni, will be a first in several years for the Northbank. First and foremost, Moran and two of his longtime kitchen staffers — Gary Adams and Stanley Drummer — are classically-trained and prefer the pace, mood and atmosphere that comes with fine dining over the “got-an-hour-to-eat” attitude that permeates the lunchtime crowd.
“This is what we do best,” said Moran of fine dining. “I don’t dream of sandwiches. This was an interesting experience. I like downtown. It’s a good environment.”
La Cena will open at 5 p.m. and Moran expects that it will take a while for him to build his clientele. Because he’ll offer a take out menu with easy to reheat dishes, Moran is counting on many of his Panini Oh! customers to quickly warm up to what La Cena will offer. He’s also counting on the local hotels and residential projects to fill his restaurant.
More than anything, though, Moran hopes many of his faithful La Cena customers from years past will venture downtown and discover what he has found: that downtown is a safe place at night with a lot of potential.
“Getting my old customers to come downtown for the first time will be like getting on a roller coaster for the first time,” said Moran. “If we can get them to come down here once, we’ll be fine.”
The two-month remodeling process will include an expansion of the kitchen but a reduction of the dining area. Panini Oh! currently seats about 100 for lunch, but Moran plans accommodations for 65 once La Cena reopens around July 1.