Local Eatery Brings Craft Cuisine to the Inland Empire

REDLANDS >> Redlands residents are getting a chance to revitalize their tastebuds with RESTORE Kitchen Craft Food, Beer, and Wine, a new gastropub-style eatery located at Carolyn’s Café’s original location on Lugonia Avenue. Chef Rick Wineman and his managing partner Al Barilla are joining together for this one-of-a-kind experience to bring localized food selection to the Inland Empire community, focusing on American craft cuisine. “We consider everything as part of the show, to make it when it’s ordered, to make it fresh, and to make sure it’s delicious,” Wineman said. Wineman and Barilla have known each other and been best friends for 20 years, ever since they met in Ontario, California and gotten to know each other in Boston as they were both in the process of helping start a Rainforest Café. The joint culinary work they have done in the past has a more personal than professional connotation. Wineman said they have helped each other do a few events for fundraisers, but a large role in getting to know one another and becoming so close was Mexico mission work. “We’ve fed people while building houses,” Wineman said. “That’s primarily how we all got to know each other, not professionally.” Dorothy, Rick’s wife and the publicist for RESTORE, said these mission trips made Rick and Barilla’s culinary work “famous” in their church, and she joked that people would start signing up to go to Mexico so they could eat the food. “We love to cook,” Wineman said. “We cook all the time.” Over the years, that love for cooking has only grown, along with the professional and person relationship between Rick and Barilla. They have met their wives at the same church and stood up for each other at their weddings. Their accolades in the restaurant business have also grown. Barilla has managerial experience in a variety of dining experiences, including both restaurants and bars, and Rick helped to open the Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney and has a host of culinary stories under his belt from when he was the executive chef at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where he catered the Emmy’s and Grammy’s among, others. He was also the chef at Angel’s Stadium for three and a half seasons. “We took pride in making sure whether we were serving 10 people or 10,000 people that the food was perfect,” he said. RESTORE Kitchen Craft Food, Beer, and Wine is a culmination of the work both Rick and Barilla have done over the years, where their goal is to create an environment for people to relax and feel restored. “It’s not just a place to eat or drink, but someplace to come and get restored, find restoration through craft food, beer and wine,” Rick said. “That’s our mission.” Part of that mission means creating the environment to look like a place of restoration, which Rick said he and Barilla take a lot of pride in. “It almost looks like a home kitchen back there,” Barilla said in reference to the establishment’s finish, design and colors. “Upscale, European-style home kitchen” were the words he used to describe it. “We took our inspiration from the old-fashioned French café,” Rick said. They also infuse the idea of restoration into their menu selection, which features American craft cuisine such as burgers, salads, sandwiches and wings. Barilla said everything is made from scratch and fresh to-order. “Our presentation is amazing,” he said. “It’s not just how the food tastes. People take pictures of our food.” Barilla said he makes sure the beverages pair with items on the menu and joked that the tasting process was “grueling.” He said they try to use local, Inland Empire beers like Hangar 24, Ritual and Escape, and their wines are boutique. “Young chefs all over the country are building kitchens, hiring publicists and finding ways to make their food a part of who they are and what they do,” Rick said in relation to American craft cuisine. He added that they like to keep the menu fresh and make changes in accordance to products that are available seasonally. “Being a small restaurant, we have 150 things we want to do but we can only do 25 or 30 at a time, so we continuously try to find ways to improve,” Rick said. With sit down tables, bars and community tables where people can sit together and get to know one another, RESTORE Kitchen seems to live up to its name. “We appreciate that the community has opened their arms to us,” Rick said. “The city, the fire department, the health department, everyone’s been so helpful and giving us the guidance we need to get opened, especially the Chamber.” Since they opened three weeks ago, Barilla said they and their “wonderful” staff, made up of all locals, have had a good experience. RESTORE Kitchen Craft Food, Beer, and Wine is open Monday through Sunday from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. daily, with breakfast served 7 to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday and until 2 p.m. on the weekend. To check out more about the restaurant, its mission, menu and more, visit http://www.restore.kitchen