Empire Building hotel redesign scheduled for opening by the end of 2017

Two new restaurants plan to open their doors in late July on Santa Rosa’s reunified Courthouse Square, under construction by the city for more than a year before completion at the end of April.

At the square’s northeast corner is Beer Baron, a beer bar and restaurant slated to open by the end of July in the space that formerly housed Rendez Vous restaurant at 614 Fourth Street.

The business is owned by Chandi and Judge Brothers, a corporation with Bhupinder Singh as CEO and president, Harpreet Singh as secretary and Jatinder Singh as CFO. The corporation was formed in January. Pardeep Singh is an additional director in the company.

Joti Singh Chandi is vice president and COO of Chandi Restaurant Group, which also owns The County Bench Kitchen + Bar in Santa Rosa, Stout Brothers Irish Pub & Restaurant in Santa Rosa, Bibi’s Burger Bar in Santa Rosa, as well as Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. The family owns a total of 12 restaurants under the business name Chandi Hospitality Group, he said. The Chandi Group purchased its first restaurant in 2007 - a Mountain Mike’s Pizza restaurant in Rohnert Park. Stout Brothers was acquired in 2013.

“Our goal is to open last week of July,” Chandi said on June 26. He expects to hire 35 or 40 employees for Beer Baron, with interviews starting this week. His brother owns another Beer Baron restaurant in Livermore.

“We are redoing the whole bar,” Chandi said. “Lighting is going up right now.” A novel wooden ceiling (see photo) was created from barrel slats.

VerTice, a new restaurant located in the same corner of the square on the second floor and south of Beer Baron, expects to open in three weeks and is hiring kitchen staff, bartenders and servers. The business is located at 96 Old Courthouse Square.

VerTice, which will offer Peruvian cuisine, is owned by co-founders José Navarro and Amos Flint. Navarro also owns Sazón restaurant on Sebastopol Road. The building’s owner is Charles Evans.

Flint owned Christy’s on the Square, a cocktail lounge in the same upstairs location that closed more than a year ago “when the construction on the square started,” he said. Flint has had a lease on the space for about seven years.

The word “vertice”means summit or peak, or the corner of a geometric figure, such as Old Courthouse Square. “It’s in reference to the geometry term,” Flint said, “two intersecting points, the summit of a mountain.” Navarro chose the restaurant name, according to Flint.

“We have had a few hiccups in the kitchen” buildout, Flint said on June 27. “We should have the kitchen all signed off next week.” Then furniture will be placed in the seating area, which features large skylights and a massive window that opens to the west, with a full view of the front of the Empire Building.

An awning will be constructed above the window so “people can sit right at the window,” Flint said, and look out onto the new square.

He is hiring bartenders and servers, and will need about 60 employees, Flint said. “We have 167 seats,” he said. “We need a lot of people.”

At 621 Fourth Street across the street from Beer Baron is a sign indicating that Acre Coffee shop will soon open there. Acre, owned by Steve Decosse, has cafes in Santa Rosa’s Montgomery Village, Petaluma and San Francisco.

At the west end of the reunified square, developer Hugh Futtrell has embarked on a project to turn the Empire Building into a boutique hotel. The building, purchased for $2.2 million, will “house the hotel’s lobby, wine bar and meeting space, and 39 elegant guest rooms will occupy the upper three floors,” the company said.

The adjacent building at 19 Old Courthouse Square will have two restaurants and a coffee shop. Additional guest rooms will go on the second and third floors of this building, with a rooftop deck that overlooks the square. The two buildings will be linked with a covered passageway.

“The first components of the project are slated to open in late 2017,” the company said, “with the full project operating in early 2018.”

James Dunn covers technology, ?biotech, law, the food industry, and banking and finance. Reach him at: james.dunn@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4257

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