The eagerly anticipated opening of the new location of Bari Ristorante E. Enoteca will be August 10th.
The address is 524 South Cooper Street, but it’s easy to find; Peabody Street dead ends into it.
And if you think the intricate wooden geometric fencing on the front and side harken back to the mid-1900s, you’re right.
“We live in a Mid-Century house,” says chef Jason Severs, who, along with his wife, Rebecca, own Bari.“We have a Mid-Century building. Everything is squares and rectangles. No round. Nothing oval.”
The interior of the restaurant is light and airy — the opposite of the old location in Overton Square.
“It’s night and day,” Rebecca says.
The walls are white with blue drapes. Other colors include “green, black, gray,” Jason says. “The other restaurant was so dark and orange and brown.”
The new location is more than 300 square feet bigger than the old location. They still can seat 40 people in the dining room, but they also can seat 40 more outside on the patio. They also can seat more people at the new bar in the front of the restaurant.
While this restaurant features wide, open spaces, the old location was “a bunch of different, small rooms,” Jason says.
And, Rebecca says, “You couldn’t expand there.”
Architecture Inc was their architect. The building previously was a yoga studio, and before that, a beauty college, Jason says. They wanted the open wood block fencing on front and on the side. “People see what’s going on,” Jason says.
Jason and Rebecca did all the interior design, which includes work by local artist Tad Lauritzen Wright who did the figurative drawings on the walls in the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Jason painted the tentacles on one wall. Rebecca made the cork wreath that hangs on the South wall near the bar. “They want me to make a bigger one,” she says.
The food will be the same as what they served at the old location, Jason says. “Southeastern Italian. Lots of fresh vegetables. From the earth. All local when we can.”
“Bari” is where Jason’s mother is from, Rebecca says. And Bari, the restaurant, definitely is a family affair. Their sons Lucian and Julian are joining them in the kitchen, Rebecca says.
The new Bari Ristorante E. Enoteca is ideal for the couple to greet new and old friends.
And, Jason says, “We feel more Midtown than where we were.”
