The historic Pendergrass Hotel building at a key downtown corner
has a new tenant and plans for a
”
pretty nice restaurant
”
that borrows its name from the original building opened in 1927.
The Pendergrass Restaurant’s cuisine will focus on fresh seafood,
good meat and a lot of pasta, owner Max Bailey said. And the bar
will be filled with local wine and 40 to 50 types of beer. All of
the food, meanwhile, will be made from scratch.
The historic Pendergrass Hotel building at a key downtown corner has a new tenant and plans for a “pretty nice restaurant” that borrows its name from the original building opened in 1927.
The Pendergrass Restaurant’s cuisine will focus on fresh seafood, good meat and a lot of pasta, owner Max Bailey said. And the bar will be filled with local wine and 40 to 50 types of beer. All of the food, meanwhile, will be made from scratch.
But most of all, Bailey hopes to bring 5-star restaurant food at a good, cost-effective price, he said.
“It’s all about being very cost conscious, and if I could give the people a cost break,” he said.
Bailey, 42, along with his daughter, moved to the Hollister area two years ago and since then he has been looking for a way to give back to the community, he said.
“I’ve done all the money making,” he said. “Now it’s time to start giving back.”
Bailey has owned a restaurant before but now he wants to do it differently – as he said he doesn’t want to worry about finances too much.
Bailey knows the building’s importance on the corner of Fifth and San Benito streets. And more important, he knows what the name means to the city.
Since Bailey painted the restaurant’s name on the building, people have filed in every day thanking him for the name.
“The building just talks to you – there is a lot of history here,” Bailey said.
Its name alludes to the building’s history. J.R. Pendergrass constructed it in 1927 to serve as a high-rise building in the downtown.
Through the years the building saw restaurants cycle through and, for most of its life span, a bank used the building. In the early 2000s, preservationist Tim Lantz bought the structure to renovate it.
The restaurant, still in a development phase, has initial plans to be open within 60 days. Bailey plans to hire employees in the next few weeks and train them soon after.
The hope is that the new restaurant will bring more people downtown and from out of the county, said Hollister Downtown Association Executive Director Brenda Weatherly.
See the full story in the Free Lance on Tuesday.
