Sometime in the coming months the Redwood Café is going to literally move from Dale Road in Modesto near the Kaiser Hospital to River Islands at Lathrop.
And when three sections of the iconic dining spot — including the bar and dining room — are transported down Highway 99, the 120 Bypass and Interstate 5 during the night to its new home, it will have a footprint nearly triple its current size.
The relocation of the Redwood Café is the latest in unique firsts Cambay Group is rolling out as part of its 15,001-home planned community.
River Islands CEO Susan Dell’Osso noted the new site for Redwood Café will be along the side of the 300-foot wide levee where it will overlook the football stadium that will break ground this year in the planned community’s town square.
The new structure will incorporate segments of the current Redwood Café that closed Dec. 31 after 14 years when the property was sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as part of the Modesto Temple project now under construction.
The restaurant will be three stories with multiple wine cellars, dining and the barroom on the main floor, and banquet facilities on the third floor.
There will be an elevator to ferry guests between floors.
The third floor will have access to the 18-mile parkway for pedestrians and bicyclists that will eventually ring River Islands along the 300-foot wide levee.
As such, it will open to an outdoor dining area that will have sweeping views of the San Joaquin River.
The Redwood Café will be the second restaurant at River Islands.
The current dining venue — the Boathouse — is almost as unique as the Redwood Café promises to be in the greater Lathrop-Manteca-Tracy area. It sits along a manmade lake along with sand volleyball courts and a park.
The new Redwood Café endeavor is a partnership of Bob Campana and Cambay Group.
Campana opened the Dale Road location in 1994 as an events center that quickly became a popular venue for weddings and other celebratory events.
The Redwood Café opened in 2012.
It has a varied and unique eclectic cuisine inspired by multiple trips Campana has taken around the world.
“It will be the only place in San Joaquin County you will be able to get German schnitzel,” Dell’Osso said.
When Dell’Osso paid an unannounced visit in mid-July to a restaurant Campana was opening in Patterson, her goal was to pitch him into opening a restaurant at River Islands.
Campana was intrigued.
Cambray Group CEO Alan Chapman then visited the Modesto location and decided on the spot that of it was possible to do so, that sections of the café should be relocated to River Islands.
That was because of the unique, eclectic ambiance.
Once a moving company Cambray Group had used before to relocate another building determined it was do-able, the plans for the restaurant site were modified.
When the move takes place this spring complete with a CHP escort that will involve a rolling shutdown of the freeways along the route, the three segments will be placed atop the new ground floor and banquet facilities added above.
The goal is to have the Redwood Café reopened by the end of year.
It fits into River Islands goal to develop a town square that has a unique vibe sans cookie cutter boxy development.
The vision is not just to have apartments intertwined with retail, dining, and services that also may have housing above, but to create a town square that is a gathering space that is walkable.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
