Gravenstein Grill and Sonoma Burger close down

Sebastopol's culinary map loses two bright spots

Gravenstein Grill, a longtime Sebastopol favorite for special occasion dining, announced this weekend that it is closing permanently.  Sunday, Dec. 17, was their last day. Their offshoot diner, Sonoma Burger, which opened during the pandemic, closed as well.

“None of us wanted to do this,” owner Brandon Parkhurst said. “It was entirely a financial decision. There was just no way we could go on with the way costs have been going up with inflation, with the ongoing labor shortage and other factors. We had kind of gotten squeezed, and there was no way to continue going with the way finances were.”

Parkhurst owns the restaurant with Chef Bob Simontacchi and Owen Barrett. They purchased the restaurant from Dan Smith and Joan Marler in 2016 and opened in 2017.

Parkhurst said the restaurant never fully recovered from the economic blow dealt by COVID—and the government policies created to deal with COVID.

“We were profitable the year before COVID. And then since COVID, we have never actually made a profit,” Parkhurst said. “There's been a number of different things since COVID: the great resignation, the actual shutdowns, the decline of travel and tourism, and now the inflation that we're seeing and the drop in consumer spending.”

He doesn’t expect there to be any last-minute salvation via GoFundMe or an angel investor.

“I mean, the amount we would need right now is through the roof. The finances have been really, really bad the last six to 12 months. Basically since COVID, things have been up and down. It was really wild at first where there'd be shutdowns, and there'd be openings and we'd be busy and then we'd be closed, and we'd lose staff and rehire staff. But the last year has been just steady rising costs with steady declining sales.”

Seeing the writing on the wall, Parkhurst and his partners put a turn-around plan in place several months ago, but he said they just ran out of time.

“We thought we could possibly try to transform the business a little bit to make it more of an everyday spot with lower prices, instead of just being a special event spot, since the high-end spending seemed to be really going away and tourism was going down.”

“The idea was, while still using all the same local, organic, high-end ingredients, to try to make the menu a little more approachable with nothing over $40,” he said. “We started down that road, but sales just kept dropping and the cost kept going up. Our PGE utility bill alone was almost $5,000 a month. It was just fighting a losing battle, and we didn't have the runway that we thought we had. We thought we could transform the spot by spring, which is when business typically picks up, but we just weren't able to get there.”

Parkhurst is proud of the role Gravenstein Grill has played in the community, hosting special events like weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. He’s equally proud of the money Gravenstein Grill raised for charities. After the Tubbs Fire, they raised over $40,000 for the Sonoma Resilience Fund, and every year they pulled in over $10,000 for Food for Thought.

What comes next?

“Honestly, we're not sure. I don't think anybody quite knows yet,” he said. “We're still in the process of dealing with the closure, which is going to take some time.”