The Glowbal Group has closed its Italian Kitchen 2 Go bistro at 1328 Hornby Street to make way for legendary Vancouver restaurateur Umberto Menghi to reopen his iconic Il Giardino eatery.
Menghi had operated Il Giardino for 37 years at the corner of Hornby Street and Pacific Boulevard, half a block south of his future site, until he closed that restaurant last summer.
Since Business in Vancouver reported in January that Menghi was planning to reopen Il Giardino, he has obtained necessary city permits.
"I can't put a date on the opening," Menghi told BIV April 30.
The contract for Menghi to buy the commercial strata unit from Yacoub has been signed and it is waiting for one final thing to happen before it closes.
Both Menghi and Glowbal Group co-owner Emad Yacoub are waiting for a meeting May 15, when the site's strata council will vote to confirm that it will authorize building envelope work to commence at the site before the end of May.
"That will protect Umberto," Yacoub explained. "He's going to spend a lot of money on making a beautiful Il Giardino patio. He doesn't want them to come along afterward and say, 'OK, now we have to rip out everything you have done.'"
Yacoub is convinced that the vote is a formality and that the deal is essentially done.
He told BIV that the council has already voted to authorize the work to start before the end of May but that it was waiting for a cost estimate to ensure it would be below what it had budgeted. Yacoub has seen the estimate and knows that it is below what was budgeted.
His move April 29 to close his Italian Kitchen 2 Go deli, commissary and office is evidence of that confidence that the deal will get done.
"I'm putting in an offer on a new place on West Fourth Avenue," he said.
Yacoub is also busy gearing up to open Glowbal's second Trattoria restaurant, at Park Royal in West Vancouver, on May 10. The 5,000-square-foot space will include a rooftop patio.
His next opening would then be a casual café, named Nosh, at the Telus Garden development in October.
By the end of the year, Yacoub also plans to open a 7,000-square-foot restaurant – his third to carry the Trattoria brand – in a new Bosa Properties tower across from Metrotown in Burnaby.
Other Glowbal restaurants include Coast, Italian Kitchen, Trattoria (on West Fourth), Society, Black + Blue, the Roof and the Fish Shack.
