Rye Owners Plan SoMa Bar With European Sensibility

After 13 years working together at 15 Romolo, Rosewood and Rye, Jon Gasparini and Greg Lindgren have learned a thing or two about owning a bar. Now they're ready to apply those lessons to something new: a 900-square-foot cafe, bar and neighborhood "living room" they plan to open on Jessie Street where Copy Edge now sits. Gasparini explains the term "bar" is used here in the looser European sense:

"Both Greg and I lived in Europe in our early 20s. Our favorite places had very little distinction between a cafe and a bar. We want this to be a place where you can get a light Campari drink in the afternoon and then come back later that night for a beautifully crafted cocktail. We want everyone, my family, to feel comfortable and welcome."

Though the idea is still in development, a light menu of cafe-style cuisine will be offered. Think cheese plates and warmed olives. And while Gasparini and Lindgren normally design and build out their ideas themselves, they're enlisting Brett Terpeluk -- who designed the Mission's Farina and worked with master architect Renzo Piano in Genoa, Italy for 10 years -- to create a natural, timeless and thematically neutral decor that "takes on the patina of its environment." Gasparini says the space will be markedly different from their others because it gets a lot of natural light. The still unnamed bar should join its new neighbors: House of Shields, MoMa, SPUR and the transit redevelopment project, sometime this summer.