Links   E-mail             Print            Advertisement

YAKIMA -- Downtown Yakima will have two new restaurants come summer.

Tony Ha, a local physician, has obtained a building permit to renovate a building at Yakima and Third avenues for Tony's Steakhouse, an upscale restaurant featuring a variety of flame-grilled steaks.

Jon Dunsmore, the restaurant's manager, hopes to open the restaurant by June or July. Dunsmore moved to Yakima from the Chicago area, where he helped develop Meson Sabika, an upscale restaurant in Naperville, Ill.

Right now the focus is on finishing up the design and finding furnishings for the nearly 10,000-square-foot restaurant. It will include conference space and will cost about $475,000 to complete.

Meanwhile, work is continuing on the new incarnation of the former Pete's Night Club, to be called The Second Street Grill. Construction is under way on the restaurant and sports bar.

Partners Pete Blue and Steve Pinza plan to open the restaurant by late June or early July and hire about 40 to 50 employees.

The restaurant, which will be open seven days a week for lunch, dinner and drinks, will have outdoor seating, an indoor dining area and a sizable bar with plasma televisions.

Blue and Pinza have worked with a variety of chefs to develop the mid-priced menu, which in-cludes two dozen beers on tap, specialty cocktails and food and wine from the Yakima Valley, Blue said.

When finished, the building at 28 N. Second St. will have a new brick exterior facade that matches the exposed brick walls inside.

Although they had fun running Pete's, Blue and Pinza said they are ready to introduce the new concept.

Blue said he wanted to better serve the patrons that supported his dance club in its early days. They are now in their late 20s and older and need something more low-key and relaxing. The new restaurant will also appeal to a greater cross-section of residents and tourists, he said.

And for those who believe that it's just a fancier Pete's, they will be in for a surprise. The owners emphasized that there are no pool tables nor a dance floor.

"Once they get here and see the place, they will not equate the two at all," Pinza said.