Bar Bambino Announces Plans for Opening Pronto Café & Bakery
21 March, 2011
Bar Bambino announces spring 2011 schedule and opening plans for
Pronto Café & Bakery at the ODC Theater in May 2011
Fans of San Francisco’s Bar Bambino restaurant have much to look forward to this spring with the May 22nd opening of its sister Pronto by Bar Bambino café, bakery and kiosk at the newly renovated $9 million ODC theater at 17th and Shotwell Streets. Selected by the board of the ODC to be the featured partner for their food and beverage operation, Pronto by Bar Bambino will accent light dining, offering breakfast, lunch and light dinner 7 days a week from 7 AM to 8 PM.
The café will have seating for 20 inside and heated outdoor seating for an additional 25-30 and will feature a menu of baked treats, panini, bruschette, salads, soups, egg dishes (including Bar Bambino’s poached eggs with truffle salt and Parmigiano-Reggiano), and many of the popular items on the current lunch menu at Bar Bambino. Also available for “grab-and-go” lunch will be Boxed Lunches which include one of four seasonal choices of panini (currently, tuna and olive tapenade with lemon aioli; roasted beet and fresh cucumber with fromage blanc and walnut pesto; roasted chicken with fontina & carmelized onion; or ham and Montasio cheese with horseradish kraut and grainy mustard), a salad of the day and a trio of homemade cookies for $12.
Beverage offerings will feature local, organically produced draft wines, a small value-oriented bottle selection from the main wine list at Bar Bambino, a rotating selection of draft beers from local and European artisan brewers, and non-alcoholic choices featuring Brooklyn Soda Company selections, Bionade from Germany among others. Expanding on Bar Bambino’s well-regarded coffee program, Pronto will continue to feature coffees by local micro-roaster Sightglass Coffee that will be made on San Francisco’s second (the first is, of course, at Bar Bambino) Kees van der Westen espresso machine. The beautiful espresso machine will be situated next to a take-out window on Shotwell Street for those wanting espresso drinks and other items on the fly as early as 7 AM. Breakfast will feature the pastries of talented Bar Bambino pastry chef Alyce Shields.
Just steps away from Bar Bambino, Pronto will be assuming the lunch service currently offered by the restaurant. As proprietor Christopher Losa and Executive Chef Elizabeth Binder prepare for the café opening, lunch service will cease as of March 22nd at Bar Bambino. Losa states, “This is an exciting extension of our home restaurant and we want to dedicate our time and resources towards making the café and bakery the best it can be without impacting the quality we demand of the restaurant. As we prepare for the opening, we will focus on our dinner service six nights a week at Bar Bambino, and invite our fans to come and enjoy many of their favorite lunch items at our new location in two months.” Bar Bambino will continue to offer Box Lunches and be available for private and catered events.
In addition to the café space, a kiosk will operate in the lobby of the ODC Theater, which will help balance the demands of intermission for the 170-seat theater. Both the kiosk and the café will feature Alyce Shields’ whimsical takes on movie theater concession treats such as popcorn with homemade caramel & peanuts; pate de fruits featuring combinations such as pomegranate-rosehip, blood orange-Sambuca, and Campari-citrus-thyme; bitter cocoa covered almonds; chocolate-dipped rye toasts; as well as warm homemade pretzels, a personal favorite of proprietor Losa. The kiosk is designed to be portable for the needs of the ODC Commons Community Center just down the block.
Architectural features
Losa is again working with local favorite architects Aidlin Darling Design to design the interior of the already impressive theater makeover. In keeping with the modernist design of the theater, the café will feature a simplified and clean design aesthetic and utilize technology-aggressive sustainable materials. Losa and his designers are working hard to identify and integrate some of the latest materials that push the envelope of what is typically thought of as environmentally sustainable. Losa and Aidlin Darling will again be collaborating with local crafts people and artists to execute key design features of the space.
During the build-out of Pronto, to further explore the Tyrolean- and Friulian-Italian cuisine that is the focus at Bar Bambino, Chefs Binder and Shields and Losa will be taking a two week visit to Austria, Slovenia, and Italy. They will be sampling the cuisine and wines of those regions for new recipe ideas and inspirations and discoveries for the ever-evolving wine list.
About Bar Bambino
Slightly off the path in San Francisco’s Mission District lies Bar Bambino, a neighborhood eatery that brings simple, elegant food and wine to the table while gathering together friends, family and friends-to-be. Inspired by years of living in Europe, owner Christopher Losa has created a restaurant the San Francisco Chronicle has hailed as “a true oasis with a sexy, speakeasy vibe.” Guests enjoy an unpretentious urban atmosphere at Bar Bambino. Embracing the idea that life is better around the table, Bar Bambino accents the cuisine of Northeastern Italy with its Tyrolean and Friulian influences via Central and Eastern Europe. Featuring locally and sustainably sourced produce and meats, house-made pastas and inspired desserts, Executive Chef Elizabeth Binder with her understated touch brings a lightness and elegance to traditional recipes. Celebrating its fourth anniversary this April, Bar Bambino has garnered local and national accolades, repeatedly named as a San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 restaurant and one of Bon Appetit Magazine’s Top 10 Wine Bars in the nation.
About ODC (ODC Dance, ODC Theater & ODC School)
ODC, founded by Brenda Way in 1971, is a groundbreaking contemporary arts institution with longstanding roots in the San Francisco community. Considered the most active center for dance on the West Coast, theorganization is unique for its fully integrated arts vision and its complex and far-reaching impact.
ODC/Dance was originally called Oberlin Dance Collective and moved to San Francisco from Ohio in 1976. Among the first contemporary American dance companies to return to virtuosic technique and social content in avant-garde dance, ODC has introduced a generation of dance fans to the art form. Known throughout the world for its athleticism, passion and intellectual depth, ODC’s company of world-class dancers performs its iconic repertory for more than 50,000 people annually. The Company’s three resident choreographers, Brenda Way, KT Nelson, and Kimi Okada, are considered among America’s major contemporary choreographers and have created a dynamic movement vocabulary over the last three decades that has significantly influenced dancers and choreographers alike.
ODC Theater, directed by Rob Bailis, has the distinction of being the oldest contemporary dance producing and presenting organization in San Francisco. Nationally recognized as a cultural landmark, the Theater’s mission is to empower and develop innovative artists. Today the Theater is home to: a thriving Artist in Residence Program; an award winning regional and national presenting program serving dance, contemporary music, opera, and performance art; a mentorship program for emerging professionals; a subsidized rental program for self-producing artists; and a major new statewide dance touring initiative called InnerState.
ODC School and Rhythm & Motion, directed by Kimi Okada and Consuelo Faust respectively, hold over 230 classes a week for some 2000 professional, pre-professional, and recreational dancers of all ages with a range of training from modern and ballet to world dance and social dance. The School also includes off-site classes in the San Francisco Unified School District and its Pilot Program(co-sponsored with the Theater) annually selects and incubates emerging choreographers.
Bar Bambino | 2931 16th St. | San Francisco, CA | www.barbambino.com
For reservations and more information, contact Bar Bambino at 415 701 VINO (8466)
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