A slice of Old Sonoma at Reel & Brand

Reeling in the Years

At Reel & Brand, it’s just like the good old days – but with better food

His first memories of the place, Kevin Kress was a little kid eating dinner with his grandparents. It was a Sunday ritual. They’d come up from the city for the weekend and on the way out of town, take the whole family out. There was dining and music and lots of friends around. The place, old even then, was called Little Switzerland. 

Kevin Kress – a Sonoman, Justin Siena grad – tells the story sitting in a booth a few feet away from the dance floor where he took cotillion classes a million years ago. He owns the joint now. 

The Grove Street structure – woody, rustic, saloon-style bar –  was built as a resort around 1906, back in the day before the day. It’s likely the oldest bar and restaurant in Sonoma Valley. The resort was called Villa Savoy; its cabins gone, the El Verano neighborhood grew up around it.

According to Sonoma police lore, the establishment holds one of the oldest live-music permits in the County, a handwritten document with a single-digit permit number. There were no neighbors when it was granted, so there were no worries about loud music. When you have the largest dance floor in the Valley, it’s good to have a great-grandfather clause. 

Kress loves those “it happened at Little Switzerland” stories. He’d like to put them in a book, the “My mom met my dad there” and “I remember dancing with grandma” memories he hears all the time. 

It’s key to why he and his wife Abby bought the business. The sense of history, of tangible memory, of a place and time. “A hidden gem of what Sonoma is and was.”

Kress was a marketing executive for Gordon Biersch Brewing, “had a good thing going,” when, around 2011, he started looking into buying his own restaurant. He looked at the closed Little Switzerland in 2012. He loved the space, but passed on the opportunity. “It wasn’t the right time.”

He kept working, and looking. The space, meanwhile, had iterations as Rossi’s and then, The Reel Fish Shop. In 2018, it became available again. This time, the pull of polishing that unearthed gem, embracing the lodge/saloon vibe of old Sonoma, recalling the laughter and tinkling of glasses during a long-ago family moment, won the day.

The deal done, the Kresses “took over on the fly” in early 2019. They ran it as The Reel for a few months before the official re-brand, as The Reel & Brand.

New menu, of course, but a change of the decor, too. The feel – cool, sharp, modern – didn’t capture it. “Aesthetically, it wasn’t us.” So back came the wood, the summer resort feel. “A look that says, ‘sit down, we’re your place.’”

The menu reverted to a Surf and Turf approach. Steak and Frites. Fish and Chips. Angus Burger. Fried Calamari Tacos. Prime Rib on the weekends. Nothing too fancy. “It’s not pub food, not tavern food” Kress works to explain. “It’s not fine dining. Upscale casual?”

The executive chef, Chris Lobero, says his approach is “perfecting simplicity.” With a few signature moves along the way. “Step back and let the flavors shine,” he says. 

On a recent morning, Lobrero was pitching ideas for seasonal dishes to swap onto the menu. “Duck confit, or a pork chop?” he wanted to know. Kress was sitting in a cushy booth, looking over the big plank dance floor and maybe all the way back to one of those formative Sunday family dinners. “I think the pork is more us,” he says.

Reel & Brand

401 Grove Ave, El Verano

Reelandbrand.net

707.938.7204

Fr–Sat 12-9

Sun, Wed-Thurs 12-8

Closed Mon-Tues

Full bar. Outdoor/Indoor dining. Music on Fri.-Sat.