Giulio Tempesta and his fiancée, Valerie Caccia, will officially open the first vestige of Umbria Glen Ellen on Monday, Aug. 28.
While passersby and Glen Ellen residents have been waiting for something to happen at the former Wolf House next to the Jack London Saloon at 13740 Arnold Drive – it appears it finally will.
The new sheet-covered Umbria Glen Ellen sign was unveiled on Wednesday when the lease was signed.
On Monday, the Umbria team will start serving a new menu in the Jack London Saloon bar and on the patio while the dining room remodel progresses for at least the next couple of weeks. Heather Ludloff and Francie Skaates of H Frank in Sonoma are leading the redesign team.
Caccia said in an email, “We will begin serving UGE food every day from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Dining room hours will be from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.-ish, as we understand the importance of being able to have a great place to meet up with friends and go out to dinner. We’re not exactly the type of people who like to go to bed at 8 o’clock.”
According to Caccia, “This has been a long, bittersweet summer for us. Giulio closed his restaurant in San Francisco and we got engaged after 22 years. Then he proposed to me in the Hopmonk garden this past Father’s Day. Giulio picked this day in honor of my father, the late R. Frank Caccia, a San Francisco attorney who represented Dave Toschi in the Zodiac Killer case.”
Tempesta’s sister-in-law was the late Bonnie Tempesta, the highly respected biscotti producer and innovator and supporter of Pets Lifeline who passed away a few years ago. Bonnie was previously married to his older brother, Giovanni Tempesta, a professor of Italian at Stanford University for 30 years.
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