Restaurant in transition at California Palms

Staff report

AUSTINTOWN

After about five months in operation, the restaurant in the California Palms Hotel and Suites will make a transition to a revamped business model.

The Fifth Season restaurant will go from fine to casual dining with a Californian, Caribbean and Hawaiian feel.

“What we are going to create is something like a Caribbean environment,” said Sebastian Rucci, owner of the California Palms. “We will do something like the Sunset Grille by The Fifth Season. We have realized that casual dining is where we need to go.”

Despite a post from the Fifth Season on Facebook on Saturday that indicated the restaurant was closed, Rucci said they are still serving guests and would be happy to serve members of the public during the transition. That Facebook post on the closure was deleted Monday night.

The new style of dining will go along with the theme of the colorful palm tree-lined hotel at 1051 N. Canfield-Niles Road.

“We welcome the public,” Rucci said of the restaurant.

It may be in a transitional mode, but Rucci invites the public to come out and try the items the restaurant will offer.

“We are excited,” he said. “We anticipate within the next 30 days or less we will announce [the revamped menu] to the public.”

Rucci said business has been great at the hotel, but a lack of a liquor license has impacted the restaurant side.

This past spring, Rucci teamed up with the Fifth Season to operate the restaurant in his hotel. The Mineral Ridge-based Fifth Season Banquet Center has a location on North Canfield-Niles Road, up the road from California Palms on state Route 46.

Steve James, an owner of The Fifth Season Inc., applied for a liquor permit for the hotel, and township trustees voted 2-1 not to have a hearing on that license.

James was unavailable Monday night to further on the restaurant’s status.

The license application under James and The Fifth Season is under review, the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Liquor Control officials said Monday afternoon.

California Palms opened in April after more than year of multimillion-dollar interior and exterior renovations that included the addition of faux palm trees, a 40-person jacuzzi, nightclub, restaurant and other amenities. The hotel, which used to be an Economy Inn and Suites, has more than 100 rooms.

“We have a rare item,” Rucci said. “We have a hotel with a true nightclub and everything else.”