Contrary to a name that might suggest it has seen better days, Beyond the Glory is in fact a phoenix that has risen from the ashes after a sudden shutdown by the prior owners in May of 2018.
The North McDowell Boulevard restaurant is turning out great food with improved service, something that had been missing at this location for a while. Quietly reopening in December 2018, owners Staci and Jeff Inglin are no strangers to the local restaurant scene or to being part of our community.
Beyond the Glory first opened in 2006 as the flagship restaurant in the Redwood Gateway shopping center, also known as the Kohl’s shopping center. It gave Petaluma a great sports bar and lunch option on the north side of town and quickly became a regular spot for nearby businesses. In 2012 Beyond the Glory changed hands and would last for another six years before abruptly closing their doors.
The Inglin’s jumped at the opportunity to polish and reintroduce Beyond the Glory to Petaluma diners and sports fans. Staci remembers visiting Beyond the Glory with Jeff years before when he proclaimed, “I’d like to own this place someday.” She thought the idea sounded crazy at the time, as they had no intentions of going into the restaurant business, but that would all change in short order.
Staci grew up in Sutter and is no stranger when it comes to creating a small-town vibe and working together as a community. Staci moved to Sonoma County after high school to attend SRJC, which is when she met Jeff.
Jeff grew up locally, a fourth-generation Petaluman and Casa Grande High School grad. After high school he went on to play baseball at USC, where in 1996, he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. Jeff spent the next 10 years batting and fielding throughout professional baseball, accumulating respectable numbers before retiring in 2006.
Jeff and Staci met in 1997 when she was answering phones and he was delivering furniture for Couches Etc., one of the many tenants of the historic Carithers building at the corner of Western and Kentucky, in downtown Petaluma. Once the baseball season started back up in 1998, Staci went on the road with Jeff, landing in Alabama, playing for the AA Birmingham Barons.
They were married a couple of years later, and continued to travel together around the country following Jeff’s baseball career, raising three children along the way. Today, at ages 19, 15 and 13, all the Inglin kids help out at BTG, making this a real family affair.
After baseball, the family put down roots in Arizona in 2006, where Jeff started a landscaping company. And knowing how to roll with the punches, when the crash of 2008 hit, their company moved into property preservation, helping real estate companies and banks keep their foreclosed properties from becoming a blight to neighbors.
The Inglin’s would eventually return home to Petaluma, where Jeff’s family has owned restaurants up and down Petaluma Boulevard over the years. When approached by Ken O’Donnell, of McNear’s Saloon fame, about going in on the new restaurant taking over where Graziano’s was, the Inglins jumped at the opportunity. Graziano’s was one of Jeff’s favorite restaurants in town, so restarting it as Seared caught his imagination and the Inglin’s are still part of the restaurant ownership today.
“Ken was like a father figure to Jeff,” says Staci. “Jeff would visit Ken when he lived abroad and Ken would travel to watch Jeff play baseball.”
At the same time, Inglin Landscaping was reborn, started up by a simple conversation Jeff had with someone who was impressed with how nice the Inglins’ landscaped front yard looked at their new Petaluma home. Jeff still actively manages the company, which specializes in baseball field maintenance. And never that far from the game, the Inglins are also partners in Athletic Edge, which is a baseball/softball batting cage facility with other ball sport related service, such as uniforms, equipment, camps and lessons, located on Water Street, behind Buffalo Billiards.
During all this time, both Stacy and Jeff continued to be involved in the community, whether volunteering with their church, running Girl Scout troops, or coaching youth baseball.
Through baseball friends, Jeff learned that Beyond the Glory had closed down in early 2018 and was immediately interested in taking it over. Always driven, the Inglins were able to secure the restaurant a few months later, with the help of partner David Brown, a Petaluma native, Casa Grande grad, collegiate baseball player and retire police officer, who now sells real estate at Coldwell Banker.
Beyond the Glory is definitely a sports bar, first and foremost. However, the Inglin’s are not playing any games when it comes to their menu and being a family friendly locally owned and operate restaurant.
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