After a nearly 14-month closure, Volpi’s reopens in Petaluma

Rich Albertoni didn’t have the words to describe how it felt to be back inside Volpi’s Ristorante & Bar Thursday night after its nearly 14-month closure. He had a song.

Perched atop a leather bar stool, Albertoni, a 68-year-old Petaluma native, serenaded the small crowd with an old Italian tune he grew up hearing.

Nestled at the back of one of Petaluma’s oldest and most venerable establishments, he swayed slightly to the silvery tones of harmonizing accordions as co-owner John Volpi played alongside a friend.

“When somebody has a birthday, you play that song afterward,” Albertoni said. “It’s just sort of a traditional thing, when you get together and celebrate, you sing that song.”

It was a befitting welcome back for the family-run Italian restaurant, as the Volpi clan flung open the Washington Street restaurant’s front doors following the longest closure since the family bought the building nearly a century ago.

Husband and wife owners John Volpi, 85, and Mary Lee Volpi, 83, along with their daughter Deanna Volpi-Kreger, 56, made the decision to close March 15, 2020, on the eve of the county’s initial shelter-in-place order, with plans to remain closed until the brunt of the pandemic had passed.

“We just decided we would close, to keep our employees safe and the people in our community as well,” Volpi-Kreger said. “It just wasn’t worth it for us to jeopardize anyone’s health, and unlike other restaurants we were able to close.”

Volpi-Kreger, the business’ bookkeeper, said the family was able to take that rare step due to built-up savings, as well as its decision to buy the corner building decades ago, allowing the restaurant to avoid some overhead costs.

The family first opened a grocery store at the location in 1925, remaking the space into a deli before transforming the downtown spot into the homey eatery it is today.

Its walls are adorned with mementos: a collage of weathered photographs of distant cousins, old friends and regulars wedged up against countless vintage signs, posters and other bric-a-brac.

Over the years, the downtown Petaluma restaurant has become a local institution, a small corner of the city where time is frozen and multigenerational families enjoy the same hearty dishes of gnocchi, polenta and linguini — often with the sounds of Volpi’s accordion emanating from a backroom bar.

More than 100 diners reserved tables for Thursday’s long-anticipated reopening, and manager Ginger Corda-Hermsmeyer said most of them were regulars. As she ran her finger down a reservation book — filled to its edges with last names and seating charts — she recognized many local families, as well as neighbors and friends.

Petaluma resident Patty McMillan said the reopening was more than just the chance to visit one of her favorite restaurants. It signaled a wider return to normal after a year of unprecedented disruption.

Volpi’s reopened Thursday to the news that more than half of Sonoma County residents have now been vaccinated, and after months of shutdowns, a full economic reopening is on the horizon.

As she waited for a host to show her to one of the tables covered in red and white checkered table cloths, she looked around at the restaurant’s charmingly cluttered walls.

“I’ve been coming here for 25 years,” she said. “When I saw the sign out front that they were reopening, I immediately called. I had to come here and eat their first day back.”

In the music-filled back room, commonly called the “speakeasy” for its prohibition-era history, a group of friends pulled up to the bar.

“We feel very lucky they’re still here,” said Rohnert Park resident Chris Sterling, 44. “We’ve been trying really hard to support our local restaurants, so we’re just grateful they made it through.”

As more customers snaked past the dining room and peered in, Volpi, the patriarch of the family, picked up his accordion and began to play.

Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.