It’s safe to say it will be the only restaurant in California “inside” a levee.
But that’s not the only thing that will help make Redwood Café 2.0 arguably the most unique restaurant in the Northern San Joaquin Valley when it opens next year.
*For starters, it will be the only restaurant venue to travel 17 miles in sections via massive truck transports to a new home where it will serve as the heart of a 16,000 square-foot restaurant.
*It will be large. At 16,000 square feet, it will be 40 percent of the size of the new Save Mart supermarket now under construction in Manteca on the southwest corner of South Main Street and Atherton Drive.
*It will be a two-story affair with an 8,000 square-foot “cellar” with smaller dining rooms accessed by either a curvy rock-lined “tunnel” entrance or via an elevator from the ground floor.
*Not only will it feature an eclectic menu that made it a dining favorite in Modesto for 14 years but Bob Campana who is partnering with the River Islands development firm of Cambay Group has lined up guest chefs from Italy to offer their cuisine magic once the Redwood Café reopens.
*The main floor opens up to the 18-mile bike path that encircles the 15,001-home planned community. It is literally a dozen or so steps away from overlooking the San Joaquin River.
*It will incorporate a culinary program for River Islands High students.
The 16,000 square-foot restaurant will sit 200 and offer a stunning wedding venue as well.
There will also be outdoor patio dining complete with fire pits with commanding views of an adjoining amphitheater that will open as well next year, the river, and the Coastal Range dominated by Mt. Diablo in the distance.
Crews on Monday were preparing the “cellar” to have dirt repacked against its walls after space was excavated in the 300-foot wide levee on the River Islands side.
The Redwood Café’s next-door neighbor to the west will be the two-story, 40,000-square-foot Sutter Health Care Center that broke ground last week. The $73.3 million health care facility will open in 2027.
The heart of the main floor will be three sections of the original iconic dining spot — including the bar and dining room — that was once on Dale Road in Modesto before being transported down Highway 99, the 120 Bypass and Interstate 5 to River Islands
The Redwood Café closed Dec. 31 in 2024 when the property was sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as part of the Modesto Temple project now under construction.
The Redwood Café will be the second restaurant at River Islands.
The current dining venue — the Boathouse — is almost as unique as the Redwood Café promises to be in the greater Lathrop-Manteca-Tracy area. It sits along a manmade lake along with sand volleyball courts and a park.
Campana opened the Dale Road location in 1994 as an events center that quickly became a popular venue for weddings and other celebratory events.
The Redwood Café opened in 2012.
It has a varied and unique eclectic cuisine inspired by multiple trips Campana has taken around the world.
When River Islands President Susan Dell’Osso paid an unannounced visit in mid-July in 2024 to a restaurant Campana was opening in Patterson, her goal was to pitch him into opening a restaurant at River Islands.
Campana was intrigued.
Cambray Group CEO Alan Chapman then visited the Modesto location and decided on the spot that if it was possible to do so, that sections of the café should be relocated to River Islands.
That was because of the unique, eclectic ambiance.
Once a moving company Cambray Group had used before to relocate another building determined it was do-able, the plans for the restaurant site were modified.
The Redwood Café fits into River Islands goal to develop a town square that has a unique vibe sans cookie cutter boxy development.
The vision is not just to have apartments intertwined with retail, dining, and services that also may have housing above, but to create a town square that is a gathering space that is walkable.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
