Correction: The Parish will serve lunch and breakfast, not lunch and dinner.
A pair of Healdsburg locals, Gareth and Lynette Owens, who have a long history in the restaurant industry are the new proud owners of The Parish Cafe, a southern comfort food cafe off of the Healdsburg roundabout.
Rob and Karla Lippincott, the founders of The Parish, decided to sell the cafe — including the brand, the lease, the location, the trademark and all of the recipes — last January.
Last year they also sold the Santa Rosa Parish in an asset-only sale, a sale of the restaurant lease and location, fixtures and furniture. The sale does not include any of The Parish intellectuals such as the brand and the recipes.
While many restaurants have been forced to sell or close their business due to the coronavirus pandemic, in January Karla said that they’re freely choosing to sell and move to Tennessee where they can provide more opportunities for their children, and where the cost of living and wildfire threat is much lower than in California.
“We left this year for the Walbridge Fire and after the Kincade Fire I had told him (Rob), ‘Are we going to do this every year?’” Karla said in January with Rob pointing out that the Walbridge Fire had been their third evacuation. “So the Walbridge Fire is what prompted us to get the wheels turning and maybe think about moving, so we discussed Tennessee and heading back to the south.”
Karla and Rob said they wanted to sell the brand and the business to someone locally who wants to continue the eatery’s mission of offering scrumptious southern comfort food.
As the Lippincott family plans to move this week, they feel they are leaving the restaurant in the best hands.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled. We feel that they are going to do a great job,” Karla said.
With restaurant and wine country roots, Gareth will serve as the owner and operator and will work in the front of house and Lynette, whose main job in sales, will primarily work in business promotion.
“I’m from California and we love wine country and this area. When Gareth and I met, we started coming up here and we got married here at Barndiva and we decided to buy a second home and every time we came here this (The Parish) was our go-to for breakfast.”
Lynette said their son loves the beignets they serve and their daughter loves the po-boys.
“We just associated The Parish with Healdsburg and it has a lot of emotional ties for us, we love it,” Lynette said.
Last year, Lynette and Gareth decided to move their family permanently to Healdsburg from Los Gatos and when they heard The Parish was up for sale, they leapt at the opportunity to purchase it.
“We didn’t want it to disappear,” Gareth said.
Lynette said at first they were a bit unsure about the purchase since they knew the Santa Rosa location was also for sale, however, after learning that they could solely purchase the Healdsburg site and would get all of the recipes, brand and training from Karla and Rob, they decided to pull the trigger.
Plus, Gareth has years worth of experience in the restaurant industry.
“I’ve been in restaurants since my mom let me get a job,” Gareth said. “I’ve done just about everything you can do in a restaurant, front of house, back of house and I was working at a restaurant when I met Lynette and so this is really exciting progression for us to be able to have our own spot in an amazing community like Healdsburg and to really carry on the legacy that Rob and Karla have built.”
Gareth has spent much of his career in wine distribution and before that, he worked at Thai restaurants, country clubs and in other kitchens in Washington and in California.
As The Parish ownership transfers to the Owens, Gareth said it’s been exciting telling customers that The Parish is going to remain.
Gareth and Lynette said they will close for about a week in order to bring on more staff, bring the restaurant back to its full capacity and to finalize the sale and the transfer of the alcohol license and when they reopen, they’ll go back to serving both lunch and breakfast.
“It is a special restaurant and we are really excited,” Gareth said.
