The fanciest vegan fine-dining restaurant in the Bay Area, located right here in Healdsburg, will shut down just shy of its first birthday.
The restaurant is called Second Story. It opened last July on, yes, the second story of Little Saint—that 10,000-square-foot emporium on North Street for experimental vegan food, “slow wine,” cocktails, coffee, art, live music and other events, both public and private.
In particular, in the two years since Little Saint opened, its intimate upstairs concert space—which occupies the same physical area as the Second Story restaurant—has grown into quite the buzzy local music venue, where top acts like Boygenius and Jenny Lewis play to sold-out crowds.
“Our team recognized that we couldn’t sustain a high level of performance in each of our upstairs experiences simultaneously,” said Little Saint’s spokesperson, Sara Beckstead.
Little Saint leadership elaborated in a statement: “Behind the scenes, our team does a weekly ‘dance’ upstairs to transition from a community event to live music to the restaurant and onto a private party. While we love the dynamic use of our space, we want to focus our team’s energies on further building our community.”
Little Saint also hosts regular community events like farmer-led singalongs for kids; yoga sessions; author and winemaker talks; and a series of cocktail-making classes under the tagline “Your Drink Is Trash,” utilizing leftover farm-to-table ingredients from the vegan cafe operation.
Second Story’s last day of service will be next Friday, June 14. Little Saint launched the restaurant last summer, with a 12-course experience costing $120, to big hype about the chef at the helm: Stu Stalker from Copenhagen’s Michelin three-starred Noma restaurant.
In their closing statement this week, Second Story’s founders called it “an incredible year” during which they’ve been able to “open hearts and minds to what’s possible with plant-based cuisine.”
Chef Stalker and his culinary team will remain on staff, according to spokesperson Beckstead. She stressed that Little Saint owners Laurie and Jeff Ubben are simply phasing out one aspect of their multifaceted operation and doubling down on events. She also said they’ll be “infusing some of the experiences and energy” from Second Story into the more casual ground-floor cafe and lounge.
“While you won’t see specific dishes from the Second Story restaurant in our cafe and lounge,” she said, “you can expect a more regularly evolving menu with fresh influences.”
Little Saint’s predecessor in the giant, hangar-like building at 25 North St. was a similar concept called SHED. The previous owners, Doug Lipton and Cindy Daniels, closed SHED after five years due to what they called “a tough retail year following the 2017 Sonoma County fires.”
This week, when news broke about Second Story, Beckstead said certain headlines caused some customers to think the entire Little Saint operation was shutting down. “That’s tough for a business,” she said. “We’re here. We’re not going anywhere. We’re only investing further into the community.”
Beginning June 17, the cafe and lounge at Little Saint will expand its opening hours to seven days a week—from 8am to 9pm on Sunday through Wednesday, and 8am to 10pm on Thursday through Saturday. The event schedule can be found at littlesainthealdsburg.com/happenings.
Those Chevy Vegas didn’t sell so well.