Samantha and Ryan Ramey

ESTERO CAFE AND AMERICANA

Through a Zoom conference, only imagining the mouthwatering scent of their chicken fried steak wafting on the air and the gratifying physical presence of their 3-week-old Daniela, I “sat down with” Samantha (who also goes by Sam) and Ryan Ramey, owners of Valley Ford’s Estero Café and the newly opened Americana in Santa Rosa, for this issue’s Escoffier Questionnaire.

Though we have all found ways of describing the record skip of quarantine, time does continue. Babies are born, restaurants open and life stories go on—at least for the Rameys. And even without the usual clang of steel and cook chatter, the Rameys’ story is all kitchen back doors and restaurant romance.

Ryan Ramey grew up in Rohnert Park. His great-grandmother ran Scandia Restaurant in the historic Shaw Building in Cloverdale, when Rohnert Park “was still potato fields.” Sam, a Long Island girl, remembers getting picked up by her father in his refrigerated truck as he finished the last of his deliveries from his meatpacking operation in the eponymous neighborhood in Manhattan. “I was mortified by the ticking sound and the smell. But I did love going into the restaurants.” Her mother’s family owned candy shops and soda fountains and her father’s side ran delicatessens and nightclubs.

Americana sits in the Railroad Square space long occupied by Josh and Regina Silvers’ Syrah (where this writer had her first job as a server) and, most recently, Pullman Kitchen, which closed last fall. The Rameys were in the just-epoxied-the-walls-and-bought-the-silverware- and-are-about-to-harvest-vegetables-they-commissioned-months- ago moment of pre-opening their second restaurant when COVID-19 hit. At Estero Café 30% of the business is returning customers, but the new location is a different story. “Cooking at a new restaurant in COVID is like catering without a contract,” says Ryan, the chef at both restaurants. “We just make stuff, hope for the best and bring the extra food to the soup kitchen around the corner.”

He adds, “Part of the complication is that our daughter was born three weeks ago. Samantha is 80% of the business.”

“That’s flattering, but I’m not,” responds the mother of newborn Daniela (and the couple’s 3-year-old, Ivy).

“You are,” Ryan counters. “I’m just running around asking people, ‘Can you do this?’”

Sam does the sourcing, which is a central element of the Estero and Americana model. They buy zero food from big distributors. Nothing. All of their produce, meats and dry goods come from local purveyors, and the purchases are as relationship-driven as they are transactional.

Both restaurants offer simple preparations of classic American dishes—and every ingredient in every item on the menu has a backstory. It’s not proclaimed on the menu, but if you ask, they are happy to share it.

“A lot of organic, environmentally conscious restaurants are avantgarde, but we are making traditional breakfast foods,” says Ryan. “Although I might put greens on the plate, and if you ask to sub them I might try to talk you out of it,” adds Sam.

Ryan is an almost-graduate of the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) culinary program, which is now housed just a few blocks from Americana. In classic adolescent grandeur, he stopped two credits short. “I was already working, I didn’t need it.” After stints at a few local hotels, Ryan was bewitched by San Diego and moved south.

One night he made dinner for a friend who had invited a restaurateur named Basilio Ceravolo. Ceravolo gave him his first chef position on the spot.

Ceravolo’s Turquoise in Pacific Beach was a tapas restaurant with lines out the door. “We would drink and play ‘flip cup’ at work. You got paid minimum wage, but you also got pitchers of beer.”

Sam came to San Diego to study psychology at San Diego State University. She was already waiting tables elsewhere when she walked into Turquoise for an interview. She didn’t get the job, but she came back for the “late-night menu and the cute chef.”

They’ve been together every day since. After San Diego (and a job commuting to Los Angeles that involved cooking for Janet Jackson and another ‘pressed chef coat’ type of gig), they moved to Sonoma County and launched Northwest Catering, beginning their commitment to local sourcing and defining the vendor and customer relationships that would carry them through two restaurant openings.

Ryan was hanging out at Estero Café as a customer when the owner mentioned that she wanted to sell. Valley Ford has “90 people and two bars,” but its popularity as a culinary destination has been growing in the years since the Rameys took over the café. Many of their regulars now come from Sebastopol and Petaluma. Sam, Ryan, Ivy and Daniela live half a mile from the restaurant.

Americana, when it is allowed to reopen post shelter-in-place, will have dinner service. “We tried a couple concepts of dinner service at Estero, but it never clicked,” said Ryan. Americana’s dinner will feature classics like cassoulet with duck confit and boudin blanc.

“Duck confit is literally how we met, and we had it at our wedding,” says Samantha.

It’s hard to be in the creative seat right now,” says Ryan. And yet, still on the phone with farmers, still trying new things in the kitchen, still connecting their community to good food, the Rameys continue to find the places where their creativity can flow.