Glenda Hastings
Napa Café, with its elegantly modern Southern California decor and tantalizing cuisine (potato-encrusted halibut or double chocolate stout-braised short ribs, anyone?), is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
The story of how Glenda Hastings became the owner of the restaurant in 2002 sounds like a movie. A native Memphian, Hastings decided she wanted to own the Napa Café. Even though somebody else owned the place at the time — and it wasn’t for sale.
She had been working part-time as a manager at the restaurant on Sanderlin about two years while studying at the University of Memphis. “I was going into medicine, and my degree is in chemistry. So health and wellness has always been my passion.”
But after 10 years of planning to join the medical field, Hastings suddenly realized she didn’t want to do that anymore.
Her new goal in life hit her “like a lightning bolt” while she was driving along Winchester. “I said out loud, ‘I want to own Napa Café.’”
She realized how much she loved fine dining, and the old Justine’s restaurant in Memphis was a big part of that. “My first fine dining experience was at Justine’s when I was 15 years old. It was for a prom date. I’d never been in a restaurant like that before. I immediately fell in love with the whole dining experience and restaurant experience. Not just to eat, but to have the whole ceremony of making the reservation, getting dressed up, going to the restaurant, being greeted and seated, and mapping out the whole meal of what I was going to have.”
Hastings has no plans to add a second Napa Café location. “I love this one. I put all of my energy into this one. I have my one little empire under one roof.”
Hastings called Don Eschelweck, who co-owned the Napa Café with George Falls, the longtime owner of Paulette’s. She told Eschelweck she had to talk to him in person, and they met that afternoon. When she told him she wanted to buy Napa Café, Eschelweck was astonished and a bit angry, she says.
He told her, “The restaurant is not for sale. This is absurd.” Hastings didn’t give up. She met with Eschelweck and Falls a few weeks later. When Falls asked why she wanted to buy the restaurant, she told him she felt she could do a better job with it. “He said, ‘I think you can, too.’ He was looking for that edge to see if I had what it took to own a business.”
Hastings bought the restaurant with money her parents and friends loaned her. She changed the menu to feature “eclectic cuisine” instead of just one style. “I love to take different flavors, different things I love, and create it here,” she says. “And that can be influenced from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Mexico. I take those flavors and try to hone it into something that is considered Napa Café.”
Her restaurant concept “wasn’t anything specific like the way something looks or a dish,” she explains.” It was more like a feeling I wanted to provide for the guests. Having an elevated dining experience, but in a cozy, welcoming environment where you have the best wine and the best food. But you can be wearing khaki shorts or a shirt and tie.”
She put her spin on the decor, which is reminiscent of restaurants she visited in Napa Valley. “It was simple, clean lines. I wanted it to feel airy and sophisticated. I knew I wanted to work with the dark wood I already had and pair that with lighter-colored walls.”
Hastings believes in giving back at Napa Café. Eight years ago, she began Donna’s Table. “We open up the restaurant on Thanksgiving and cook my mother’s recipes and feed anyone in the community who wants a Thanksgiving feast. It’s not just about the food. It’s almost like welcoming people into my home.”
She uses beautiful tablecloths, fresh flowers, gold-rimmed china and glasses. About 120 to 150 people show up each year for the free meal. “I have no idea where the people are coming from and how they know about it,” she says.
In 2012, Hastings began hosting her “Heart Full of Soul” wine dinners at Napa Café to benefit the Soulsville Foundation at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Stax Music Academy students perform for guests during dinner. “It’s the biggest fundraiser they have for Soulsville.”
Hastings has no plans to add a second Napa Café location. “No way,” she says. “I love this one. I put all of my energy into this one. And kudos to the people who can do it and have their reasons for doing it. I have my one little empire under one roof.”
Napa Café is at 5101 Sanderlin Avenue, No. 122
