Open and shut: Cafe Ficelle brings France to Ventura
In Ventura, Bryan Scofield, chef and owner of Scofield Catering & Management, is the chef-owner force behind the Café Ficelle Boulangerie & Patisserie coming to the vacant space next to Jewelry Couture.
Scofield will be joined in the business by daughter and service manager Lyndy Woodruff and by baker and son-in-law Jarrett Chambers. Scofield and Chambers both recently completed courses at the San Francisco Baking Institute; Chambers currently is training with pastry chefs and chocolatiers at the Domaine de Terre Blanche resort in France.
Named for a thin, baguette-like loaf of bread, Café Ficelle will feature artisanal breads and pastries served with beer, wine and coffee, the latter from Verve Coffee Roasters of Santa Cruz. Scofield plans to offer tastings, demonstrations and classes, with the goal of turning the location into a community gathering place, he said.
The cafe will feature an enclosed garden space that faces Mills Road. Architectural renderings indicate it also will have a pergola-topped patio that curves at the corner of Mills and Maple Street.
Construction on the cafe's interior should start this month, with a hoped-for completion date in January or February, Scofield said (390 Mills Road, Suite C, 805-941-3444, http://www.cafeficelle.com).
At the nearby Pacific View shopping center, Pholicious is "opening soon" in the second-floor food court, according to signage at the site. The restaurant specializing in "Vietnamese rice noodle soup" will join Great Khan's Mongolian Grill, which opened this summer at what previously was Stir Krazy Mongolian Grill Express, and La Mancha Mexican & Seafood, which debuted last fall at the former Mojado Grill (3301-1 E. Main St., http://www.shoppacificview.com).
In Ojai, Tuesday marked the grand opening of Revel, which offers fresh kombucha on tap, cold-brewed Centri Coffee on nitro, acai bowls, baked goods by Thacher Road Cookies and fermented foods like kimchi. Furnishings include comfy settees and artfully mismatched bar stools at the kombucha counter. Hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays (307 Matilija St., Suite C, 805-272-0028, http://revel365.com).
In Oxnard, the list of future tenants making their own announcements about signing leases for The Annex, a public market-style development at The Collection at RiverPark, recently grew by one: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters.
Husband-and-wife owners Shawn and Sarah Pritchett opened their first coffeehouse in Newbury Park in August 2015 and have since started presenting pop-up dinners at the site, which also serves as their roasting plant (111 N. Reino Road, 805-375-9000, http://ragamuffinroasters.com). At The Annex, they will be joined by Bottle & Pint, also of Newbury Park, and by chef Tim Kilcoyne of the Ventura County-based Scratch food truck. Originally scheduled to debut in fall 2015, The Annex has a new projected opening date of early 2017 (http://www.tcrpannex.com).
In Port Hueneme, the informal French-fusion restaurant La Plage Cafe is "closed temporarily for family emergency," according to a hand-written note taped to the inside of the front door. The cafe opened in the Hueneme Center in December and focused on weekday lunch service with breakfast on the weekends. Its Facebook and Instagram accounts were last updated in July. Its business phone was not in operation as of Tuesday (429 E. Port Hueneme Road, 805-874-1845).
In Thousand Oaks, the 600-square-foot sliver of space between Dog Haus and Urbane Cafe at the remodeled Denny's building has been claimed as the future home of Kabab Plus. The future restaurant also will feature wraps, salads and pizzas. A late 2016 or early 2017 opening is anticipated, according to workers at the construction site (50 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.).
At The Oaks shopping center, a new, stand-alone building erected next to the Muvico 14 Theatres in July became home to the third Ventura County location in the Westlake Village-based chain PizzaRev (162 W. Hillcrest Drive, Suite 200, 805-230-3482, http://pizzarev.com) and to the county's umpteenth Chipotle Mexican Grill (162 W. Hillcrest Drive, Suite 300, 805-230-9193, http://www.chipotle.com).
Still to come is the region's first Urban Plates, expected to open this fall. A peek through the doors on Monday revealed that framing for the counters has begun.
According to the chain's website, Urban Plates will serve "made from scratch meals." According to the notice of application to sell alcohol taped to the front doors, it also will serve beer and wine (162 W. Hillcrest Drive, Suite 100, https://urbanplates.com).
Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. She also writes the Cafe Society column, which appears in the Sunday Life section and Fridays in the Time Out section. For between-column updates, follow 805foodie on Twitter and Instagram and "like" the Facebook page VCS Eats. Please send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com.