One of Oregon’s most ‘iconic’ restaurants has closed unexpectedly

Nick’s Italian Cafe, the James Beard Award-winning Willamette Valley restaurant that has hosted aspiring Oregon winemakers and visiting wine lovers for generations, has closed after 46 years in downtown McMinnville, the restaurant announced Friday.

The restaurant and its neighboring deli are for sale, and “the hope is for someone to ladle the minestrone soup for many years to come.”

As recently as July 2, Nick’s took to Facebook to seek new hires for its waitstaff team, and Google still lists its operating hours as 5 to 9 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday. But two days ago, the restaurant announced a “temporary closure” on Facebook, and it now says it will not reopen in its “current form.”

In a McMinnville News-Register article posted in full to Nick’s Facebook page Friday, a Peirano family member is quoted as saying that “the compounding challenges of running a business these days” as a primary reason for the closure, while calling it a “difficult decision.”

With little more than his grandmother’s pasta recipes to his name, Nick Peirano moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Oregon to take over the old Cafe Dinette space, 521 N.E. Third St., in 1977. Unbeknownst to him, the surrounding hills were filled with young winemakers whose dream of making wines to compete with the best of Burgundy was almost as far-flung as the idea of opening a top Italian restaurant in McMinnville.

When it opened, “it was the best restaurant north of San Francisco,” the late Oregon pinot pioneer David Lett told Saveur magazine in a 2008 feature. (In those early days, fellow Oregon wine trail blazer Dick Erath recalled Peirano calling up vintners to tell them a customer had enjoyed a bottle of their wine, and would love to meet them.) The idea for a premier Willamette Valley wine event began with an informal gathering at Nick’s in 1985. The International Pinot Noir Celebration, which starts today, was first held two years later.

Nick’s daughter, Carmen Peirano, took over day-to-day operations at the restaurant in 2007, updating the menu with a wood-fired pizza oven and house-made charcuterie while keeping the pasta dishes — including the Dungeness crab and pine nut lasagna — and the beloved pesto-finished minestrone in place.

In a 2010 review in The Oregonian, Roger Porter described Nick’s Italian cafe as one of Oregon’s most “iconic” restaurants, while writing that “under Carmen’ bright stewardship it’s once again the place that impressed the region so many years ago.”

In 2014, Nick’s Italian Cafe was given a James Beard America’s Classics award, which acknowledges “restaurants that have timeless appeal and are beloved for quality food that reflects the character of their community.” Only one other Oregon restaurant — The Original Pancake House in Southwest Portland — has received the honor.

— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com

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