RESTAURANT REVIEW

The Restaurants of Spruce and Chicago

by Joe Lyons

Location may be everything, and if it is, then the fact that the Spruce Avenue exit off the 60 Freeway is closed could be bad news. Three great restaurants are waiting for you there, all worth the trip and all harder to get to than they were just a couple of months ago. But I can guarantee you that the trip will be worth it.

First on my list is Jag’s, a new American grill.

This location has housed other restaurants before, but Jag’s reigns now. The name is a sort of double entendré. It uses a black cat as a logo but the decor and menu will remind you of the old Riverside Raceway.

(There is no suggestion of the TV show of the same name, although I must imagine that Navy personnel are welcome to eat here.)

Jag’s focuses on meat and potato tastes. For a little variety, not to mention a marketing ploy, it carries recipes from its two brothers across the street.

While I expected to enjoy the top sirloin and baked potato, and I did, I was very surprised to find a strawberry bisque as the soup of the day. It was a remarkable treat that was much like a cross between Jell-O and sangria. The Spruce Street chicken came with an awesome side of veggies, and the smoked potato skins and chicken strips were great.

Across the street is the newest of the three restaurants—The Bossa Nova Grill, often called simply the BNG. The Inland Empire Ad Club meets there regularly. And why not. Although it looks like a Mexican restaurant with cold Coronas and killer margaritas, it has a backroom that holds state-of-the-art 21st century meeting room A/V gear.

As for the BNG food, don’t just expect the usual burrito, beans and rice. BNG describes its menu as “Bold Mexican and Nuevo Latino,” and they mean it.

The guacamole is chunk and spicy. The Bistec Rancheros is marinated steak tips sautéed in spicy Ranchero sauce. Pollo Mojito is Cuban-style rotisserie chicken, but it did not come with Cuban rice. A Yankee baseball fan who follows the team down to Florida every spring picked up on this.

And there is a reason for it.

At the Bossa Nova grill they prepare a different rice each day. You may get Cuban, or Mexican, or dirty brown rice or even rice and beans. Like a soup of the day, BNG has a rice of the day.

On Aug. 23, the grill began to experiment with a Mexican breakfast menu. I have not had the chance to try it yet. If you do, fax me your feelings.

Across the parking lot from the grill is the oldest of the three, Ciao Bella. In many ways this is the most exquisite and the most personal of the three facilities. The menu is decorated with photos and souvenirs that the owning family has collected in their Italian travels.

It is an open-style Mediterr-anean restaurant with burgundy tablecloths and the type of open kitchen that allows you to watch your food preparation. Much of the help, including the manager, have been there for quite a while, and not only do they know their food, they know their wines—and they are happy to make recommendations to you on both.

I have been here before with the publisher of the Business Journal and we gave it our “Golden Fork” award at that time. But that was nearly a decade ago, and I am told that both the menu as well as the structure are about to face an overhaul.

I must tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed everything that we had to eat, and celebrated our dinner with a wonderful wine. We even enjoyed the pizza that we ordered and took home with us. Be aware however that much of what you find there now may be entirely different.

Ciao Bella, like Jag’s and BNG are owned by the Magnon family of Riverside. Although they are primarily known in and around Riverside as a construction company, the Magnons built Ciao Bella as a sort of tribute to their family and their roots.

After they took over the operation they decided that other restaurants in the same neighborhood would be nice additions to what had become an unusual addendum to the family business.

Today, you may not be able to identify a Magnon building, but you can sure tell those restaurants at the corner of Spruce and Chicago are run by a family that understand both the business and the love of restaurant operation.

Now if only something can be done about the freeway access.

Jag’s, Bossa Nova Grill and Ciao Bella are located at the corner of Spruce and Chicago just off of the 60 Freeway, but you will have to drive east on the 60 to the Third Street exit, turn right, and watch for the Spruce Street sign.