When JC’s Steakhouse closed for a couple days of renovation work, chef-owner Dennis Petty never imagined the closure would stretch to nearly two weeks.
One thing had led to another – ‘‘I kept getting ideas as we went along,’’ Petty laughs – but the family-run restaurant on the southeast corner of Gilbert and Ray finally reopens at 3 p.m. today.
The change most obvious to its regular clientele is the large dining room and the smaller two-room lounge area have switched places.
‘‘Now we can take care of our patrons a little better,’’ Petty says. ‘‘On weekends the bar area would be standing room only and we’d lose a lot of customers because they’d walk in and it was too crowded. Or they’d get done eating dinner and try to go over (to the lounge) and there wasn’t room.’’
The new main dining room (pictured below) has only booths, giving it a more intimate feel, while the adjacent dining room (shown above) now has wood paneling and a remodeled fireplace.
Overall, the switch results in a loss of four dining tables, ‘‘but they were four tables that didn’t get used a lot because they were in the center of the room,’’ Petty says.
On the other hand, the bar gains a whopping 75 seats from the switch. There’s also double the number of TVs – from three to six – to accommodate sports fans, three times as many shelves for liquor bottles, and a new, larger stage.
The new bar area, which is separated from the dining areas by double doors, has been dubbed The Steel Room, a nod to JC’s decor that Petty refers to as ‘‘rustic warehouse.’’
Although the dining menu has received only a few small tweaks, Petty is working on a new late-night menu of burgers and sandwiches that will be available on the bar side until 11 p.m.
The biggest change for Petty personally is no longer being able to look through the kitchen’s huge pass-through window (now covered by the back of the bar, shown below) to keep an eye on the dining room. For that, he will rely on his wife, Diana Blewer.
‘‘That was one way I kinda kept control of things,’’ he admits. ‘‘But we’ll be fine because Diana is out there all the time. She controls the dining room, and I take care of the kitchen.’’
Petty and Blewer sold their former Gilbert restaurant, The Groves Bar & Grill (now Nicantoni’s Pizza), before opening JC’s Steakhouse in the former Cafe Posada building in 2014. These are the first major changes since then.
‘‘We want to be an entertainment place as well as a steakhouse,’’ Petty says. ‘‘We’re not going away from the steakhouse. You just have a choice now: intimate dining or the ‘party room.’’’
This weekend, local band My Dog Lucky kicks off the party tonight. The Harry McGraw Band is the house band on Saturday nights.
‘‘Everybody fights the crowds downtown (in Gilbert),’’ Petty says. ‘‘We wanted to give people a place where they don’t have to fight a crowd.’’
Not to mention enjoy ample on-site parking.
‘‘We’ve got 200 parking spots,’’ he says, ‘‘so we’ve got more than enough!’’
