Randy Paragary, an icon of Sacramento’s restaurant scene, dies at 74
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Remembering Randy Paragary
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Randy Paragary, an icon of Sacramento’s restaurant scene, dies at 74
Randy Paragary, a pioneer in Sacramento’s nightlife and dining scenes for 50 years whose entrepreneurial spirit led and shaped a renaissance of food, drink, and hospitality in the state capital, died Friday evening after a brief illness.
He was 74 and had recently been diagnosed with cancer.
The Paragary legacy in Sacramento cannot be overstated. His restaurants, beginning and ending with Paragary’s in midtown, set new standards for cuisine and service in a political town that was still a bit dusty and provincial when Paragary opened his first venture, a basement beer joint with live music, in 1969.
From there, Paragary’s success was built on ideas for restaurant concepts including Paragary’s, Cafe Bernardo, and Centro Cocina Mexicana.
He was a C.K. McClatchy High school graduate who also graduated from Sacramento State and the McGeorge School of Law, possibly heading for a buttoned-down life when he found his calling in hospitality,
Paragary opened the The ParaPow Palace, a saloon on 30th and O streets, in 1969. It was a spot where young people with long hair – it was the 60s after all – could go and listen to live music. He then opened The Arbor in 1974 and Lord Beaverbrooks in 1975, both as nightspots where adults could gather while the sidewalks in other parts of town rolled up at sundown, per Sacramento’s then sleepy reputation.
Those early ventures are long gone, but in 1983 came one that has endured, Paragary’s. Located at 28th and N, Paragary’s became his signature restaurant and the backbone of a business success story without peers in Sacramento.
After learning of Paragary’s cancer diagnosis, which came roughly four weeks ago, developer Mark Friedman, a minority owner of the Kings, wrote to Paragary in a text: “You were one of the first to think bigger and believe that Sacramento could support a higher level of taste and sophistication.
“Your example reinforced my conviction that Sacramento deserved more and would support something better. You’ve made an enduring difference.”
A legacy of restaurant leadership
Paragary’s legacy is not only in the restaurants he left behind, but the generation of industry leaders he helped mold. Patrick Mulvaney of Mulvaney’s B&L, N’Gina Guyton of South, Scott Ostrander and Paul DiPierro of Origami Asian Grill, Henry DeVere White of DeVere’s Irish Pub, and many others worked at his places before opening their own.
“Randy incubated and even partnered with many of his most ambitious employees so that they too could taste the feeling of being an entrepreneur,” said Mike Heller, a downtown developer.
Alex Origoni started as an assistant manager at Cafe Bernardo in 2003 and went on to work at Spataro Restaurant & Bar (now closed), R15 and Centro. He met his future business partners, Jason Boggs and Garrett Van Vleck, at R15, and left in 2008 to open the Shady Lady Saloon on the same R Street Corridor block.
They were now competitors, but Paragary remained Origoni’s chief mentor. The two talked on the phone multiple times a day as The Shady Lady was opening, and Origoni copied Paragary Restaurant Group’s operating and organization systems at his new restaurant as well as B-Side, which he launched with Boggs and Van Vleck in 2015.
“It’s not just the quality of the restaurants and bars he owned and operated, it’s the number of them he was able to successfully launch. And from that, the number of managers and chefs who came out of those programs who went on to open and operate their own places,” Origoni said.
“The ripple effect of what he did is probably greater than what any other restaurateur has done in our (city’s) history.”
Paragary was bullish on Sacramento when others weren’t and his investments in neighborhoods such as midtown and R Street became key moments that helped transform and enliven once-sleepy sections of Sacramento.
Sacramento has become a haven for chefs and farm-to-fork cuisine and Paragary was at the forefront of that movement, but he was not a chef. He was more like an impresario whose organizational skills, attention to detail, and intellect created sweet music in hospitality.
Mulvaney had just arrived in Sacramento from New York when he began work as a sous chef at Paragary’s in 1995. He remembers the surprise of the proprietary bakery a block away, pasta made in-house every day, a little garden out front where staff picked basil and tomatoes.
“It was a great introduction to Sacramento and what was here to work in a place like this,” Mulvaney said. “It was one of the greatest times in my life. As a cook, it’s definitely a time I look back on fondly.”
His friends, like former Assemblyman Rusty Areias, affectionately called Paragary “Sacramento’s Social Chairman. Prince of the night!” Paragary was the organizer, the booster, the financier who took the financial risks, the boss, the frontman of his restaurant group and, by extension, of the Sacramento food scene itself.
He achieved his success by being brilliant, but not arrogant. He was tough, but not mean. He was passionate about his work, but when a restaurant concept didn’t work or had run its course, he would shut it down and never look back. He tried to branch out in San Francisco, and when that didn’t work, he just got more successful in Sacramento. He was self-deprecating, comfortable in making a joke at his own expense.
He loved to tell the story of the time the late Biba Caggiano asked if Paragary wanted to partner with her on her new Italian restaurant she wanted to open in the mid-1980s. Paragary turned her down and Caggiano found other partners, and opened Biba – the restaurant that operated to great acclaim for more than 30 years until she died in 2019.
Paragary became a fan of Biba the restaurant, and he and Caggiano remained friends for decades. Now, in just a few years, the Sacramento restaurant scene has lost Caggiano, Lina Fat and Paragary.
A force who changed Sacramento
Kitty O’Neal, the venerable radio show host who married Kurt Spataro, Paragary’s longtime partner, said the news of Paragary’s passing seemed unbelievable to her.
“We owe Randy much gratitude,” she said.
Spataro remembered his partner and friend as someone who derived joy in the small details of everyday life, a joy he shared with others. “Randy loved the bones of a restaurant,” Spataro said.
“As the restaurants began to take shape, he’d make his presence known to each subcontractor and tradesman working on the job, pointing out details they might have missed. When Randy was arranging a dining room, we knew our opening was getting close.”
There were many openings, but few were as exciting as when Centro opened on J Street in 1994 and people waited for hours to get in. This was Paragary and Spataro at the height of their powers, creating authentic Mexican food and selling high-end cocktails with fresh ingredients, in a festive space that was irresistible.
The place was a sensation and Sacramento was on its way as a place that offered more than diners and state government.
But most of all, Paragary loved people. He relished chatting with customers and guests at all his restaurants and was often seen, along with his wife, Stacy, holding court with large groups of people in joyful conversations.
“Everybody who entered his restaurants was treated brilliantly by him, “ said Dr. Viva Ettin, a long-time friend.
“Everybody was a VIP.”
Paragary was both of a time gone by and rooted in the present. Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, used to hold court in Paragary’s restaurants when he was the speaker of the state Assembly from 1980 to 1995.
“We went to Randy’s to strategize on politics or policy, and just often to sit idle and laugh,” Areias said. “No one in my lifetime has understood the importance of human beings socializing. Randy made it more memorable.”
Just before his death, Paragary pulled off a new venture in a business he had never tried: hotels. His Fort Sutter Hotel on 28th Street opened last year.
Just down the street from Paragary’s, the hotel is beautiful and bustling. In the months leading up to its opening, Paragary was excited about his venture.
He showed no inclination that he was going to slow down. Ettin said he had planned a trip to South Africa in December. “He was so excited,” she said.
“I am so sad that he will not make it there. Hamba Kahle my friend Randy on your final journey. It’s Zulu. It means go well, farewell.”
Paragary is survived by his wife, Stacy; daughter, Lisa; and son Sam.
Services for Paragary are pending.
This story was originally published August 14, 2021 at 10:04 AM.
