Biba Restaurant to close. ‘This feels like a second death. It feels like my mom died again.’
The coronavirus pandemic is closing a beloved Sacramento institution.
Biba Restaurant, the midtown Italian bistro that put Sacramento on the culinary map in the mid 1980s by setting new standards of dining excellence, will permanently close its doors at the end of business on Saturday, May 9.
“It is with a heavy heart that Biba’s family has decided, after 33 years, the time has come for Biba Restaurant to say Arrivaderci,” wrote Paola Caggiano in a statement shared with The Sacramento Bee. Paola Caggiano is one of two daughters of the late Biba Caggiano, proprietor and driving force of Biba Restaurant until she died last summer at 82.
In an interview with The Bee, Paola Caggiano said the decision to close Biba comes with profound sadness.
“This feels like a second death. It feels like my mom died again,” she said.
California’s stay-at-home orders that brought an end to in-dining service at all state restaurants in mid-March created challenges that Biba could no longer overcome.
“This forced our hand,” Paola Caggiano said. “For my mother, Biba was always about community. It was about our family of employees. It was never about making money, but you got to pay your bills...Costs started to add up and we can’t make ends meet.”
A precipitous drop in business because of the coronavirus – a deficit that Biba’s takeout service could not bridge – made paying rent daunting for the normally packed restaurant.
Caggiano said that Sutter Health, Biba’s property landlords, offered to cut the rent in half for two months.
“In the end, it’s a long-term issue,” Caggiano said. “It totally isn’t Sutter’s fault. It’s a combination of many issues.”
A pandemic shift to takeout
Caggiano said that as soon as Sacramento restaurants closed because of the coronavirus, she began to panic.
“We moved to a takeout model that was buying us time,” she said. “But we don’t know how long we were going to be shut down. ... There are too many unknowns.”
Pandemic or no pandemic, the costs of doing business at Biba were already demanding and the pandemic caused a breaking point, she said.
Moreover, Biba leaders pondered social distancing and other precautions that will change dining for the near future and Caggiano said she had difficulty imagining how the essence of the Biba dining experience could endure.
For example, parking is tough at the corner of 28th Street and Capitol Avenue, where Biba has served food to adoring customers since 1986.
Biba’s loyal diners depended on valet parking that Biba provided.
But with the coronavirus, would customers be so willing to have valets in their cars? Would customers want to see Biba’s dynamic wait staff wearing face masks? Would they want to eat Biba’s wonderful food with plastic forks?
Biba’s dining space is beautiful but landlocked. It has no outdoor patio where customers might feel safer until we have a COVID-19 vaccine at some point in the unknown future.
And social distancing requirements that are certain to be a short-to-medium-term reality for all restaurants – and will likely dictate strict dining room capacities – would have challenged Biba financially, Caggiano said.
“You get one step away from Biba and it stops being Biba,” Caggiano said.
Had there been no pandemic, Caggiano said that Biba could have continued. But even then, running Biba without its namesake also has been challenging.
A dining leader gone
“Our leader is gone,” she said. “It was hard when my mom passed.”
Meanwhile, Biba Restaurant had pressing needs, regardless of a pandemic.
“We have a kitchen that needs updating and I think restaurants have to keep reinventing themselves,” Caggiano said.
Any business that lasts generations requires a leader directly running either the money side or the creative side.
With Biba Caggiano gone, Biba Restaurant had neither. Vincent Caggiano, Biba’s husband and a well-known doctor in Sacramento for years, is in his late 80s now. Biba’s daughters love the restaurant and grew up there, but they have their own lives. Paola Caggiano lives in the Bay Area.
“I feel so much guilt and have spent so much time second guessing myself,” Caggiano said.
“It breaks my heart,” Caggiano said. She feels most deeply for Biba’s venerable staff. Biba’s staff wanted to keep the restaurant going. Before the shutdown, managers John Black and Natalie Gonzales maintained a level excellence at restaurant.
Even after the death of Biba Caggiano, Biba’s dining room remained full for lunches and dinners six days a week, closing only on Sundays.
On Valentine’s Day, for example, getting a reservation was tough. Biba’s elegant lounge was jammed to capacity. Every table in the dining room was occupied and a celebratory culture that Biba Caggiano spent her life creating was still vibrant.
Biba Restaurant seemed like it would live for years after its namesake was gone.
In the end, it didn’t last a year.
Biba’s staff had fought hard to keep the restaurant alive and they wanted to keep fighting because they all took pride in what they had created and preserved together.
“Biba and her spirit were always backing us,” manager John Black said. “I have known so many of my co-workers and customers for more than 20 years. I will miss how crazy it gets during an evening rush. The energy of a packed restaurant as the piano plays mixed with the laughter of happy customers.”
“I will miss the cocktail that (Biba bartender) June Chang would make me at the end of the night,” he said. “Most of all, I will miss my Biba family. There were so many great memories.”
The Caggiano family informed the staff of their decision on Sunday, May 3, a hard day for all.
“But I want people to remember Biba as it was,” Paola Caggiano said. “My dad said all good things come to an end and it’s true. We’ve had 33 years and my mom would want to go out with her head held high knowing that she gave all she could to her community.”
She did. The Caggiano family did. The amazing staff at Biba did.
They created a special dining experience that became an inspiration for a dining community that has garnered Michelin stars. A new generation of proprietors has energized Sacramento by carrying the baton that was handed to them by the chef from Bologna, Italy.
Biba was synonymous with Sacramento. Caggiano loved and believed in her adopted city and her success lit the way for others. Long live Biba!
Sacramento will miss her and her creation dearly.
This story was originally published May 3, 2020 at 12:10 PM.
