For years we’ve heard rumors of bar owner Les Natali and his failure to find a restaurant operator he deemed suitable for the long vacant Patio Café (531 Castro Street). The place has been empty over a decade, and was remodeled in 2007 in what appeared to be an effort to lease it out. Now the Bay Area Reporter has the scoop that Natali is in negotiations with the city over a permitting issue that allegedly stalled an opening planned for last year — they informed him he needed a conditional use permit for a change to the structure, something that he’s been disputing since last March, but now Supervisor Wiener is involved. Natali himself, who once hosted at the restaurant, will remain the business owner, but there’s no word on what the menu will be. We’ve actually never been inside the place ourselves, but it has an enclosed patio at the rear with a retractable roof, and was a popular spot in the neighborhood throughout the nineties. Natali bought the nearby Badlands bar in 1999, and subsequently closed The Patio. He’s hoping to reopen by summer, but clearly that could be optimistic. [BAR via Tablehopper, Related]
