On Monday night, I had dinner at the Bernal Supper Club, the pop-up restaurant located inside Cafe Cozzolino on Precita Park. Only, it’s not called the Bernal Supper Club anymore, and soon it won’t be a pop-up, either. Chef Tony Ferrari explains:

What started as a “pop up” called Bernal Supper Club, is now developing into its next phase. Chef/Owners Jonathan Sutton and Tony Ferrari are making their dreams come true, planning to take over Cafe Cozzolino and open full time this fall. We are very excited with this venture and the lovely welcome we are getting from the neighborhood. Moving forward, we have decided to rename it Hillside Supper Club. The plan is to keep the warmth of Cozzolino, continue the great food you have enjoyed, and put our rustic old world touch to it. In the mean time, stay tuned and come experience HSC every Monday and Tuesday. We want to give a huge thanks to Miles Carnahan, and the Bernal Supper Club “Framily” for all their support.

After my dinner on Monday, I cornered Tony to get the scoop about the name-change. Now that their venture is going fulltime, he explained, some of the original partners decided to step back from the project. Since the Bernal Supper Club began as an informal dinner/house-party in Bernal Heights, it can now become that once again. The full-time restaurant taking over Cozzolino has become its own thing, and so it now gets its own name.

Makes sense, I suppose, but I do wish they had consulted us for suggestions before making the new name public. For example, “Bernalwood Supper Club” was totally available, as was “Precitaville Supper Club,” or “Sutrito Supper Club.” Just saying…

More importantly, though, dinner on Monday was delicious. We had meatballs and the smoked broccoli as an appetizer, and for my main, I had the Arctic char with horseradish yogurt, Israeli couscous, and beets. It was really great.

So, regardless of what it’s called, the full-time version of the Bernal Hillside Supper Club will be a terrific use of the Cozzolino space, and a superb addition to the neighborhood. It will take 4 to 6 months for the transition to full-time to happen, and until then, HSC will continue to operate as a pop-up at Cozzolino on Mondays and Tuesday nights.

Congrats and welcome!