Quick Take
After a tumultuous and difficult four years, Scotts Valley restaurant Casa Nostra closed its doors this week. Owner Raffaele Cristallo cited financial difficulties that stretched back to the pandemic, a devastating mudslide in 2023 that made travel to its original Ben Lomond location difficult, and rising costs throughout the industry as reasons that led him to close the Italian eatery’s doors.
Scotts Valley Italian restaurant Casa Nostra closed its doors this week, citing ongoing financial difficulties that stretched back to the pandemic.
In a Facebook post last Thursday, owner Raffaele Cristallo said that Casa Nostra was “on the brink of closure,” and called for investors to save the restaurant. But on Tuesday, he told Lookout that the restaurant has closed, and he’s ready to get out of the industry. “I want to start 2025 out positive and maybe let someone else take over the location,” he said. “This was my dream, but it turned into my nightmare.”
The restaurant was a popular neighborhood spot known for its hearty, traditional Italian fare like gnocchi with porcini mushrooms, rigatoni alla Bolognese, and veal Parmigiana, but has faced a number of difficulties over the last four years. Cristallo, who is originally from Puglia, Italy, began his restaurant career in the San Lorenzo Valley almost 25 years ago at the now-closed Felton restaurants La Bruschetta and Oak Tree Ristorante. He opened Casa Nostra in Ben Lomond in 2012 with business partners Mario Ibarra and Pasquale Bianco. In 2022, Cristallo opened a second location in Scotts Valley on Mount Hermon Road.
But in 2023, a landslide swept away a portion of Highway 9, the main route to the restaurant. It remained closed for three months, forcing anyone who wanted to get to Casa Nostra to take a detour through Glen Arbor Road. The financial loss during this time saddled the restaurant with “huge debts,” said Cristallo, from which Casa Nostra never truly recovered. “That sealed the fate for Casa Nostra,” he said.
In March of that year, Ibarra and Bianco left and established their own restaurant, Aroma, in the former Tyroleann Inn, less than a mile from Casa Nostra’s Ben Lomond location. The departure soured the relationship between the former partners, and Cristallo accused them of violating a non-compete with Casa Nostra by serving Italian food at Aroma.
In October 2023, Cristallo handed over operation of the Ben Lomond location to three former Casa Nostra chefs, while he became a silent partner, so he could focus solely on the Scotts Valley spot.
The original location closed temporarily in order for the new operators to create a new concept, with a distinct name and a shift away from the original menu, but it never reopened. A few months later, the business relationship between Cristallo, the new owners and the restaurant’s landlord dissolved over repairs to the property. The restaurant space is currently vacant.
For a while, Casa Nostra seemed to have found a new home in Scotts Valley. Cristallo praised the community and the landlord for supporting the business, but said rising costs, including raises to the minimum wage, increasing energy bills, and food prices made profit margins too slim to make ends meet. “Scotts Valley is clean, the rent is high here but it’s a prime location,” near the intersection of Scotts Valley drive in a commercial center, he said. “But I’ve been operating at a negative for more than three years. I can’t keep putting something in and getting nothing in return.”
Cristallo plans to join his wife’s house cleaning and dry cleaning businesses. Although he said he will miss his friends, the community, and the good food he helped create, he’s looking forward to having a better schedule with shorter days and spending more time with his family.
Said Cristallo: “I’m not afraid of reinventing myself. I’m a hardworking guy. But now I need a break from the restaurant business.”