PETALUMA, CA — Volpi's Ristorante & Bar will bring its Italian comfort food and Prohibition-era speakeasy to Bay Area television screens Nov. 5, giving viewers a look inside a business that has welcomed generations of Petaluma families.
The restaurant will appear on "Check, Please! Bay Area" at 7:30 p.m. on KQED 9, alongside Bundoo Khan in Fremont and Bungalow on Rose in Danville. The other restaurants serve Pakistani-style barbecue and Thai cuisine, respectively.
Volpi's celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2025, but diners can still spot traces of its years as a grocery and speakeasy.
Antique products fill shelves, accordions decorate the walls, and candle wax coats Chianti bottles. The grocery became a restaurant in 1992. Its backroom bar remains, complete with an escape door leading to the alley.
The television appearance follows the June 11 death of John A. Volpi, the restaurateur and accordion player who helped preserve the family gathering place. He was 90.
His grandmother, Giovanna, and father, Silvio, founded Volpi's Grocery & Bar in 1925, according to the family account.
For decades, John and his sister, Sylvia, entertained patrons in the back bar.
His accordion playing and singing accompanied birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, holiday celebrations, and everyday dinners. The siblings also helped found the Petaluma Accordion Club.
The menu ranges from spaghetti and meatballs and chicken fettuccine to seafood cioppino. The cioppino combines scallops, prawns, clams, mussels, and fish in tomato broth, topped with Dungeness crab. Appetizers include calamari, steamed clams, garlic meatballs, and gnocchi.
Volpi's shares its stretch of Washington Street with Barber Lee Spirits, which sits between the restaurant and the Petaluma Hotel.
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