Devines 'Taking Chance' on Restaurant

Janet and Peter Devine of Barrington are taking a chance.

Their chance is opening their own restaurant, Simply Devine, named in keeping with their well-known catering business. It opens Saturday, Feb. 4, in a 230-year-old historic colonial building in a historic neighborhood in Warren.

The former Nathaniel Porter Inn, known most recently as the Nat Porter Restaurant, is their new location on Water Street. The restaurant will also house the offices for Simply Devine Catering, which they ran from a West Barrington facility for 12 years.

“I’ve always wanted my own place,” said Janet, “even though I was afraid of it (the inn) at first.”

Her fear came from the fact that a bank foreclosed on the property and then boarded it up for three years with no heat and no air conditioning and needing a new roof.  It was a mess inside, she said.

Janet and Peter closed on the property last September and have been renovating and redecorating the place ever since while reupholstering chairs and finding antiques and other furniture to furnish the building’s rooms. Perhaps the most unique furnishings are tables combining antique Singer sewing machine bases and marble slabs for tops.

"People in the neighborhood have come up to us five or six times to thank us for buying and reopening the house," she said.

The interior of the property has been completely repainted and touched up, she said, including the murals that have been on the front-room walls for decades.

“Davison Bolster, a Warren town councilor, did the work with a partner,” she said. “He convinced me to keep the murals on the walls.”

The building is truly historic with broad plank floors, open beams in the main dining area, clouded-glass windows and original fireplaces that have been converted to gas. The Devines wanted to keep the building’s historic character while presenting a “bistro-type menu,” said Janet.

Everything will be made fresh by her husband, a Johnson & Wales-taught chef with stints at several of the finest restaurants in Providence, including Hemenways, Capriccio and the Capital Grille, and another chef, Eben Davis, with a similar background.

Janet prefers to bake. She fell in love with baking while working at a bakery in New York City and Vienna Bakery in Barrington after moving here 13 years ago.

“I was their first female baker,” she said.

The restaurant will include homemade desserts and baked goods served froma display case in the two front rooms on Water Street. The L-shaped main dining area is in the middle of the first floor between the front rooms and a small step-down bar at the rear of the building.

The menu will change seasonally, said Janet, although it will always include dishes such as quahog chowder, vegetarian and beef chili and a host of sandwiches, salads and burgers.

Entrees for the opening will include steak, lamb, pasta dishes, seafood and risotto, she said, with roasted root vegetables on the side. Peter is deciding which cut of beef will be Simply Devine’s steak, she said.

The couple is not giving up the catering business although “we’ll be doing only one event a week now instead of three or four,” she said. They will rent out the place for weddings and private parties. They actually hosted their first private party last weekend.

Simpley Devine's hours will be Monday through Thursday from 4 to 10 pm and Fridays and Saturdays from 4 to 11 pm. The restaurant will be closed on Sundays.