canda goose outlet burns in 'Godzilla' trailer"I got my own geese," he said over the rushing water that Brazio's patio tables look onto, as a migrant Canada goose opened its wings and swooped up to the roof on the other side of the mall. Just as the families of ducks come back, in ever growing numbers, so do his customers. At Brazio, many customers have become Halpert's friends. Halpert, 47, moved his family to Danville last year for the schools, he says. His wife, Debbie, is on the fund raising committee for , and Halpert is helping out big time with school fund raisers. It makes for a long day, but he always drives the children to school in the morning, before he fans out across the bay to check on his three other restaurants.
canda goose outlet "I'm just a guy trying to make a living in this crazy world of food," he said recently, clanking a pan of clams over a flame at Brazio. Other restaurateurs in the Bay Area have far flung empires Bradley Ogden comes to mind, and , who just opened in Pleasant Hill his third . But Halpert, who put 50,000 miles on his car the year before last driving between his four properties in Contra Costa, Napa and San Francisco, has done it a little differently. He doesn't rely on a formula, although he has branched out from his classical French training and made a virtue of dry aged meats grilled on black walnut wood from the Central Valley. His menus are tailored to his clienteles tourists at LiveFire and Brava Terrace in the Wine Country, dot commers at LiveFire in SoMa, and a more settled, affluent crowd in Danville. "I like the action, I like making people feel good," he says, scanning the room for the faithful customer and the hearty handshake. "I always wanted to own and operate restaurants." Brazio, as Halpert describes it, is a Tuscan steak house with hearty helpings. The San Francisco menu is more eclectic; customers cluster at the bar and graze on barbecued oysters and Asian appetizers. In St. Helena, people sit down on the terrace to long, romantic dinners and feast on vine ripened tomato salads and cassoulet. Yountville specializes in grilled meats, fish and poultry. In Napa, people like big Cabernets, Zinfandels and Pinots. In Danville, no one drinks Pinots, and Chardonnays and Merlots sell. In San Francisco, where they drink by the glass, people are more adventurous. "Let's face it: Do I want to pour a Chilean wine in Napa?" Halpert says.
Cheap canada goose Halpert's talent, in the last analysis, is a theatrical knack for putting his locations on show. At the Danville mall, the lake, a Contra Costa oasis, eats up much of the interior space a commercial drawback but a bonus for diners at Brazio. The restaurant has a spectacular vantage over the fountains, the opulently fat koi and the antics of the crazy, dive bombing mallards. Helena; and the original LiveFire is an elegant spot on restaurant row in Yountville. Helena and thought he was back in the south of France.
The wine industry was struggling, but it was cozy and still had a rural feel: "The wine makers were farmers," he says. "The guys would come in with mud on their boots, and Koerner Rombauer would buy a bottle of his Chardonnay for everyone."
For six years or so, he was chained to the stove. But he started to scout for locations, and the plans for Brazio came online just as an opportunity opened up in Yountville. In 1998, he opened the two new restaurants within a month.
His cooking career started with a Weber at home in Miami, when he was 7. His father, a salesman, was always eating in restaurants, so when he did touch down at home, he liked to bring out the grill in the back yard.