After 21 years, Jim Becker and Patricia Cambianica, husband and wife owners of La Trattoria in Sunny Brae, are bidding farewell, shuttering the little restaurant after service Saturday, April 1.
“We've been doing this for 21 years," says Becker over the phone. In that time, La Trattoria has built a loyal following with its traditional, seasonal Italian fare in the incongruous Sunny Brae strip mall location. Throughout, it's been a tight operation, with Cambianica as chef and line cook, creating the menu and cooking everything that comes out of the kitchen. Becker, who formerly handled both prep and front of house labor with a pair of servers, was down to one server and finally on his own recently.


Becker says it's time to move on, noting, “We haven't had a weekend, other than when we took vacations, for 21 years. ... It's just time to do other things." He says that while the pair are retiring from the restaurant business, they're not completely retiring. For one thing, they'll be busy restoring the Victorian home they had planned to move the restaurant to eventually. They're also kicking around some food-related business ideas.

“We’ve just been selling off [equipment] this weekend," Becker says. After 21 years with their regulars, “We really appreciate our customers ... we're getting a lot of feedback on what it meant.”