Staff photo by E.J. Harris<br> A new restaurant, Virgil's at Cimmiyotti's, is opening in July in the old Cimmiyotti's building on Main Street in Pendleton.

An old gem in downtown Pendleton is on track to get a new polish. Jennifer Keeton, a 32-year-old single mother of three from small-town Mariposa, Calif. – pop. 1,400 – aims to open Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s this July.

Keeton said she has worked as a waitress since she was 17 and owning a restaurant has been her life-long dream. Further, Keeton’s family has roots in Dayville in Grant County. For years, she said, she has wanted to live in Eastern Oregon.

“I had somebody tell me that Cimmiyotti’s not being open is like a black spot on the smile of Pendleton,” Keeton said during a phone interview Monday.

Polishing that spot is her goal. Keeton said locals have told her their stories about Cimmiyotti’s and its founder, Paul Cimmiyotti, who moved to Pendleton and opened the eponymous restaurant 50 years ago. The establishment earned a reputation as one of Oregon’s finest steak houses, even garnering national attention from food and travel magazines.

“I want to bring it back to a place that he would be proud of,” Keeton said.

Though Keeton said she’s “jumping up and down inside” about this project, at the same time she’s terrified.

“It’s like I’m terrified I’m not going to do it right, or the people who have the sentimental feelings are not going to be pleased,” she said. “One of my huge inspirations is to please those people.”

Cimmiyotti, who died in 2003, had sold the business to Jerry Lewis, who continued to run the restaurant as Cimmiyotti’s. During the last few years he struggled to find quality management. Two years ago local business partners Jerry Imsland and Mark Richter teamed up with three other men to buy the building. Last year they completed an overhaul of the building’s facade.

The restaurant’s most recent occupant was the Pendleton branch of the Eagles’ club, which moved in after a fire destroyed its building in 2007. The club then rebuilt its lodge and flew back home in March, 2008. Since then Cimmiyotti’s has been empty.

Last July, Keeton hung out in Pendleton for a couple of hours following a family reunion. That stay proved crucial. Keeton said she drove around the town and just took it. She also met Mike “Red” Wallis of Red’s Clothing Company. In February, he put Keeton in touch with Imsland, who e-mailed her photos of Cimmiyotti’s, including its well-known red wall paper.

“As soon as I saw the red flocked walls, the big black booths and the chandeliers over the bar, I was in love,” Keeton said.

Within two weeks she came back to Pendleton and saw the restaurant in person.

“I just absolutely fell in love with it. The classicness of it,” Keeton said. “… I don’t know, it just felt like home. … It kind of claimed me.”

After a night’s stay in a local hotel, Keeton came back the next morning. That’s when she met Monte Beckman, owner of the saddle shop next door. He introduced Keeton to a lady friend who was visiting and had grown up in Yosemite, Calif., near Mariposa, the very town Keeton called home.

Keeton also talked about the situation with her new landlord who recently bought the building where she lives. The landlord, it turned out, knew Pendleton’s First citizen of 2008 – Wes Grilley. Keeton then met Grilley a couple of days ago while she was in town working on Cimmiyotti’s. She said she sat down to eat breakfast at the Rainbow Cafe, and Grilley was there as well.

“Everything has just been falling into place,” Keeton said.

For the last six years she has worked in the restaurant a friend opened. Keeton said she’s watched and learned as her friend remodeled a drug store and grew a successful restaurant business. Perhaps more importantly, Keeton said she has worked for restaurant owners who have failed. She said she paid attention to the mistakes they made.

Keeton also has dined in some of Pendleton’s more upscale restaurants and talked with their owners. Keeton said she got a positive message that another good restaurant would be a boon to Pendleton and not cut into anyone’s economic pie.

“There’s enough for everybody,” she said.

Keeton said she doesn’t have financial backing and is doing this on her own. Although she has yet to sign a lease, she has registered the business Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s with the state of Oregon. Virgil, she said, was the name of her biological father who died when she was young. She also is in the process of getting approval from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission for alcohol sales at the establishment, which the Pendleton City Council will consider endorsing at tonight’s meeting. She also will have to get through the “gobs of cleaning,” she said, so the restaurant will meet health code standards.

Moving with three children to a new community admittedly isn’t easy, but Keeton said she has found sincere support from people in Pendleton and she credited Imsland.

“I wouldn’t be able to do it without his support and desire to make this happen,” she said.

Keeton said she won’t move to Pendleton until after her daughters’ dance recital in late June. She will keep her job as long as possible, she said, so she can make money and not have to burn any of her capital for the venture.