New restaurant for downtown New restaurant for downtown (December 02, 2005)

There's not much left of the old Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1888, which developer Robert Byrd is restoring into a modern-day 7,685-square-foot office building and first floor restaurant on St. Mary Street downtown. After repairing the building's foundation and adding new wood supports and a roof, he's ready to start final exterior work and then add appropriate interiors designed to reflect the historic design.

Longtime Pleasanton resident Mari Kennard, who is an owner of the popular Crown Restaurant in Danville, plans to open a similar restaurant in this "new" structure when work is completed early next spring. Rebuffed by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which occupied the building after 1911, to name her restaurant the Oddfellows British Pub, Kennard changed the name to the Red Coats to reflect her British heritage and the type of establishment she plans to operate.

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