EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. — The Purple Place, a bar and grill that closed its physical location in August 2022, will briefly return to El Dorado Hills this summer in the form of a food booth.
The booth will offer the Purple Place’s signature potstickers, ooey-gooey coffee cake and prawn cocktails, according to Denise Hountalas, who owned the restaurant with her husband, Mike.
Patrons can enjoy the food during the summer concert series held at El Dorado Hills Community Park on Saint Andrews Drive on the following dates:
- Friday, June 14, from 7-9:30 p.m.
- Friday, July 19, from 7-9:30 p.m.
- Friday, Aug. 23, from 7-9:30 p.m.
Hountalas said 100% of the booth’s proceeds will go to local charities, and she hopes the booth connects her and her husband with regulars they’ve missed.
“We can’t find a location, and we want to keep the name alive in the community,” Hountalas told ABC10.
In a newsletter sent to subscribers, the couple said the search for an ideal spot for reopening the Purple Place that would best suit their loyal patrons has proven extremely difficult.
“It's tough to rehome a historic restaurant that we built up over the last 17 years at its original location,” the newsletter said. “We continue to look and have been close a couple of times in the area.”
While the couple purchased and renovated it in 2006, Hountalas said the Purple Place operated in the same purple building on Green Valley Road since 1955. It closed in 2022 after lease negotiations fell apart with the property's landlord, the couple said.
Mike Hountalas operates Poor Reds BBQ with other business partners and has since 2016, according to Poor Reds' website. Denise Hountalas said she considers it a sister location to the Purple Place, though it offers a different menu.
Poor Reds on Pleasant Valley Road is open Wednesday through Sunday.