OJAI : Panel Assails Bold Colors of Restaurant

Restaurant owners Marty Gay and Michelle Sandoval, who successfully turned a Ventura sandwich shop into the fancy restaurant Voila, are being criticized for their newest restaurant’s colorful paint job by advocates of muted colors in downtown Ojai.

The Ojai Redevelopment Commission was so appalled at the restaurant’s burnt orange, green and purple paint job that it has asked the city’s Redevelopment Agency to consider banning certain colors from downtown buildings. The agency has yet to take up the request.

Opposition to the colors came up last week when the Redevelopment Commission reviewed the restaurant’s sign permit. “The sign is great, but the building has got to go,” Commissioner William Hattabaugh said.

The redevelopment area has color guidelines for signs, awnings and building trim that complement the tan and red-tile theme of the Ojai Arcade, an arched walkway in the heart of downtown. But the area has no restrictions on building colors.

Gay and Sandoval, both Ojai residents, recently transformed the old Backstage cafe into MK’s, an eatery with a “Mexican Moorish”-style interior. The same bold color scheme extends through the restaurant’s rear entrance onto its stucco walls that are visible from Signal Street.

Gay said he has had “a lot of positive response” to the bold scheme from his customers. “We like the colors, and we didn’t think they were offensive,” he said.

At its meeting last week, the commission also found that one of the restaurant’s proposed signs did not meet the rule that all signs be made of wood.

Gay said he will redo the sign, but the buildings’ colors will remain the same until the city orders them changed.

“We’re not trying to change Ojai,” he said. “We’re just trying to show a style that’s authentic to Old California.”