High-end restaurant planned for Big Bear Lake

Black Kat, scheduled to open next month, will have top-of-the-line food and wine. It’s exactly what that market needs, according to the man who’s building it.

Big Bear Lake is about to get a high-end restaurant.

The Black Kat Fine Dining and Wine Room, which will feature a seasonal menu and $10,000 bottles of wine, is scheduled to open April 8 at 560 Pine Knot Ave., said Dave Stone, the restaurant’s developer and owner.

Stone, a longtime builder and entrepreneur in Big Bear Lake, hopes his new restaurant – he also owns Big Bear Lake Brewing Co., a microbrewery across the street from Black Kat that opened three years ago  – will bring something different to the resort community.

He described Black Kat – the name is meant to evoke something mysterious and exotic – as unique in Big Bear Lake.

“A few years ago I realized there was no restaurant up here like this,” said Stone, whose family has lived in Big Bear Lake for six generations. “We have a tourist population that is  coming back to Big Bear Lake, it’s looking to spend money and it wants something different. That’s what Black Kat is going to be.”

Black Kat’s menu is still being worked on, but some of it will change with the season so it will always be fresh.

Stock items will include steak, fresh seafood and vegetables, pasta and tossed salads. The restaurant will employ about 50 people, full and part-time, and will have indoor and outdoor seating for 160 people, Stone said.

The interior will feature a chef’s table where patrons can watch their food being prepared, hand-painted murals and a wall dedicated to Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes cartoon characters.

The latter is a tribute to Mel Blanc, who provided the voice for many of those characters. Blanc lived in Big Bear Lake for several decades before he died in 1989.

Stone’s primary business is construction, – he’s been a contractor for about 30 years and co-owns Superior Electrical Mechanical & Plumbing Inc. in Rancho Cucamonga – but he’s well known in Big Bear Lake.

Besides Big Bear Lake Brewing Co., his properties there include Fireside Lodge, The Cave – a live concert venue – and The Wine Room at Wolf Creek Resort, which specializes in receptions, theme parties and other large gatherings.

Black Kat, which is in the heart of Big Bear Lake Village, was to have opened one year ago but failed to do so, for reasons Stone declined to discuss. Opening any restaurant is risky, but Stone is convinced now is the time for a high-end restaurant in Big Bear Lake.

“It’s exactly what this market needs,” he said.

The U.S. restaurant industry is currently performing well. It generated nearly $800 billion in revenue during 2016 and employed 14.7 million people, about 10 percent of the U.S. workforce, according to the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C.

But more than 60 percent of all U.S. restaurants reportedly don’t make it past their first year in business, and opening any restaurant – high-end or otherwise – in a market that relies heavily on tourism is a gamble, said Sharokina Shams, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association in Sacramento.

“I would say the main issue is location, like any other restaurant,” Shams said. “But I do wonder about a tourist community because it does have a different rhythm. Also, the restaurant industry is going through some changes right now, including high labor costs and rents, especially in metro areas.”

The Big Bear market does lack a high-end restaurant like Black Kat, said Marlene Cain, chairwoman of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors.

“We have about 40 or 50 restaurants in Big Bear – that includes everything – but we don’t have anything like Black Kat,” Cain said. “It does present some challenges but it’s also generating some excitement. There’s always some excitement whenever any new business opens.”