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It’s impossible to miss the parklet on Petaluma Boulevard. Jutting out onto the street, the bright orange road dividers and wooden crates of purple flowers are unique features of a Petaluma staple, Della Fattoria. Located in the heart of downtown Petaluma, Della’s warm bread and good food will draw you in, but the company of a community is what keeps you coming back. Now nationally recognized for its bread-making skills, this family-run, farm-to-table restaurant has grown from a door-to-door operation to one of the Bay Area’s most highly regarded foodie destinations. But who’s responsible for all the recent changes, and why does it always seem to be closed?
These questions circled my head as I walked out of the parking garage on Keller Street. The smells of urine and weed were not uncommon for the downtown garage, but today, I noticed them a little stronger. “Ew,” I whisper as I walk by a man peeing on the side of the garage wall. While being in Keller St. Garage might not be my favorite, crossing into American Alley is. My eyes trail upwards as I notice the newest [slate of work] projected onto the brick walls: a large, colorful mural depicting a warped alien face with fingers shaped like a peace sign. So many places in Petaluma could be dubbed a hub for art, but American Alley takes the cake. Street artists, young and old, find refuge in the walls of American Alley; because of that, there is never a shortage of new art to be found when you’re roaming the streets. I glance at the looming alien figure and walk on, intending to be punctual to meet my new friend.
Art and food have been central pillars of Petaluma since the mid-1900s when tourists were the most frequent visitors. While it is less of a tourist town now, the food and music scene has continued to grow upward, much to the benefit of the residents. Opting for small family restaurants over large restaurant chains, Petaluma relies on small restaurants and cafes like Della Fattoria to keep its economy strong. These establishments singlehandedly built Petaluma from a tourist farm town to a self-sustaining community.
My scuffed Reebok shoe trips over a crack in the worn wooden threshold of the entrance to Della Fattoria. Greeted by the smell of coffee beans and fresh flowers, my senses are excited as warm pastries, lattes, and homemade bread come into my vision. “I’m looking for Elisa?” I told the woman who had asked if I was waiting to be seated. She responded excitedly, her face widening into a toothy smile as she replied, “Oh yeah! She told us that you would be coming today. She’s super excited! Follow me to the flower station.” I exhaled a sigh of relief when she told me that; I wasn’t quite nervous, but I felt a kind of anticipation growing in me as the interview approached. I was glad Elisa was just as excited about our meeting as I was.
She guided me to the back, and to my surprise, a beautiful and flourishing flower station had been set up precociously in the back of the store, invisible to the passerby but central to those sitting at one of the community tables in the cafe. Instead of tables and booths for individual parties, Della substituted them for three large “community” tables, similar to large picnic benches. Yes, that means you have to eat next to a stranger – but are any of us strangers at Della?
Elisa Webber greets me with an exuberant smile and tremendous enthusiasm, which indicates how chill this environment is. “Hi, Caroline! It’s so good to finally meet you in person,” she says. Her voice hints at age, making you think she has much to tell you about life and the world. I grin back with ease, knowing this isn’t stressful.
To the average cafe-goer, Elisa presents as nothing out of the ordinary. Standing approximately five foot five, Elisa is dressed in the same attire as her other employees. Hers seemed the most plain out of all the uniforms the servers, baristas, and bakers wore. That’s what I liked most about her; the calm, cool temper she presented with was only a mask for a fun-loving and experienced figure that was central to keeping a unique business alive. She’s wearing a white linen jersey shirt, with black pants and black chef clogs, I guessed. Over the top, she had secured a heavy-duty black apron with two silver clasps on her right shoulder to adjust the length. It’s quite plain, but don’t worry; this isn’t her usual style. She tells me, “I grew up as a hippie. I never had new clothes as a child… that’s why I developed my style, from not having everything handed to me.” Although she is preoccupied with snipping greenery for the latest bouquet she’s making, her personality shines through every word she says to me. As we talked, she gave orders to the employees passing by, telling Aaron to make sure he didn’t forget Larry from Ace Hardware’s espresso and reminding Katie that she still needed her help at the flower station. Each employee responds with their version of “Of course, Elisa, I’ll be right there,” showing how close Elisa is to her employees. She tried to create a community in Petaluma, starting right in her kitchen.
Elisa’s close relationship with her employees replicates her mother Kathleen’s bond with her employees and customers. The driving factor behind the creation of Della Fattoria was that Kathleen Webber was a fantastic woman and mother to all. But her path to the creation of Della is less ordinary than you may think. In her early twenties, Kathleen and her then-boyfriend Ed were traveling actors passionate about performing and being on the stage. However, the actor-life was expensive, and Kathleen and Ed needed more funds to keep traveling for a while. In search of making some money, they moved back to Petaluma to stay with Ed’s parents on their farm while they tried to get back on their feet. The time spent on the farm was a turning point in Kathleen’s life; after becoming involved with Ed’s father’s door-to-door sourdough bread delivery service, Kathleen uncovered a genuine love for baking and cooking, especially for those she loved and cared about. When the demand for the Webbers’ homemade sourdough was too vast, they had no choice but to open a small bakery in downtown Petaluma in 1995. The business soared to heights that none of the Webbers could have imagined; after serving bread to the community for just about ten years, there was an increase in demand for the Webbers to open a full cafe. So, they did just that, and in 2004, Della Fattoria was officially open for business.
“My mother was a great cook and an even better visionary. She really created this place from the ground up,” Elisa recalls as I help her snip flowers. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so she’s placed herself at the flower station, hoping to complete this weekend’s bouquet orders in record time. Every inch of this small corner is stocked with local flowers from Trillium, a local flower and garden store. From pink to yellow, Elisa was busy trimming and chopping all different types of tulips, daisies, and green sprigs to curate the perfect bouquet to put in her green ceramic pot. “I didn’t know that Della did bouquets,” I commented to Elisa, unable to remember seeing this many flowers in the sizable cafe. “Well, since it’s Mother’s Day Weekend, we get a lot more feminine customers, and since we sell so many pastries this weekend, it kinda goes hand in hand.” “That makes sense,” I replied, thinking about how intuitive a business model was.
Downtown Petaluma was hit hard by the Covid pandemic. Over twenty small businesses were forced to close due to an inability to sustain themselves economically. Others faced closure scares, as they went months without sales or business. While every small business was hit hard, Petaluma’s cafes and restaurants were hit the hardest. When the city issued pandemic guidelines, it was stated that restaurants could have no indoor seating, forcing them to shift to outdoor or online dining. Either way, employers could not continue paying their employees at the rate at which they were pre-pandemic, which caused frustration and anger within the industry. As a result, thousands of cafe and restaurant employees left their jobs, leaving the food scene downtown weaker than ever.
As for Della Fattoria, they closed entirely during the pandemic. The closing of Della Fattoria left many in the community, including my dad, upset and concerned for the future of the small cafe. A morning cup of Della coffee is one of the central pillars of my father’s weekend routine, which is why the closure was so impactful to him. But little did we know that the closure would enable it to return to the food scene post-pandemic stronger and more beautiful than ever. “The closure helped with employee retention,” Elisa explained to me. “We knew that shifting Della to be an online restaurant service would not sustain a healthy or happy environment, so we decided to close until [the pandemic] was over. But it was good, you know? We got to make a lot of changes around here.” She was referring to the expansion that Della Fattoria made into a second lot adjacent to the first cafe. This expansion was planned,” she told me, “but it was during Covid we got to bring the space to life.”
The vibe of Della is a complete change from what it previously was; mix-matched mirrors are hung on the walls, next to fake flora and chandeliers that look like they were captured from a medieval castle. The sea of tables and booths had been replaced with three large “community tables” – picnic bench-style tables crafted from large slabs of wood and glazed with a glossy shine. They were put there with the hopes that people from different corners of the city would bond over the one thing that this town gets right: food. “It was my mother’s idea,” Elisa mentioned, which made sense, knowing Kathleen’s visions for this place as a community site.
The space was beautiful, and I knew that it was received well, as the cafe received no shortage of compliments online for the changes that were made. I didn’t realize that Elisa had designed the entire thing herself. “Most of my design came from the fact that I’ve built furniture for 12 years and professional training. From that, I learned how to remodel houses and stuff. So when it came to doing this, when I finally got my hands on this room, which is basically what my house looks like, I was excited—mixing old with new, which is really kind of hard to do. People are really afraid to do that. Yeah. Like this town is afraid to do that. Like why can’t we have a beautiful market hotel in amongst the natural landscape of our history.”
From increased street art to modern flashy hotels, the one historic Petaluma is transforming into a modern city. The community consensus is not positive; there are very few Petalumans you will talk to who think the modernization of Petaluma is a good thing. But what most people don’t realize is the motive behind the change. Like Elisa’s changes at Della’s, the modernization of Petaluma while preserving its cultural roots is key to progressing the town’s strength. Tourist hotels now need refurbishments, and the low-income housing we provide could be more desirable. These changes are crucial to keeping Petaluma self-sustaining; with them, we can revert to a reliance on tourism, which is inconsistent and unpredictable, the last thing that small business owners need right now. Petaluma yearns for a consistency that will propel it forward, not backward, and without the modernization of our little town, we will spiral back.
“I think that there’s people who get to Petaluma, and they think, well, I’m here now so I don’t want it to change. Right. They don’t realize that the downtown merchants are struggling because there’s no decent place to stay. The nice hotels, we need them, so people can spend the day up here and wake up her, have breakfast here and spend money. Instead, because we don’t have that hotel, they come here for the afternoon, they go stay in fields, work and spend all their money right up over there, and not here.” Elisa’s perspective on the modernization of Petaluma was one that I had never heard before. Still, it is one of the most logical and valuable opinions. She is one of the only people who believe that Petaluma can integrate the new into the old and create a more modern tourist scene while keeping the parts of Petaluma that everybody knows and loves, like the restaurants and entertainment.
“I think one hotel, a nice hotel, is all we need. We have a river, a downtown, and all this greedy stuff, but we don’t have a nice place to stay. And people are like having this resistance…I think they’re scared that we’re gonna turn into something else, but are you scared you’re gonna turn into a bad person because you take on a new hobby?” her points made sense like someone who was a researcher on this project was talking to me. I guess, in a sense, she was a researcher trying to figure out what was best for her business. “It’s definitely not a threat. [Change] is a good thing. And I was kind of embarrassed, actually, at what some of people were saying at the meeting, you know about that hotel, we don’t want your kids to grow up on that kind of aesthetic here and such.” She’s referring to the recurring Petaluma City Council meetings, which discuss the town’s new changes. Most small business owners, including my father, attend them to gain deeper insight into how these changes affect them. I found out later that Elisa had been to every single one since their continuation after COVID-19.
With the interior changes to Della came the exterior changes that were also made post-COVID. Della, once open six days a week, was now only open for half the day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. While this didn’t impact my dad’s weekend Della ritual, it did impact everyone’s ability to access Della, which made it so special in the past. The new schedule change made Della inaccessible to most of Petlauma’s. Reservations must be made weeks before a lovely brunch; if it’s a holiday, those weeks turn into months. The waiting list to be seated is practically nonexistent because everyone knows there’s a minuscule chance that you get a call that a table is ready for your party.
While such an issue might annoy those trying to enjoy Della’s delicious food, it is fine for Elisa and the Della team. “It’s so important to support businesses like us because we need the support,” Elisa states, finishing her flower bouquet. I snap photos of her assembling the last flora into her green pot. As we were wrapping up, I asked Elisa if she would be okay with photographing her for my final presentation. Without hesitation, she exclaimed, “Yes!” I was warmed with comfort just as I was when I entered the building. As I set up my camera to “profile” mode, she straightened out her black apron and fixed a few curls before her face. I lined her up in the camera’s center and said I was ready whenever she was. She then stretched me a huge smile, crinkling her eyes and mouth to show the true joy that she had created at Della. “Got it!” I took the photo in one try. She was the perfect subject.