For those that regularly attend events or work at the Tower Health & Wellness Center in Turlock, the atrium is a familiar term, as it is used to describe the first-floor foyer. ATRIUM is also the new name of the building’s flagship restaurant, which underwent a significant rebrand over the summer.
Long known as Toscana’s Ristorante, an Italian staple in the city, the ATRIUM Café, Restaurant & Events at 1801 Colorado Ave. #190 (inside the Tower) is now offering a wide-ranging menu and its new café and upscale, garden-themed dining area.
“It took some time to find this totally new look, this new feel that we felt was attractive to the new clients we wanted, that untapped market of a younger crowd in that 25-year- and 36-year-old age range,” said owner Liberty Santiago. “And I think we nailed it.”
The front of the restaurant is the café, which includes a small seating area complemented with a trendy mirror bearing the ATRIUM logo. Further down is the dining area, with tableclothed seating areas with silverware and glasses under the accent lighting of chandeliers and a neon sign reading: “good food, good mood.”
The café, run predominantly by barista Gonzalo Leal and open daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., has a variety of drinks from classic espressos like lattes, mochas and macchiatos, to teas such as chai and matcha. There are also bagels and bagel sandwiches available, as well as pastries like cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, cookies and gelato. Some of the top-selling items through their first few weeks have been the brown sugar shaken espresso and ‘Monkey Mocha,’ a banana-flavored espresso. There is a menu of specialty items from the café that are available throughout the day.
The lunch menu, available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays, is made for quick bites, catering to the bustling atmosphere of the Tower, where workers can hang out on their lunch breaks or visitors can swing by before or after their appointments. Popular items include chicken Caesar, almond chicken and ahi salads, as well as turkey, fried chicken, spicy capicola and crispy ginger pork sandwiches.
Dinner is served 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays, with steak, lobster, salmon, prawn, ahi tuna, game hen and chicken on the menu, as well as shareables like pork sliders, lobster tacos, steak bites, bacon asparagus and shrimp alfredo flatbreads.
Other seafood dishes like the tower, oysters on the half shell, and the classic shrimp cocktail can be ordered for both lunch and dinner.
The lunch and dinner items, as well as the presentation, were curated in collaboration between kitchen consultant Marc Diaz and head chef Juan Paredes-Torres.
“I got the shareables idea from my travels and such with my husband and my daughter,” said Santiago. “We all like to travel, so when we go to these bigger cities, everything’s shareable. I’d think, ‘Why doesn’t Turlock have that?’”
Santiago and her husband, Alex, purchased Toscana’s from the Romeo family — synonymous with the restaurant and the Tower — in September of 2023. They maintained the name and the Italian menu until July 1 of this year, when they temporarily closed to start the teardown and renovation process of the 5,000-square-foot space.
“After I felt comfortable learning the business aspect of owning and operating a restaurant, I saw the traffic had been dying down quite a bit,” said Santiago. “We had to try something different.”
She called general manager Cassady Vierra the “true mastermind” behind the rebrand.
“I’ve seen the potential this place has,” said Vierra, who worked at Toscana’s in a variety of roles for nearly a decade. “It’s a big space with so many people walking through here, and I wanted to bring some life back to it.”
The design was done with the help of Monica Salvador of Valley Interiors. Just 45 days after the temporary shutdown began, the family and their staff held a grand reopening ceremony with the Turlock Chamber of Commerce.
“The garden theme is very prominent with an atrium being an indoor garden and our name being a nod to the building,” said Santiago. “We wanted something that was timeless.”
Being timeless also consists of adapting. The group explained that they welcome feedback from customers, and that they will allow chefs to be creative in the kitchen.
“This isn’t ‘This is our menu and this is how it’ll be forever,’” Santiago said. “I feel very passionate about that. I want to change the menu often so it’s always exciting, and it introduces people to other things.”
Vierra said that the new concept has been a delight to several community members.
“It is different, and not many people enjoy change as drastic as this, but we understand that” she said. “But it’s been great so far. Those who have come by to try have complimented the design and haven’t said a bad thing about the food, which is huge. It really has been a success so far, which I’m really proud of.”
The ATRIUM can be followed across social media platforms, including Instagram at @atrium.restaurant.turlock and @atrium.cafe.turlock. A full menu can be viewed and reservations can be made online at atriumturlock.com, as well as by calling (209) 216-3555.
