Former Code Enforcement chief Glenn Baude included in new restaurant venture

By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO -- Former city Code Enforcement director Glenn Baude and a husband-and-wife team of restaurateurs are working to set up a new sports-themed eatery in the shadow of City Hall.

The restaurant -- set to be called Nice Bunz & G's -- is a work in progress where the Souper Grinder and Isabella's, an Italian restaurant, once did business downtown on E Street.

Raymond and Marty Briones, perhaps best known for running the Nice Bunz & Subs sandwich shop downtown, have partnered with Baude to run the restaurant. They said the place could be ready for business in the next three weeks or so.

"We're betting on our ability and we're betting on the city changing itself in the next couple years," Baude said.

Baude and the Brioneses are counting on the thousands of city, county and state employees who work downtown to dine at their restaurant.

They want to deliver food to San Bernardino's government offices, put a breakfast and coffee cart out on the sidewalk to serve morning commuters and provide speedy lunchtime service for those who only have 30 minutes to eat.

"Most of our dishes will be around $7. Steak, a potato and salad and drink," Baude said.

Like any sports friendly restaurant, the partners are planning on decorating the place with memorabilia and several plasma screen televisions to watch sporting events. The floor could end up looking like a basketball court or football field.

The owners want to slow things down at night time. After dark, they want to to serve beer and wine and host live entertainment.

The partners said Souper Grinder, whose clientele included Mayor Pat Morris, city employees and on at least one occasion, Democratic Congressman Joe Baca, closed about one month ago. The down-to-earth sandwich shop had its fans, but not enough to fill space that seems cavernous when compared to most sandwich chains.

"This place is too big to be a sandwich shop," Raymond Briones said.

The location, near City Hall and in the same building as the San Bernardino Economic Development Agency, should make it easy for Baude to sell food and drink to his former employees in Code Enforcement.

Baude was head of that department and led the city's Operation Phoenix anti-crime initiative until late July, when he was placed on administrative leave during the blowup that following the arrest of a once popular youth center supervisor.

The youth center supervisor, Mike Miller, was in charge of San Bernardino's flagship Operation Phoenix facility until early July, when he was arrested on suspicion of child molestation. Miller's arrest opened the door to a series of reports that showed management difficulties and a lack of discipline within Operation Phoenix and the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.

A city and District Attorney's investigation cleared Baude of wrongdoing, but he agreed to retire in the fall of 2008. He says he was removed from his duties because then-City Manager Fred Wilson wanted to shut him up.

Baude has also said on multiple occasions that San Bernardino officials should have been more transparent about their efforts to repair Operation Phoenix in the weeks following Miller's arrest.
Planning the restaurant, Baude now finds himself on the other side of city government. Instead of enforcing city policy, he has to apply for permits to renovate the restaurant and possibly install a sign that he and Raymond Briones say will make it look like a boxer is punching his way out the building.

Even for a formal city official, it can be a frustrating process.

"Those hurdles are things I'd like to see our city government solve for business," Baude said.

Baude and the Brioneses plan to have a contractor get to work on the renovations this weekend. If Nice Bunz and G's takes off, Baude said he can imaging the place not only hosting jazz musicians for evening entertainment, but promoting boxing matches on the top level of City Hall's parking structure.

"Maybe we can get (City Attorney James F.) Penman and (Mayor Pat) Morris in the ring together and we can promote that," Baude said. "I'd buy a ticket."