Lunch didn't work out the way Nick and Sandra Arnerich planned. When the couple opened Renata, their close-in Southeast Portland Italian restaurant, they had hoped to roll out a casual lunch, perfect for the restaurant's sunny patio, perhaps as soon as the summer of 2015. But a barrage of early success, including our own Restaurant of the Year honors, forced them to redouble their focus on dinner.

Those lunch plans never disappeared. Instead, a little over a year later, the Arneriches jumped at the opportunity to take over the cafe at Rejuvenation Hardware, just a few blocks from their restaurant. A few months and a can of pastel paint or two later, Figlia Americana opened with a surprisingly varied menu of scratch-made sandwiches, salads, soups and baked goods served to customers at a communal table about the size of a fashion runway. As with Renata, crowds have followed.