As it did for most people who spent time in the Willamette Valley, Nick’s Italian Cafe quickly wove its way into Thomas Ghinazzi’s life. After his daughter was born in 2014, the year he moved to Oregon, his parents brought Nick’s takeout to the hospital. Nick’s was the first place he and his wife ate out after getting married. And it was the obvious choice to celebrate the day they learned his father-in-law was cancer-free.

This spring, Ghinazzi, Jordan Neale, Scott Baldwin and Aaron Nieman of De Ponte Cellars hope to reopen Nick’s in all its glory, less than a year after the award-winning McMinnville restaurant’s unexpected closure.