Little Star Heads to Park Street

Little Star Heads to Park Street

PHOTO BY LORI EANES

Ben Seabury and Susannah Blumenstock of The Star on Park.


The Star on Park is Little Star’s first foray into Alameda.

In September 2014, Capone’s Speakeasy opened in Alameda. Its Park Street address was a 65,000-square-foot former Wells Fargo bank built in 1880, expanded in 1920, boasting massively tall windows and ceiling-high columns and newly outfitted—thanks largely to Lafayette-based architect Kevin Gregory and Walnut Creek-based interior designer Naomie Wert—with plush custom-built couches, gleaming oak wood floors, an 85-seat dining room lit by shimmering crystal chandeliers, and a 72-foot mahogany-topped bar befitting a flamboyantly Roaring Twenties-themed restaurant.

After Capone’s closed abruptly about a year later, Little Star Pizza owners Susannah Blumenstock and Ben Seabury couldn’t resist the space and set out to open a new restaurant in it this month.

“The high ceilings, marble walls, and general scale of it are so much fun,” said Blumenstock, a former Alameda resident.

Joining the Little Star Pizza shops in Albany and San Francisco along with Oakland’s Star on Grand and the traveling Rollin’ Deep Mobile Pizza Kitchen—all members of the same restaurant group helmed by Blumenstock and Seabury—The Star on Park features outdoor seating along Central Avenue, as well as a new mezzanine dining area, to let guests “enjoy the space from above,” Blumenstock said.

While all Little Star locations serve the group’s signature deep-dish pizzas, thin-crusted pizzas, sandwiches, salads, sides, and full bar—“our specialties come with us wherever we open a restaurant,” Blumenstock affirmed—The Star on Park boasts a unique beverage program that strongly features hyper-local sips and suds.

“There are so many great breweries and distilleries on the Island,” Blumenstock said.

Little Star thinks locally, too, in naming its menu items: The Telegraph pizza features roasted zucchini; the Adams Point features pepperoni and salami; the Grand features mushrooms and feta cheese; the Tribune features bacon and Emmentaler.

The pair were eager to open a location in Alameda “because Alameda is such a cohesive community, and we hope to contribute to that. We love how many families live here, and how central family life is. Ben is already coaching a softball team, and we’re already beginning to make connections with local schools to figure out the best ways to support them.”

 

The Star on Park, 1400 Park St., Alameda, 510-832-7827, TheStarOnPark.com, TheStarPizza.com.