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fresno's restaurant royalty
Click the arrows below to learn more about the eight families that run much of Fresno's restaurant scene.
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Even if you’ve never eaten at a restaurant named Pardini’s, there’s a good chance you’ve tasted Pardini’s food.
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There are the popular restaurants Annesso Pizzeria and The Annex Kitchen run by third-generation restaurateur and chef Jimmy Pardini.
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But if you’ve ever eaten a hot dog at a Fresno State football game, drank a beer at The Big Fresno Fair or had anything to eat at the Fresno Convention & Entertainment Center — whether it be a catered awards dinner or Disney on Ice — you’ve had Pardini’s food.
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The family is a giant in the catering world in Fresno, doing more than 1,000 events a year. The Pardinis are part of The Bee’s series focusing on local restaurant families with several locations and often multiple generations involved that have shaped the Fresno restaurant scene.
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Longtime Fresnans may remember patriarch Albert Pardini’s restaurants, which he started launching in the 1940s. He owned Town and Country Lodge, and then three Pardini’s locations that would eventually be sold and close.
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His son Jim Pardini grew up washing dishes at the family’s restaurant at the former Cedar Lanes bowling alley. He founded the catering business in 1981 because the restaurant business was exhausting and he wanted something a little slower paced.
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He continued to run restaurants anyway, bringing the first Rubio’s Coastal Grill franchise to Fresno in River Park. He also operated four Tony Roma’s franchises, a Me-n-Ed’s franchise in Stockton and a sandwich shop inside the long-gone Fresno Farmers Market building of shops and restaurants near Tulare and U streets.
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But it was the catering business that really took off. Today, the company is the exclusive caterer for all the convention enter events and sells the food at Fresno State football games. It handles alcohol at the fair, and provides food at the horse races.
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Sons Jeff and Jimmy Pardini are co-owners in the business, with Jeff taking over much of the work on the catering side.
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Last year, they also opened cocktail bar The Red Room on West Shaw Avenue. It’s in the Pardini’s banquet hall, which was once a fine dining Pardini’s Restaurant with a coffee shop that provided food for the Piccadilly Inn next door.
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Annex and Annesso
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Annex is his brother Jimmy’s baby, an Italian-inspired restaurant that’s one of the most popular in town. In 2021, Jimmy Pardini and the family opened Annesso Pizzeria, which continues to pack in crowds for its gourmet pies at Friant Road and Fresno Street.
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And he’s not done yet. He’s planning another restaurant, with a traditional menu, at a shopping center that’s under construction at the southeast corner of Willow and Shepherd avenues, according to his dad.
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The elder Jim Pardini says he’s happy and relieved his sons are carrying on the family business — even if it is more challenging to run a restaurant today than decades ago, he said.
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“Nowadays it’s even more difficult because there’s a lot of new restaurants coming in,” he said. “When we started, there wasn’t as much competition. Nowadays, you’ve got to be on your game.”
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Bethany Clough covers restaurants and retail for The Fresno Bee. She has been working as a reporter for 20 years and is currently working on openings, closings, and other businesses.She works to answer readers' questions about the news. She holds a degree in journalism from Syracuse University and her last name is pronounced Clough.
