June 6, 2023

Weeks away from opening, the Parker’s Bistro expansion has gained its own identity: Myrtle’s.

The name for the adjacent building and bar honors owner Stacy Newcomb’s grandmother.

It’s a fitting tie, she said, because “Parker” also is a family name, that of Newcomb’s grandfather, father and brother.

“It all just sort of makes sense,” Newcomb said. “We were all really close to her, and she had a really great story. … So it’s one place, but we’ve just tried to give that side of the building a personality.”

For Newcomb, who is a preservationist, another sign that the name was right came from a photograph her aunt gave her recently of Myrtle and Parker standing in the yard of the family home in Madison. Parker is in his Army uniform before World War II, and Myrtle is in a fur coat.

The 1934 building at 208 S. Main Ave. that now bears her name was home to Frye’s Furs.

“So I saw this photo of the two of them, and I thought, that’s it,” Newcomb said. “That photo was taken when this building was built. It’s represented that generation, that World War II generation that just has so many wonderful attributes and all the things that they went through because of the Depression and then because of World War II, both of them being born prior to World War I but being young people in World War I. So they really had been through a lot of history that, sort of between the two buildings, just felt like that was the fit.

“Grandparents were the fit for this because they were both born around the turn of the century. This building (Parker’s) is built around the turn of the century; that building (Myrtle’s) is built when they were in their prime, in the ’30s, late ’30s and ’40s. So that’s how we arrived at Myrtle’s.”

The expansion will feature the new bar Myrtle’s but also will have additional seating for Parker’s.

Customers can come in the front door of either building, and the two will be connected inside by a doorway.

“The first half of it provides us with an opportunity to have a separate bar area, so people can just stop in more spontaneously. We will have more space, which we have needed over the years,” said Newcomb, who opened Parker’s in 2009. “It’s been hard not to be able to give people the proper place to wait if they have to wait for a table or if they’re just walking in and it’s like ‘Well, I won’t have a table for 20 minutes.’ There’s been no place for them to go because we’re just such a small restaurant. So it provides a nice casual area for people to just come and go, have an appetizer, have a drink, have dinner, whatever — just more seating and more spontaneity I think for everyone.”

The bar area will have seating for about 50 people, and the back half, which will be the additional dining area, will have tables to hold a similar amount.

Parker’s was closed for a couple of weeks in the spring while the open kitchen was expanded to accommodate the additional dining capacity. Otherwise, it has remained open while the work has progressed next door. The expansion area, which previously was home to Vision Care Associates, was gutted, and all the plumbing, electrical and HVAC infrastructure was redone. The finish work is underway now, and then the interior design will happen.

“It will all just start coming together in the next three weeks or so. … In about two weeks, it should look dramatically different,” Newcomb said.

The exterior will get a sign and awning.

She’s hoping to open Myrtle’s and the expanded dining area sometime after the Fourth of July.

Parker’s in the process of hiring for nearly every aspect of the expanded business.

“We’re doubling our size, so we need to double our people,” Newcomb said. “We found a few people, but we still need some.”

Parker’s Bistro expansion to include full bar, additional seating