Rare297 Bringing Fine Dining Experience for a Year
The Reyes' focus is on bringing elevated dining to downtown Pittsfield.
Cousins David Reyes and Jose Reyes sought to bring a new dining experience to Pittsfield. After noticing the restaurant space in Hotel North, the former Berkshire Palate, was vacant the two decided to purchase the building to turn it into Rare297.
"We started with RJ's [their restaurant on First Street] in the beginning, and then this place became available to our business. We come up with an idea of something that is not in Pittsfield, something that we don't have around here, like a steakhouse," said Jose Reyes. "And that's how the idea Rare297 to bring something different to the city of Pittsfield."
The two hope customers have a satisfying experience when they sit down to eat at the restaurant.
"We want them to know that we care about the customer. We care about what we do. We do this with a lot of passion. We love what we do," Reyes said. "We want customers to tell us we are the best in what we do ... And I think we're getting there."
Reyes said the last year has been a lot of really hard work, but that they have a wonderful staff who are very knowledgeable about the menu and the restaurant's offerings.
The restaurant also has private rooms, a conference room, and a banquet hall for special occasions. Rare297 hosts many parties, proposals, and conferences.
"We do every type of function that you can imagine, when they have a banquet facility, we have a room that can [accommodate] 125 people," he said. "We have two other smaller rooms can be used as conference rooms; actually, we got three other rooms as a conference rooms. Or it can be a family together dinner, or like rehearsal dinner."
Reyes said anyone planning to open a restaurant has to like what they do and be involved in the community. He said they should also expect different busy days.
"Go around and see what is going on, get involved a little bit in the community, and see what is around ... what diverse restaurants are in town, what the issues or problems the city might have," he said. "Because when they open up a business, not like, 'Oh, you open it up today and tomorrow, you're gonna be full, or you're gonna be like, crazy busy every day,' you have to be ready for good and bad days.
"Like on the end of the day, you just gotta be happy what you do and enjoy what your doing."
The restaurant has a raw bar and offers salads, sushi, seafood, pasta, pork, chicken and, of course, steak including filet mignon, New York strip and ribeye. Some of its most popular dishes are the tomahawk steak and a variety of sushi dishes.
"On the steak side, the tomahawk is one of our signature dishes that we have — a porterhouse for two," Reyes said. "Sushi and the lobster roll, people love that. We got good feedback with sushi, caviar, things like that, you don't see that in every restaurant everywhere around here."
The two have a long history in the restaurant business. Before opening Rare297 last year and RJ's Restaurant in 2021, Jose Reyes had worked in the restaurant business for nearly 30 years and has operated his own since 2005. Before the Pittsfield venture, he was the proprietor of venues in Long Island, N.Y., but wanted to expand his operations outside of the big city. David Reyes has also cooked and co-owned other restaurants before opening RJ's.
"To be where we are, this didn't happen yesterday. This is something that we've been working for a long time, over 30 years, over 28 years, you know," Jose Reyes said. "And things don't happen on the first day in the very beginning, and then we have to work really hard and work astray and move forward to do everything that we want to reach our goals. And I think we're getting there."
The restaurant recently was awarded the Best Steakhouse Rated in 2025 from Best of BusinessRate.
Rare297 is located in Hotel Downstreet at 297 North St. and is open Monday from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. with bar service until 1 a.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Tags: downtown, fine dining, restaurants,
