image description — David Reyes and Jose Reyes, cousins, opened the steakhouse Rare297 in Hotel on North last year.

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Rare297 Bringing Fine Dining Experience for a Year

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
06:54AM / Monday, October 13, 2025Print Story | Email Story

The Reyes' focus is on bringing elevated dining to downtown Pittsfield.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Rare297 has been open for a year delivering fine dining in the heart of the downtown.

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,

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Toys for Tots Bringing Presents to Thousands of Kids This Year

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:21PM / Friday, December 05, 2025

Volunteers organize toys by age and gender in the House of Corrections storage facility.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Plenty of toys are on their way to children this holiday season thanks to Toys for Tots.

Christopher Keegan has coordinated the local toy drive for the Berkshire Chapter of the Marine Corps Reserve since 2015 and said he has seen the need rise every year, last year helping more than 6,000 kids.

"This is 11 years I've been doing it, and the need has gone up every year. It's gone up every year, and I anticipate it going up even more this year," Keegan said.

On Thursday, the Berkshire County House of Corrections storage facility was overflowing with toys making it the county's very own Santa's workshop.

Keegan said Berkshire County always shows up with toys or donations.

"This county is outstanding when it comes to charity. They rally around stuff. They're very giving, they're very generous, and they've been tremendous in this effort, the toys for pride effort, since I've been doing it, our goal is to honor every request, and we've always reached that goal," he said.

Keegan's team is about 20 to 25 volunteers who sort out toys based on age and gender. This week, the crew started collecting from the 230 or so boxes set out around the county on Oct. 1.

"The two age groups that are probably more difficult — there's a newborn to 2s, boys and girls, and 11 to 14, boys and girls. Those are the two challenging ages where we need to focus our attention on a little bit more," he said.

Toys For Tots has about 30 participating schools and agencies that sign up families and individuals who need help putting gifts under the tree. Keegan takes requests right up until the last minute on Christmas.

"We can go out shopping for Christmas. I had sent my daughter out Christmas Eve morning. Hey, we need X amount of toys and stuff, but the requests are still rolling in from individuals, and I don't say no, we'll make it work however we can," he said.

Community members help to raise money or bring in unopened and unused toys. Capeless Elementary student Thomas St. John recently raised $1,000 selling hot chocolate and used the money to buy toys for the drive.

"It's amazing how much it's grown and how broad it is, how many people who were involved," Keegan said.

On Saturday, Live 95.9 personalities Bryan Slater and Marjo Catalano of "Slater and Marjo in the Morning" will host a Toys for Tots challenge at The Hot Dog Ranch and Proprietor's Lodge. Keegan said they have been very supportive of the drive and that they were able to collect more than 3,000 toys for the drive last year.

Volunteer Debbie Melle has been volunteering with Toys for Tots in the county for about five years and said people really showed up to give this year.

"I absolutely love it. It's what we always say. It's organized chaos, but it's rewarding. And what I actually this year, I'm so surprised, because the amount that the community has given us, and you can see that when you see these pictures, that you've taken, this is probably the most toys we've ever gotten," she said. "So I don't know if people just feel like this is a time to give and they're just going above and beyond, but I'm blown away. This year we can barely walk down the aisles for how much, how many toys are here. It's wonderful."

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