After operating in Burney for nearly nine decades, this historic restaurant's for sale
After 18 years of serving steak and seafood, Connie Voltura says she's ready to sell the Rex Club.
But until she finds a buyer, she's not slowing down.
Voltura spends her afternoons doing the same thing she's done for almost two decades: Baking bread and making soups and sauces for customers before the 86-year-old Burney restaurant opens.
She's also planning spring holiday specials this week, including a Valentine's Day dinner special and dessert and drink menu on Feb. 14.
The Rex Club restaurant, bar and hotel is a casual dinner place for locals and Highway 299 travelers, located 54 miles northeast of Redding.
Voltura learned to bake and cook from members of her family and there were plenty of them. The 65-year-old is the youngest of 16 children.
Growing up, “I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my mom. I was the baby" of the family, she said.
Once the restaurant sells, Voltura said she'll retire. The Fall River Mills resident plans to run a small catering business and raise meat goats with her fiancé and partner for 11 years. “He’s a cowboy,” Voltura said, giggling. “I want to be married to him, not to the restaurant.”
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She won’t be riding off into the sunset with him right away. She recently showed the property to her first potential buyer, but the restaurant is still on the market, Voltura said.
In the meantime, she has short-term plans for the Rex Club: A Valentine’s Day dinner special with seafood Wellington, a baked puff pastry filled with crab, scallops and prawns served with lobster sauce. ($35)
The restaurant's regular menu reflects its specialties: Steak, chicken and seafood dishes. The Rex Club's most popular entrees are the rib-eye steak dinner ($33) and chicken Marsala ($28). Both are served with soup or salad, a potato dish, vegetables and Voltura’s homemade bread.
The bar serves spirits, beer and wine, and features Fall River Brewing Company beverages on its drink menu. The Rex Club also caters big and small gatherings, Voltura said.
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Restoring a Burney classic
Opened in 1938, on the tail end of the Great Depression, the Rex Club is one of Burney’s first restaurants, Voltura said. The property passed through several hands before she purchased it in 2006.
She bought the business after her son died in a tragic accident, hoping the business project would give her and her two daughters something on which to focus while grieving, Voltura said.
When she took over, she remodeled the restaurant, opting to keep its original wood bar and some of the photos of historic Burney and Burney Falls hanging on the walls.
When she finished the restaurant, Voltura went to work on the property's four cabins.
She converted them from long-term rentals into one two-bedroom and three one-bedroom overnight hotel suites, with kitchens or kitchenettes and living rooms. When the restaurant was empty during the 2020 COVID-19 economic shutdown, Voltura cut the Rex Club's losses by renting the cabins to doctors and nurses that were stationed at area medical facilities, she said.
The cabins are walking distance from the restaurant. Cost per night during the high season, from late April to October, is $115 to $235 per night.
Family 'baby' grows into matriarch
Voltura never went to culinary or business school. Instead, she learned good practices from family and friends, she said.
Voltura was born in Arcata in 1958. Her father, Rollie Wood, a logger and her mother, Francis Wood, moved the family to the North State in the early 1960s. They lived in Redding for three years, then moved to the rural town of Pondosa, 29 miles north of Burney on the border of Siskiyou and Shasta counties.
Voltura attended McCloud High School, dropping out at age 15 to care for her newborn son. She said her family helped her through tumultuous times.
When she bought the Rex Club, some of her 15 siblings pitched in to help their “baby” sister open the restaurant and keep it going. They and Voltura's two daughters still help out when they visit Burney, Voltura said.
She tries to create more “family” wherever she goes.
After 18 years at the Rex Club, Voltura is matriarch to an unofficial extended family: Her former and current employees. “Almost all of the waitresses who worked for me in the past call me Mom,” she said.
What to know if you go:
Cost: Entrees most nights range from $19 to $33. Chicken finger and fish-and-chip baskets start at $18.
Hours: 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays in winter, Tuesdays through Saturdays in summer
Where: 37143 Highway 299 in Burney. The restaurant is on Main Street next to U.S. Bank.
Contact information: Call 530-335-4184 or email burneyrexclub@frontiernet.net for the restaurant, catering or cabin rentals
Website: burneyrexclub.com
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Historic Burney restaurant up for sale; what's next for the Rex Club?
