Deb’s Kitchen in Petaluma serves comfort food in a pan

For a long time, restaurateur Uriel Brena had wanted to add a pizza shop to his roster, to build on his Tacos Tijuana mobile food truck. He’d also managed several Sonoma County Mountain Mike’s pizza stores under the Chandi Hospitality Group.

So when a Red Boy Pizza franchise became available in Petaluma, he checked it out and liked what he saw. Peter and Kitty Forstner opened the original Red Boy Pizza in San Francisco in 1969, making sourdough pizzas and enjoying a loyal following for more than 35 years. When the Forstners retired, they sold the business to the Radwan family of Oakland, who established franchises in Marin County, Oakland and Petaluma.

In October, Brena opened a new concept, Deb’s Kitchen, in the somewhat-hidden Red Boy location in the East Washington Place mall. One of the reasons Brena was attracted to the spot was because that’s where he met its chef, Debra Cargile.

Cargile has worked as a chef in Sonoma County for 54 years, including the past five at Red Boy. Brena loved her dedication, he said. She had been working as a security guard for the mall when she learned the pizza shop needed a chef. Her cooking skills wowed the then-owners, Tomas Islas and Gilmar Castro.

The road to open Deb’s Kitchen has been a long one for Brena, and it’s not ended yet. Brena has alleged that the Radwans misrepresented the business and the lease for the space yet cashed his $50,700 deposit check. Eventually, Brena secured a legal lease on the space by working directly with the mall’s landlord, yet the conflict between Brena and the Radwans is ongoing.

Daniel Radwan declined to comment for this story, saying, “Unfortunately, Red Boy Pizza cannot comment on the topic at this time.”

But in the meantime, Cargile, 69, is a full partner and runs most aspects of Deb’s Kitchen.

“When Uriel said we were going to rebrand and put my name on the restaurant, I mean, I literally bawled,” Cargile said, looking around the restaurant she personally decorated to the nines with holiday flair. “I’ve been doing this for more than 50 years, and I’ve always wanted to own a restaurant but never saw it in my future because I know financially, I could never do it.”

While much of the menu remains Red Boy fare, Cargile and Brena are slowly revamping. The classic sourdough pizzas still star, with thick, chewy crusts topped in combinations like the Everything pie smothered in tomato sauce, cheese, salami, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, green onions and black olives. (All specialty pies are 10 inches (small) for $19.99, 12 inches (medium) for $24.99, 14 inches (large) for $29.99 and 16 inches (extra-large) for $33.99.)

You can also dig into burgers of various kinds. The Pitmaster is an Instagram model of messiness, stacking an Angus beef patty with smoked bacon, barbecue sauce, beer-batter fried onion rings, mozzarella cheese and housemade sriracha mayo on a Franco America bun that has been delightfully grill-crusted in mozzarella ($14.99). Tack on some buffalo chips (homemade fried potato rounds) and you won’t need to eat for the rest of the day.

But there are new, unique dishes, too, such as an extensive selection of vegetarian combo pizzas like the elegant l’amore é cieco draped in zucchini and squash blossom flowers or the sogni d’oro dressed in wild mushrooms and huitlacoche (corn truffle).

Also try the Debra’s Special: roasted chicken, tangy artichoke hearts and lots of garlic piled on a crust covered in creamy white sauce. It’s pure comfort in a pizza pan.

A surprising number of dishes come out of the compact open kitchen where Cargile and her crew make many things from scratch, including nine salad dressings. I’m a particular fan of the Greek salad with its toss of romaine, diced tomato, kalamata olives, crisp cucumber, salty feta, green pepper, oregano and a tart Greek olive oil dressing (small $8.99, large $11.99).

Pasta sauces are also homemade and very good, ranging from meat to Alfredo, marinara, pomodoro and a lovely pesto. I don’t know what the secret is to the piccata sauce here, but I sopped up every drop with chunks of lightly battered chicken breast, the side of pesto-laced penne and bits of sourdough garlic bread ($17.99). It’s among the best sauces I’ve had anywhere, rich with garlic butter, briny with capers, lightened with splashes of white wine and vibrant with plenty of lemon.

Drawing on his popular quesabirria served out of the Tacos Tijuana truck, Brena is now building a “secret” menu. So if you know to ask (and now you do), order a pizza birria ($19.99). The tangy sourdough crust is topped with succulent beef braised with guajillo and ancho peppers atop an olive oil and mozzarella base, with diced white onions and cilantro scattered over the top. On the side are various salsas and chile-tomato consomme for dunking.

There are other off-menu dishes, too, like al pastor pizza ($19.99), an overnight-marinated, grilled rib-eye steak ($29.99). Pizza fries are skinny spuds blanketed in mozzarella and choice of meats and veggies ($9.99).

The chef recently began making daily “secret” soups, too (market price). On one visit, I won the lottery with oxtail caldo, a glorious tub of slow-cooked, gelatin-rich meat on the bone. It glistened with beautiful fat and was nestled in white beans, celery, baby carrots, onion and all kinds of seasoning in a savory broth.

It would be so easy to overlook — or simply not find — the small eatery tucked into a sort of alley behind a Five Guys burger outlet in the Target mall next to the Petaluma fairgrounds. You do have to seek it out — it took me 10 minutes to find it on my first visit, even when I thought I knew where it is.

Yet now, despite the obstacles, the Deb’s Kitchen team is feeling energized.

“It’s been a long, difficult journey,” Brena said. “If we ever close, for whatever reason, it will be only to open up in a different location. We are committed to this for a long future. All we need now is for customers to know about us.”

Carey Sweet is a Sebastopol-based food and restaurant writer. Read her restaurant reviews every other week in Sonoma Life. Contact her at carey@careysweet.com.