Just two guys who decided to turn a wine bar into a restaurant in the middle of one of the most competitive food cities in the South.
“Who does that?” Ryan Ribiero laughs when I float the idea of the angle. “It’s very hard to do.”
Exactly.
Sobremesa was never supposed to be what it is now. It started as a passion project, a place born from a European trip and a frustration.
“I got back from Europe and I was looking for a good wine spot,” Ryan says. “And I’m like, man, the wine listings suck. Where can I find good wine? I just wanted a place with great wine and good snacks. A place you could settle into.”
He found a quirky building at 2012 Abercorn. Signed the lease. Started building. Thirty thousand dollars into the build out, the
deck had to go. The walk in refrigerator had to go. Railroad right of way issues. MPC revisions. Plans ripped up and redrawn.
Expansion gone before the doors even opened.
Still, they opened.
The early days were wine driven. A honeymoon phase where the glasses were full and the room felt new. Ryan was working forty
plus hours a week as a loan officer and then bartending seven hour shifts at night.
“For a whole year,” he says. “My fiancée was getting the worst three hours of my awake time.”
Sobremesa opened with that spirit. Wine first. Conversation first. The kind of room where you could order something interesting by the glass and stay longer than you planned.
Over time, something started to shift.
Guests were not just lingering. They were hungry. They wanted more than snacks. They wanted to make a night of it.
That is where the second chapter begins.
Jason Restivo came in with a different kind of energy.
“I’ve always been known for throwing a great party,” Jason says. “Everyone loves to get dressed up and go to a party. But more importantly, everyone loves to be invited.”
Jason talks about restaurants the way some people talk about therapy.
“It’s our responsibility to be with someone for an hour and a half and let them forget about whatever they’re going through,” he says. “Whether it’s over great food or just a glass of wine, you get to change someone’s night.”
The shift from wine bar to full restaurant did not happen overnight. It happened thoughtfully. A menu that grew naturally. A kitchen that evolved to match the vision. Layout adjustments. A long communal table in the front that feels like you stumbled into someone’s dinner party.
Sobremesa is not defined by a single cuisine or a flag planted in one tradition. It borrows freely. It leans into flavor and mood over labels. You can come in for a casual happy hour and feel just as comfortable as the couple celebrating something big.
“The whole meaning of Sobremesa is what happens at the table,” Jason says. “It’s everything after the meal. The conversation. The connection. The staying longer than you expected.”
That spirit fits Savannah perfectly.
This is a city that lingers. That stretches dinners into late evenings. That values stories told across a table more than almost anything else.
Now, on a busy night, Sobremesa moves with quiet confidence. Plates leave the kitchen steadily. Servers know the room. Regulars wave from the bar. First timers look around and whisper, “How have we not been here before?”
That last part still surprises Ryan.
“We had a couple come in who live two blocks away,” he says. “They said they had never heard of us. I’m thinking, I could hit your house with a baseball.”
He laughs, but there is something hopeful in it. Because when people do find Sobremesa, they come back. They bring friends. They bring parents. They bring dates.
In a city where options multiply by the month, restaurants are not just competing on flavor. They are competing on feeling. Music. Lighting. Hosts. Flow. Price point. Accessibility. Identity.
Jason believes they are there.
“It feels polished,” he says. “The engine is there. Now it’s about polishing it. Honing it. Deciding how we want it to shine.”
Ryan and Jason are not trying to build the loudest restaurant in town. They are trying to build one you miss when you have not been in a while. The kind of place where you walk in and someone says your name. The kind of place that feels the same on a quiet Tuesday as it does on a packed Saturday.
“I love what I do,” Jason says. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
You feel that when you sit down.
Sobremesa is not about spectacle. It is about presence. It is about creating a room where old friends, new friends, and total strangers can share a bottle and forget about the noise outside.
And when the night winds down and the last glass is poured, you understand the name a little better.
It was never just about the wine.
It was always about what happens after.
And here is where Sobremesa becomes more than a small restaurant story.
It becomes a Savannah story.
Photos by Robin Maaya and Steve Vilnit/@SV_Images
