Ricardo’s ‘sexy beef’ makes its move to central Lacey

About 18 months ago, The Olympian reported that the longtime Lacey restaurant Ricardo’s had found a new location. Rick Nelsen, who co-owns the business with his wife, Marie, said the centerpiece of the new site would be a temperature-controlled room for dry-aging beef.

“We want to make dry-aged beef look as sexy as possible,” Nelsen said at the time.

After he delivered that line and the story was published, he paid a visit to his grandmother, Lorna Wilson.

When she saw him, she said, “Oh, look, there’s sexy beef.”

And the nickname has stuck, Nelsen said this week at his new location near Huntamer Park. The restaurant now is called Ricardo’s Kitchen and Bar and it opened before July 4. The restaurant, bar, kitchen, dry-aging room and wine cellar fill about 7,000 square feet of space, more than twice the space it occupied at its longtime location on Lacey Boulevard.

There’s more to come for the restaurant, which is known for its steaks and wine racks, built by Nelsen, that adorn the ceiling of his business.

For the moment, he’s only doing dinners, but expects to expand to lunches and weekend brunches in about two months, he said. The banquet room next door should be finished in time for Seahawks Sundays. Outside, crews are set to build fire pits and a gazebo, and add landscaping and seating.

Ricardo’s has been around for nearly 14 years and Nelsen has been thinking of a new location for about five years, he said.

“I needed a new experience, a new fire to put out,” Nelsen said. “It’s my passion,” he added about the restaurant business.

Now, about that nickname.

After his grandmother called him “sexy beef,” he decided to produce a line of sexy beef T-shirts. The front of the shirt is designed to look as if the wearer is also wearing some gold chains around their neck. That’s Nelsen’s signature look, something he picked up from his grandfather, Dave Wilson, famous for running Dirty Dave’s Pizza on Martin Way in Olympia.

Nelsen said spending time with his grandfather, who recently passed away, was a huge chapter of his life. Growing up, he washed dishes at his restaurants — Wilson once operated as many as five — or fixed restaurant equipment, or hung out with his grandfather at the bank as he hammered out his next round of financing.

He paid tribute to his grandfather by turning the tailgate of his 1974 Dodge truck into a table for the new bar. It’s encased in wood and covered in glass, but clearly visible through the surface.

The transition to a new location took longer than expected. Nelsen said “it took a village” of friends, family and local businesses to make it happen. He also discovered some art that he wanted for the new location. The artist, he later found out, taught home-economics when he was at Timberline High School.

And like when he was young, Rick’s son, Royce, is known to hang out with his father in the kitchen. His wife, Marie, coordinates catering and decor, he said.

This story was originally published July 23, 2016 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Ricardo’s ‘sexy beef’ makes its move to central Lacey."