Eleven days before arguably one of the biggest days in the lives of the owners and, even, for New Iberia, you can feel the energy inside Clementine on Main.

There isn’t a patron seated in the refurbished restaurant that seats 80 in the main dining room and has a total seating capacity for 120. It’s empty, save for the three owners and employees hustling and bustling as they make final preparations.

The source of the energy comes from the owners and it passes on to the staff, chefs, waitresses and bartenders.

Imagine the energy level opening day, the grand opening at 10 a.m. Friday at 113 E. Main St. The following day, at 10 a.m., there will be a Mass, including blessing of the city’s newest restaurant, and a divergence from the menu to offer St. Patrick’s Day dishes all day.

Ask Jennifer Dold as she sits Tuesday afternoon at a table in front of the historic polished bar working on reams of paperwork, mostly payroll, what the grand opening will mean to her and tears fill her eyes, like when a cook cuts an onion. Dold, who along with her husband, Kent, 56, and their friend, Michael Parich Jr., 41, are the owners, has a difficult time putting into words the significance of March 16.

“Overall, I feel like we’ve been very blessed every step of the way. Everything has fallen into place,” said Jennifer Dold, a German-Irish woman who grew up on a farm in rural Kansas. The 50-year-old Abbeville resident has been the retreat coordinator for Our Lady of the Bayous Retreat House in Abbeville since 2012.

Restaurateur is in her bio now as it is for her husband, also a Kansas native and graduate of Friends University in Wichita, and Parich. They are proud owners as the grand opening approaches.

“This is a community restaurant and bar. We’re going to provide what they want from special drinks at the bar, hand-crafted drinks …,” Kent Dold said, to succulent, expertly prepared appetizers, entrees, salads, soups and desserts.

They are bringing residents and visitors back to “eat, drink and visit,” which is their motto, to the site known in one of its prime periods as Clementine Fine Dining and Spirits.

“We feel like this is a place people can come to socialize. The whole focus on my end is to develop New Iberia to what it should be, what it was in the past, the social mecca of Iberia Parish. Let’s build our downtown. It’s all about downtown. This is our part we can play,” said Parich, a Catholic High School graduate who is a board member with the Sugar Cane and Spanish festivals, and a member of the downtown development group and Teche Growers Association.

Clementine Fine Dining and Spirits was a social hub in downtown New Iberia before it closed in June 2016, then reopened for a while as Bali Asian Cuisine. Before Clementine, it was Armand’s, opened in the mid-1990s by Clarence “Cam” Mestayer, who purchased the smaller building next door and combined them to make a larger restaurant.

Mestayer began leasing the buildings to Wayne Peltier, a local caterer, in 1999. Peltier purchased the two buildings in 2003 and transformed Armand’s into Clementine Fine Dining and Spirits.

Now, after Bali’s Asian Cuisine, it’s Clementine on Main, continuing the rich history of a restaurant with a bar made of tiger oak in the late 1800s in California and eventually shipped via barge along the Bayou Teche in the 1920s from Loreauville, where Decoux’s Bar closed due to Prohibition, to New Iberia.

“This is New Iberia’s bar and restaurant. We’re privileged to be stewards to such a historical part of New Iberia, historical downtown,” Kent Dold said.

Clementine on Main had a soft opening Valentine’s Day, which is fitting. The Dolds have put their heart into getting the restaurant ready since Nov. 2, as has Parich, who came on board in late January.

“The reason we did that was for the chefs to get acclimated to the kitchen,” Kent Dold said, adding the soft opening also provided time to fine tune the food supply schedule and train the wait staff.

“It was done intentionally so it’ll be ready for opening day,” he said.

Kent Dold, who moved to Acadiana from Abilene, Texas, in 1999 as a territory rep for John Deere, was at a meeting last fall when he was told the Bali’s Asian Cuisine owner wanted to sell the business in New Iberia. The transaction was completed in a few days.

“The only reason I did, I knew this was Clementine,” he said, emphasizing the last word. “I knew how great it was. I was disappointed it wasn’t here and we had missed it as well.”

While never in the restaurant business, he was no stranger to cooking, which he did often for client meetings and customer events for John Deere, plus parties and gatherings of up to 300 people.

The Dolds prayed, his wife said, before making a decision.

“I look at it almost as divine intervention is why we were brought here,” he said.

The couple operated the restaurant as Bali’s Asian Cuisine for a few months before he opted for a different direction the first week of January. He started over from scratch after announcing his intention to reopen as Clementine on Main.

“In order to do this I had to do it right,” he said, noting that meant refurbishing the entire kitchen, also. The kitchen boasts the latest in commercial equipment, including a charbroiler.

“Kent bought that. It’s our secret weapon when it comes to steaks,” Parich said, noting the charbroiler cooks the 8- and 6-ounce steaks just right.

“You can cut them with a fork, literally,” he said.

Kent Dold is bringing back two popular traditions from the days of Clementine under Peltier. Patrons can sink their teeth into a George Ackal Burger, which got its start when the restaurant was Provost’s Café and Bar that opened Jan. 11, 1937.

“It’s large. Half-a-pound, handmade and cooked to specifications. It’s good. It really is,” Parich said.

“We use prime Grade A beef,” Kent Dold said.

Also, four crayons in a white paper package sit on top each table covered with a spotless white tablecloth. They are there upon request, Kent Dold said.

“We’ve had some people come in that are pretty good artists. It was a tradition here back in the earlier days of Clementine, the original Clementine,” he said, adding Peltier would hang artwork created with crayons inside the restaurant, including some of the best drawings by children.

The Dolds, who plan to relocate to New Iberia from Abbeville, and Parich have their team together, one that includes a chef who graduated from Catholic High School and immediately started working at Clementine Fine Dining and Spirits. They are proud of Matthew Indest, 40, the executive chef, and chef, Brad Berwick, a 33-year-old Lafayette native who has worked in California and opened a restaurant in Austin, Texas. Berwick recently worked at Bon Temps Grill in Lafayette and Antlers seafood and Steakhouse in Broussard.

“They are executive chefs, both of them. They bring about 30 years experience into the kitchen,” Parich said.

“They wanted to come work here, Matt because he got his start here as a teenager and loves Clementine, which inspired him to go to culinary school,” Kent Dold said.

Indest left Clementine Fine Dining and Spirits and went to Texas Culinary Academy in Austin. He has worked in Austin and at Agave Grill and Cantina in Lafayette and Antlers.

Indest said he is glad to be back in his hometown, noting his favorite entrée to prepare is the chargrilled filet mignon.

Kent Dold said the key to the venture was adding Parich, who studied business at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and works as health safety and environmental director for JB James Construction in Baton Rouge. Parich has had ownerships in several sports bars and nightclubs in Lafayette and New Orleans.

Kent Dold and Parich met for the first time at a Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce meeting.

“I introduced myself to him. I told him I had acquired Bali’s,” Dold said. “As I got to know Mike, I realized he had some tremendous talents that we needed. That is promotion in the front of the house and bar management. I called him one night to see if he’d be interested and he said yes. He didn’t hesitate and we’re a good team.”

Parich and Jessica Young Parich, who live in New Iberia, were married March 3. They returned from their honeymoon early last week. They decided a few months ago to join the business venture, he said.

“I made the decision with Jessica. We prayed on it quite a bit. We made a decision together. We felt for the first time in this business these were people we could trust,” he said.

Clementine Management Group LLC was born. And Clementine was reborn.