As customers arrive this evening at Sebastopol’s Pizzavino707, they’ll see an announcement from Stephen Singer, managing partner, that the restaurant is closing after dinner this Sunday.

Although the food at PV707 has been quite good and the atmosphere both relaxed and welcoming, the restaurant never reached the necessary watershed of customers, due in large part to the struggling economy, which has been particularly hard on west county restaurants.

Andrew Dovel, PV707’s talented and hardworking chef, has done an outstanding job establishing and maintaining the restaurant’s consistently high quality and the restaurant stumbled a bit when he was injured in a cycling accident mid-spring and landed in a wheelchair for several weeks. Although his lengthy absence is not the reason the restaurant is closing, it made the painful choice Singer had to make all the more apparent.

But change is on the horizon, with a new restaurant opening in the same location sometime between mid-October and the beginning of November.

At the helm of the new endeavor are Steven Peyer and Jamilah Nixon, who met when they both worked at Lucy’s Restaurant about eight years ago. Now, they have a two-year-old daughter, Lucia, and are embarking on an ambitious new venture together.

The space will actually be two restaurants with two kitchens and one name, which will be announced sometime this week.

The front of the space, i.e., the patio, bar, marble counter and upstairs area will feature Southeast Asian street food, with daily curries, bahn mi, noodles, Thai salad and such. Jamilah, who lived in Thailand and has traveled extensively in the region, will oversee this part of the operation. Techniques and recipes, she says, will be traditional, but will feature local ingredients. It will be open daily for lunch, dinner and late-night bar nibbles.

The dining room, with its wood-burning oven and wood-burning grill, will feature what Jamilah calls Italian soul food, which is Steve’s specialty. It will be open for dinner only, five nights a week and Steve will be in charge.

Patrick Wynhoff is an important part of the team that will move this ambitious project forward. Most recently, he was the CEO of Chef’s Catalog and has extensive experience and a history of success to bring to the project. He’s helping with branding and design and will handle day to day operations.

Stay tuned: As soon as the name of the new restaurant is in place, I’ll post it here.