It may have taken the Fosters a decade to turn a dream of opening a restaurant into a reality but Four Seasonings Steakhouse in Antioch is now open.
Located inside a tiny entryway located at 304 G Street, nestled between Off the Charts and the Rivertown Treasure Chest, William and Erica Foster, along with Betty Ware, have brought fine dining to the City of Antioch with a menu of mouth-watering prime cut meats of ribeye steak, filet mignon, cowboy tomahawk, Wagyu rib eye and prime rib.
“You can eat our dry-aged steaks with a butter knife,” proclaimed Erica Foster. “We have seen it done.”
The menu is full of other options, such as lamb chops, mac and cheese, soups and salads—they will also be launching a lunch menu of steak sandwiches, soups and salad, crab sandwich, chicken sandwich, salmon, sliders, while the appetizer menu will also available, including burgers and chicken wings.
Getting 4 Seasonings Steakhouse open, the journey was long and required many sacrifices and sleepless nights for the Fosters. It started a decade ago when Erica and her mom were selling self-defense items at festivals. They quickly realized they wanted to go into the food industry because the lines were more popular.
“We started selling mini-donuts and soon expanded into fried candy, Oreo’s, funnel cakes and had a line all day long at those festivals,” she explained. “We were really popular, so we went all over to Las Vegas, San Diego, sold food in Florida, we were traveling,”
While they found success, traveling the festival circuit was not all it was cracked up to be explaining they were not only traveling, but they had to lug all their equipment everywhere along with set up and tear down. Plus, dealing with the weather elements.
William recalls the difficulty with the changes in weather as some days you were dealing with equipment that was overheating due to the sun, other days it’s too cold and flames would go out or the issues from a windy day. Still, they carried on and William began experimenting with meat and his seasonings —which exploded in popularity where they would sell out.
A decade in, the Fosters decided to find another path which was purchase a food truck. Still, they traveled all over up and down California—the food truck business was not all it was cracked up to be as they still had to prep elsewhere and transport all the food. That is when they decided they would fulfill their goal of opening their own restaurant.
“We actually left the food truck to go back to the festivals because we were more popular and allowed us to save our money to start a restaurant,” explained Erica. “24-months later, it took us to create this place.”
The Fosters, who have a home in Antioch, knew they wanted to stay local and searched for many locations—including the old Mel’s Diner at The Streets of Brentwood, but the rent was too high. They also nearly ended up in downtown Pittsburg but that did not work out.
After meeting with Sean McCauley, they settled on the downtown Antioch location.
McCauley recalls meeting the Fosters and realizing they were the type of operators Antioch needed—not only because of the quality of food they put out, but they share a vision of what downtown Antioch could become.
“We needed to elevate our game in Antioch, they fit the mold. My main goal is to elevate Antioch, and we need quality restaurants to do that. They fit that quality we wanted. We did everything we could to get them in there, it took two years but sometimes it’s what it takes and it’s worth it,” explained McCauley. “It’s a great fit for Antioch and East Contra Costa County they are just another addition to more foot traffic to the downtown area as it continues to revitalize itself.”
William shared his vision for the downtown.
“I am from Monterey and when I came here I saw the waterfront and I see Antioch becoming a small Monterey one day and even have a carousel. You can even come here by boat. People pass this place all the time. We want to be apart of raising the bar and bring a different culture to the area and upgrade it while also uplifting the community,” explained William. “We want to be part of the community.”
The Fosters believe what they have created will work and that Antioch is in need of more fine dining because the people actually want it.
“Everyone that has been in here has loved it and said yes, we want it and the city needs it,” shared William. “It seems to be working for us because everyone says, yes, we need this because we want this to be the downtown it used to be and people are giving us history lessons about this building back in 1903 being a pharmacy. But everyone has been happy to have us here because it matches our dream. Now, everyone is pouring into us.”
Still, the journey was not easy as they had to wait nearly 18-months to open once settling in the downtown area space. To make it happen they had to sacrifice their qualify of life by doing without vacations, extra spending money, lower living budget, paid off debt to have a higher credit score and sacrificed time. They really wanted to turn their vision into reality.
“We have been waiting to do this for a while and it was time to make it happen,” said Erica.
William shared as soon as he entered the G Street location, the vision was easy because it had been in his head for a while and knew the concept would be “smoke and fire” with the walls painted gray with special designs on the wall and elegance.
“We wanted something a little classier for Antioch, something more upscale,” explained William noting the restaurant is a reflection of their personality and inner nerd from their professional careers in IT.
“The nerd in us just comes out in the design. All the wood we made in our backyard. The design on the tables it’s all my mom. Its 100% our personality,” shared Erica. “When we go out to eat, we go to steakhouses. Steak is what we love, so this menu is really all the things we love. There is nothing on there that I don’t eat.”
Betty says coming up with the menu was easy, but delivering it was where the work began as they worked on critiquing the recipes, presentation and used each others skills to ensure the best possible product is served to order.
According to William, Betty had the best well-rounded chicken seasoning where he had the better steak seasoning and then they balanced the menu with asparagus, brussels sprouts and other sides.
“For the last year in our house, it was like every piece of food went through a critique it felt like. We had food critics in our family,” said Erica highlighting her family has owned restaurants in the Midwest. “Then it became about presentation to show we care about them when they come in from bread, salads.”
Betty added, “if the food doesn’t look good, it doesn’t taste good, its all presentation.”
Meanwhile, William joked with the cost of food being so high, it had better be perfect each time they serve it.
Erica added they really want to uplift the community through casual dinning but to do that, people need to understand for best quality of meats you have pay for it.
“Our prices are strictly driven by what we are paying for the food,” explained Erica noting if the price of steak was cheaper, their prices would be cheaper. “Because of our style aesthetics, the perception was that it’s a Five Star Restaurant, that was not our original intention but it turned out to be that. We are going for fine dining but others elevated us higher.”
Still, opening did not come without controversy after their menu and pricing was blasted on social media. While unpleasant, the Fosters say they are grateful for the feedback and debate.
“The feedback from the public was it was not enough for your money so that second week, we included a side and a soup or salad option with the entree. The argument went away,” explained Erica. “The community feedback was very helpful and important to us on better clarifying the menu because it also showed us, we didn’t know everything and could adjust.”
William explained that criticism can be helpful, but he’s thankful people elevated them to a Five Star Restaurant which is not a bad problem for them to have. He says it was a pivot after listening to all the feedback—admitting they changed how they did things.
“A lot of people were talking about our prices online negatively, but then we had people coming in here eating the food and talking to us about how our prices were too low compared to others they have had saying this was better. It was a what do you do moment but a good problem to have,” added William.
Erica said one of the best moments so far after opening was the support of other local restaurant owners while customers have asked if they had a Michelin Star yet—they haven’t, but that remains their goal and to have such high quality food that people come from all over to try it.
William also shared you can’t fake meat and if you say its high-quality, you had better deliver.
“We have to keep the culture up in here. People know their meat, especially when it comes to fine meats. If it’s older, fresh like you say it is. If you try and pass a lower quality piece of meat off, they are going to know. So, when we say we have prime, you better have prime, and we have prime,” explained William. “They actually been saying we are giving this away so we had to come down on our portions because we were giving them away thick compared to other restaurants so that was something we had to learn was portion control. Trial and error can be an expensive lesson but things are going well.”
While the Fosters admit they are still working out a few kinks after only being open for a few weeks, they believe they are on the right track and eventually the rest of downtown Antioch being revitalized will be a win for everyone—and one day even launching a waterfront restaurant of their own.
But for now, they want to be part of turning downtown Antioch into a place like Monterey with many restaurants, retail full of shop opportunities, becoming an entertainment district with plenty of foot traffic. Ultimately, becoming a coastal destination where everything is beautiful where people can drive here, park here, boat hear, eat, shop and have a great time.
“We all are community here and need to push each other here,” explained William. “Go try Smiths Landing, go try Monica’s, go try Tease, these are different restaurants, and we are all in the same community so I can see the vision.”
Erica shared she believes Antioch is no different than Brentwood or Walnut Creek and deserves the same caliber restaurants, entertainment and shopping.
“It should be no different than those upper scale communities,” said Erica. “It’s time we all raise the bar one restaurant and business at a time. That brings better jobs and more opportunities to the area.”
For now, the Fosters are focused on producing the best food they possibly can and are appreciative of word-of-month, Instagram photographs sharing the food and becoming part of the community one steak at a time.
If You Go
The 4 Seasonings Steakhouse is located at 304 G Street, Antioch CA . You can find out more about them at www.the4seasonings.com
