When Hoss Zaré closes the doors of his north Napa bistro Sunday, it will be the end of one enterprise but the next step on journey inspired by his passion for food and for preserving his family legacy.

The brutal murder of his 86-year-old father in Iran last April, and the subsequent death of his mother, have inspired him to reassess his life and honor his parents’ memory.

Zaré said he has decided to reopen a San Francisco restaurant, still using the family name, Zaré, where he’ll continue to serve foods that combine California cuisine with elements from his native Iran.

Zaré left Iran in 1986, seven years after the revolution had taken its toll on his father, a wealthy businessman. “They took much of his money and his land,” Zaré explained. “Still my parents gave very much to others.”

Zaré decided to come to the U.S. to study medicine at UC Davis, and was working in a restaurant to help pay his bills, when the cooking bug bit. “It became my passion,” he said.

His parents, he said, supported all his decisions just as they approved his other brothers’ marriages to women from Norway and the U.S. “They wanted our happiness,” he said. “It was unconditional love. Imagine to be so open minded — from a third-world county,” he said. “They deserve to have their legacy.”

He went on to become a successful restaurateur in San Francisco, operating a popular restaurant for nine years before he sold it and moved to Napa. He opened his new venture, Zaré, in the historic Red Hen complex, two years ago after renovating the former site of the Red Hen Cantina (which has since moved further south on Solano Avenue). It was meant to be a temporary site while he went through the process of getting permits and approval to build a large, elegant restaurant on the Red Hen site, working with owner Kathy Smith, whom he called “a dream partner.” He created a menu of California cuisine with Persian accents.

These last two years, he said, “have been a learning experience.”

Zaré said he had visited wine country and saw the potential, but, he admitted,“I didn’t really do my research.” For one thing, he said, it was a shock to someone used to the San Francisco scene that for three months of the year (January, February and March) the restaurant business is substantially down. “In San Francisco it’s 12 months,” he explained.

Another surprise was the quiet lifestyle of an agricultural county. In San Francisco, he said, he would usually cook until around 9:30 at night. “Then I was used to leaving my own restaurant and going to eat at another place. It was my time to meet other people, invite them to my restaurant, talk to people, get ideas — but here …” He discovered, as many others had, that after 9 in Napa, it’s slim pickings if you’re going to dine out.

Another problem for Napa Valley restaurants, Zaré observed, is “it’s hard to find good staff, for both the front of the house and the back.” A scarcity of workers as well as the juggling necessitated by the winter slump in business make finding and keeping motivated and highly trained workers a challenge, he said.

Most of all he said, it’s remains a puzzle to be solved, finding the right mix of elements to build a local clientele, with a population that doesn’t dine out as often as people in the city, and don’t spend as much money dining out. He revised his menu and hours last spring, creating a bistro atmosphere with later hours, but found that mostly what he got was “trouble.”

He concluded, “Napa is not ready” for the upscale project he hand in mind.

“It was a tough decision, but I realized it didn’t make sense to invest in building a new restaurant and not get income for 12 months of the year,” he said. He had decided to close Zaré next November, but then moved the closing date up, so that he can take some time off before he moves on to his next restaurant venture. “I was losing my passion,” he said. “For the first time, I’m taking six months off. I’m going to travel in Europe, visit restaurants, get new ideas.” He is unable to return to Iran, he noted.

The decision was partly affected by the grim news he received from Iran last spring. On April 19, he said, men broke into his parents’ home and tortured his elderly father while forcing his mother to watch the ordeal of the man to whom she’d been married for 60 years. “My father suffered for four hours,” Zaré said. “My mother suffered for 45 days, and then she died too.”

He believes the assailants were government men, and their purpose was “to make an example — it’s a lesson that they can do whatever they want.

“I don’t mourn my parents — they had rich, full lives and were loved in their community. They were beautiful, open-minded. But I do have anger for how they died. Now my goal is to make their name bigger.”

Zaré said he is already looking for sites for a restaurant in San Francisco.

“I’m leaving with a positive attitude,” he said. “I have the best memories of Napa. I’ve met wonderful people. Now, it’s time to get my passion back.”

Zaré said many his Napa patrons have already told him they plan to come to his opening night in San Francisco. “I’m leaving many loved ones behind,” he said. “I send big hugs and big love to everyone one.” He added that anyone who wishes to be on the mailing list for an invitation to the opening of the new Zaré in San Francisco, should contact him a hzare@yahoo.com.