Downtown Modesto restaurant closes 6 months after its grand opening. What happened?
A downtown Modesto restaurant and nightclub was open for six months before a disagreement between its partners caused the business to shutter.
Carlos Carmona and Les Knoll decided to part ways in January when they realized they had different approaches to running their business, Slides Restaurant & Lounge.
“Things were going well, but I just couldn’t run the business the way he does,” Carmona said.
He and Knoll became friends when they both owned bars in Stockton, and the idea to form a business partnership came after Knoll visited Carmona’s Manteca location of Slides.
“He loved the concept and he’s like, ‘This would be amazing at The Goat,’” Carmona told the Bee in a June 2024 interview. Knoll was one of four owners of The Goat Bar & Grill before it also went out of business before its one-year anniversary.
Slides — at the corner of 10th and J streets — was sold to a couple of DJs whom Carmona had worked with, he said. It will be reopened as a place called Paloma.
The opening of Paloma will mark the fourth business the building has housed in less than two years. Ralston’s Goat was sold in July 2023 and reopened as The Goat Bar & Grill, which shuttered in early 2024 and reopened as Slides Restaurant & Lounge in June of the same year.
Carmona turned Slides Manteca into a sports bar called Liquid Fun. It has daily events, including taco Tuesdays and karaoke Thursdays, two pool tables, dartboards and multiple large-screen HD TVs broadcasting live games.
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