Downtown Santa Rosa revs up for outdoor dining

Neither rain nor chilly temperatures were going to keep Crystal Olivarez from her beloved happy hour at Mary’s Pizza Shack overlooking Old Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa.

Following the statewide restaurant shutdown due to spiking cases of COVID-19, the 29-year-old Olivarez and her three children had endured more than six weeks of DoorDash happy hours at home. The kids longed for Mary’s pesto breadsticks; their momma wanted her favorite Blue Moon with two oranges.

So when Mary’s reopened outdoor dining Wednesday, the Olivarez family was all over it.

“The kids got done with their Zooms today and I really needed a cocktail,” said Crystal, who lives with her children a few blocks from the square. “It was horrible when all of our favorite places were closed, and it feels great to be back here enjoying happy hour like we always used to.”

The Olivarez family aren’t the only locals sitting around a red-and-white-checkerboard tablecloth and getting back to the local restaurant scene; across the county, residents are heading out to dine outdoors and support local restaurants as the businesses try to recover from nearly eight weeks of industry shutdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

In downtown Santa Rosa, many businesses snapped into action to reopen outdoor dining areas after Gov. Gavin Newsom ended the shutdown Jan. 25.

The flurry of activity in front of downtown restaurants has changed the vibe completely from the way it had been since Thanksgiving. For weeks, the neighborhood was a veritable ghost town. In the past few days, nights are lively again, with chatter, music, the clinking and clanking of dishware, and more.

Cadance Hinkle Allinson, executive director of Santa Rosa Downtown District, said the change is good.

“This year has been incredibly hard for our downtown restaurants, and their flexibility, creativity and passion has helped many survive,” she said. “It's fantastic that they're able to operate outdoors again as many have invested heavily in creating safe, comfortable outdoor dining spaces and are eager to welcome back their customers and get their employees back to work.”

As Allinson suggested, Mary’s certainly wasn’t the only downtown business to reopen al fresco dining. A rudimentary count across downtown revealed nearly two-dozen restaurants that had seemingly functional outdoor dining spaces by the middle of this past week.

Those that haven’t restarted outdoor dining already likely will by Valentine’s Day, restaurateurs said.

In Railroad Square, Jackson’s Bar and Oven reopened its 36-seat street-side dining area Wednesday.

Reopening wasn’t without drama; owner Josh Silvers spent $800 on a tent to protect the dining area from the elements, but the tent blew away during heavy winds in late January. The restaurant subsequently has purchased a new tent and welcomed modest numbers of guests back again on Wednesday night.

Silvers described the reintroduction as bittersweet, noting that while people in seats is more lucrative than takeout only, both pale in comparison to the norm of turning covers inside the two-story restaurant.

“For us, during the first round of outdoor dining, we were doing about 50 to 60% of what our normal take would be most nights — it was not great, but we made it work,” said Silvers. “When we scaled back to takeout only, we were earning maybe 10%, if that. For us, outdoor dining really is a matter of losing less money. At the end of the day, we just desperately want to be inside.”

Around the corner, closer to the railroad tracks, Grossman’s Noshery & Bar reopened its outdoor operations on Thursday, and customers were excited to sink their teeth into freshly baked bagels, potato pancakes and other Jewish delicacies.

Back during the first round of outdoor eating — last fall, to be more precise — Grossman’s had erected an artificial turf-floored outdoor dining area on the south side of the restaurant. The space boasted 10 picnic tables, each positioned more than 10 feet apart, and each with a giant canopy to keep out the broiling afternoon sun. The space has ample heaters, too.

Brendan McGuigan, a Grossman’s fanatic and regular customer, described the setup as “great,” and was there on Thursday.

“They had good sun protection, good distancing, one side for an entrance, and one side for an exit,” said McGuigan on Wednesday as he anticipated the opening. He added that the kreplach are a favorite of his 6-year-old son, Orson. “It was just a fun space they created out of nothing back there.”

Grossman’s was the first of the Stark Reality Restaurants to reopen to the public and over the course of the week all six of the company’s other properties have reopened for outdoor dining in some capacity. Stark co-owner Terri Stark echoed Silvers when she said that while outdoor dining is manageable, she and her employees really want to get back to cooking and serving meals indoors.

Stark also admitted that the most challenging aspect of enduring these shutdowns has been managing employees and employee expectations.

“Laying off most of our employees was by far the hardest part,” she said. “They have been living a yo-yo existence since March 2020. Thankfully, now that we have outdoor (dining areas) open we are hiring back everyone who is available and wants to come back.”

Managing expectations also has been a challenge for Natalie Cilurzo, co-owner of Russian River Brewing Company, which operates a taproom downtown and a restaurant at a giant brewery facility in Windsor.

Despite record-setting sales of this year’s iteration of Pliny the Younger, Cilurzo said Russian River hasn’t yet reopened either pub for outdoor dining for a few reasons. First, she said, this is the company’s slowest time of year and the winter weather has been less than ideal for sitting outside. Second, the company invested $20,000 in a one-sided tent that is (finally) being installed outside the downtown location later this month.

She added that Pliny sales also have management concerned about social distancing— even outside.

“We are concerned that if we are open in any capacity some people will assume (that) we have Younger available, which is not the case this year,” Cilurzo wrote in a recent email. “We decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to stay closed a little longer.”

Ultimately, outdoor dining at both Russian River locations likely will reopen around Valentine’s Day, Cilurzo said. Because nothing says “I love you” like a local brew.