Restaurant Week gives Sonoma County eateries a timely boost after a slow January amid pandemic

Rojo Bautista had to raise his voice to be heard over the hubbub of the lunch rush Tuesday afternoon at Warike Restobar in Santa Rosa.

“Last night was packed — we’re breaking our own records,” said Bautista, a bartender at the new eatery on 4th Street, which specializes in Peruvian and Latin cuisine — and killer cocktails. “We’re expecting to be super-busy through Restaurant Week.”

A felicitous blend of events is giving area restaurants a welcome lift nearing the two-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic, which has landed one its stiffest economic blows on the local restaurant scene and the wider hospitality industry.

The county’s 30-day ban on large indoor gatherings, issued Jan. 12, kept customers away from eateries in droves, according to restaurateurs. But it expired Feb. 10, just in time for the weekend preceding Valentine’s Day, which this year fell on a Monday.

That momentum, restaurateurs fervently hope, will be sustained and possibly accelerated by Sonoma County’s annual Restaurant Week, from Feb. 21-27, an annual program planned and executed by the county’s Economic Development Board. Nearly 80 establishments are participating in the promotion, a kind of nudge and enticement for diners to get out and expand their horizons — to explore the region’s world-class array of epicurean opportunities, at prices that won’t dent their budgets.

Participants in the program range from upscale eateries — including Healdsburg’s Valette, Spoonbar and Dry Creek Kitchen; and John Ash & Co. in Santa Rosa — to coffee houses, brew pubs and bakeries. Chefs prepare prix fixe, or preset, lunch and dinner menus, ranging from $55 to $25, that is available only this week.

“It’s a preset menu, so you pay 35 bucks, and we pick out our most popular dishes,” said Bautista, at the Warike Restobar.

The arrival of Restaurant Week — at a time of record inflation — is serendipitous for customers, too, said Sonoma Tourism CEO Claudia Vecchio.

“It’s nice that people are able to celebrate and enjoy the county’s incredible culinary expertise — at prices that are pretty wallet-friendly,” she said.

Asked Tuesday afternoon if he was noticing increased traffic, due to Restaurant Week, Eric Zahra replied, “We don’t know yet.”

Zahra is the general manager of Sebastopol’s Blue Ridge Kitchen, which definitely had a busier-than-usual Monday. Whether that traffic resulted from restaurant week, or Monday being a holiday for many people, Zahra couldn’t tell.

Of 110 dinners served Monday night, he recalled, around 10 were people taking advantage of the Restaurant Week prix fixe smoked tomato soup, wood-grilled mahi-mahi with grilled artichokes and lavender panna cotta.

“Not a huge amount, he allowed, “but that’s probably 10 people who wouldn’t have otherwise come. So it definitely makes a difference.”

Offering such dazzling fare at bargain prices is “definitely a tradeoff,” Zahra acknowledged. Yes, they make less, per meal, in a business with margins are already skin tight.

On the other hand, Restaurant Week attracts diners who wouldn’t normally set foot in the place. “The hope is, they’ll enjoy themselves, and come back to experience us on a regular basis.”

Seven miles north and east, Forestville’s highly regarded Canneti Roadhouse Italiana is also taking part in Restaurant Week, even though its chef and owner, the voluble Francesco Torre, is not usually a discount, bargain kind of guy.

“We’re not a restaurant for coupons,” he declared. When he opened the place nearly a decade ago, he participated in different promotions. In the end, he said, “it felt like we were working for free, which we can’t do. This is a business.

“This isn’t Healdsburg, it’s not Sebastopol. We’re out here in Forestville. There’s no such thing as walk-in traffic. Someone comes in here, they sit down, have a good meal, they pay the price we have. If they bring a bottle of wine, they pay corkage” — except on corkage-free Wednesdays, or unless they are the leader of the free world.

“I would not charge President Biden a corkage fee,” Torre added, “because he helped small businesses like us during the pandemic. He helped us a lot.”

Why participate in Restaurant Week, in that case? Why offer a $35, three course dinner — highlighted by crispy-skin young rooster atop fresh corkscrew pasta, or Tuscan pork shoulder preserved in olive oil — that doesn’t make much money for the restaurant?

“I participate in Restaurant Week for one reason only,” he replied. “It gives my staff decent tips in the winter.”

The boost in business from Valentine’s week into Restaurant Week, he said, provides his servers with added gratuities that can help them get through an otherwise lean time of the year for the hospitality industry.

After reflecting on the matter a few more moments, Torre discerned another upside to Restaurant Week. If 2,000 people come through his establishment, a small fraction who’d never eaten there before, “They’ll see a new place,” he said.

The newcomers might notice the beautiful backyard garden and patio. “It’s very romantic,” he noted, and complete with its own bar and grill.

“And they’ll want to come back.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.