Santa Rosa woman’s longtime home eatery shut down by health department

Right now is the pinnacle of the harvest and Salome Arenas’ garden at her Moorland Avenue home in Santa Rosa has a bumper crop of tomatoes.

They — like all the fruits and vegetables Juan Carlos Arenas said his mother lovingly tends and uses in her delicious dishes are at the peak of their ripeness. But, despite this year’s bounty, it’s a rather sad time, he said, because the host of people who have previously enjoyed his mother’s food will no longer be able to do so.

Up until a few weeks ago, Salome Arenas, 68, was serving homemade food — breakfasts — to family and friends she hosted at her table every weekend. She’d been feeding people in Santa Rosa, she said, for 30 years. Juan Carlos Arenas, 44, estimates she’s fed thousands.

The money people paid in return, helped Salome cover materials and supplement her family’s income – paid bills, bought food and provided for her five children.

But all of that is now over.

Christine Sosko, director of Environmental Health at Sonoma County said, “We received a complaint from the neighbor — at least I think it's a neighbor — somebody in the area, alleging that she was preparing and selling food out of her home, and that there was heavy traffic and some other concerns.”

When county health inspectors asked Salome Arenas if she was running a business, Soska said Arenas, who speaks only Spanish, said, “No.”

“No es un negocio,” she said — it’s not a business, it’s more like going to your grandmother's house. People would come over, hearing about her food mostly through word of mouth, she added.

Health inspectors did not agree. And in early September, Salome Arenas received a letter from the county, telling her she could no longer sell food from her home.

The money, she said, earned from her weekend breakfasts helped put two children through school and helped the family hold onto their Moorland Avenue home during the financial crisis in 2008.

It’s really a story about achieving the American Dream, Juan Carlos Arenas said. He told The Press Democrat, “You have to know somebody in here to come.” And likened the eatery to a wine club.

Sonoma County officials don’t see it that way. In this county, they said, people can’t cook and sell food from their homes.

That’s in spite of measures signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2018 and 2019.

According to Assembly Bills 626 and 377, counties can elect to adopt micro-enterprise home-kitchen operations from which people may sell food from their homes, provided they follow certain rules and obtain a permit.

Sosko said Sonoma County has not adopted the program.

“You kind of have a choice without regulation. You can either choose not to adopt it, to adopt it, or where we are — we're just kind of neutral at this point. I think there are still decisions being made countywide, whether we will adopt it or not.,” Sosko said.

She did add that the county does have a number of cottage food permit options – but those don’t let residents sell food prepared and intended to be consumed at home.

Juan Carlos Arenas said he hopes the county will see the need for this kind of program and eventually adopt them.

“There is a big need for this county to take part of what the state decided was good for all of us and to open their arms to places like this.” He added, “We are ready to comply … to take their classes, we are ready to transform the kitchen into an industrial or commercial kitchen from a professional kitchen — If that's what's needed. We just need them to help us, so we can help the community.”

This was our “French Laundry,” he said of his mother’s meals.

Salome Arenas cooked traditional foods from her home state of Oaxaca, Mexico – a popular tourist destination for people looking for diverse and authentic Mexican travel experiences.

From moles to tamales, she would mostly feed people looking for a taste of home – or something near to it – in a setting that mimicked a family gathering.

With so many, more-pressing issues plaguing her neighborhood, Salome Arenas wondered, why the county choose to turn the screws on elderly woman and beloved neighborhood resource that had been feeding people for 30 years.

Sosko said when her department receives a complaint, they send out an inspector to investigate. If they see a violation is happening, they ask the person to stop. They’ll then follow up with the complainant to see if they’ve noticed anymore violations.

“So, if the complainant is saying, yes, there's still a lot of traffic, then that's when we go back and we do another site visit,” Sosko said. “We see what's going on.”

Indicators of a business still in operation would be something like sandwich board advertisements, a commercial kitchen build out or what looks like restaurant activities.

But the county and complainant won’t have to worry. Salome Arenas and her son said they’re done, the county won. His mother “won’t be nourishing her community in the ways she’s used to,” Juan Carlos Arenas said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost the entirety of southwest Santa Rosa, where Salome Arenas lives and cooked is considered lower income, with minimal access to food — a food desert.

The area is made up of “low-income census tracts where a significant number or share of residents is more than 1 mile (urban) or 10 miles (rural) from the nearest supermarket,” according to the USDA’s website.

For a few weeks, Arenas used a family member’s commercial kitchen to prep and cook food, while her son directed people from the usual house to the new location. But she couldn’t prepare the food in the traditional ways, which gave the food its distinct flavor.

“I think that's really what made it so popular– that you cannot find the kind of stuff that she cooks. It’s very different than what they have here,” Juan Carlos Arenas said. “But we're opening our arms and we're going to be teaching classes.”

This coming winter, Salome Arenas will teach people how to make tamales and her signature dish, chiles rellenos.

Her son said, “We’re not victims. The community has been very, very, very, very supportive. And they all have different ways and different ideas of how to keep this going. But, you know, it's time to… for something like this to end.”

He hopes the classes will help elevate the cuisine in the county so fellow Oaxaqueños looking for a taste of home can find some comfort.

Kathryn Styer Martínez is a reporting intern for the Press Democrat. She can be reached at kathryn.styermartinez@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5337.