San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
LOOKING FORWARD TO A BETTER 2021
Datebook: Letters to the new year ask for hope, healing and new beginnings.
Food + Wine: Here are a dozen things that came out of a miserable 2020 for the restaurant industry that we hope to see more of in 2021.
Last year was brutal for the restaurant industry, with many establishments closing for good while others continue to fight for survival. Workers faced layoffs and furloughs. Owners turned into activists, lobbying the government for financial aid.
The lack of assistance makes optimism for the Bay Area’s restaurant scene difficult, but 2020 also showed that locals know how to adapt in a crisis — often with delicious or heartwarming results. Popups came out in full force, and food and wine once primarily accessed through restaurants became more widely available to the home cook ( and drinker, too). The unending crises prompted muchneeded conversations around race and equity, and although those are topics that were present before the George Floyd protests, last year brought fresh urgency.
So, yes, it’s hard to be hopeful but there have been some silver linings in the dumpster fire of 2020. Here are 12 unexpectedly great things to come out of the Bay Area’s food scene last year that we look forward to seeing more of in 2021.
1. The vibrancy of outdoor dining electrified public corridors.
Restaurants took much of their operations outside for safety reasons — and when the weather cooperated, the proliferation of outdoor dining was awesome. Restaurants created beautiful, charming spaces thanks to newly erected parklets, string lighting and potted plants. Even the most barebones setups added a sense of vibrancy and life to commercial corridors. It’s exciting to imagine some of these parklets becoming permanent fixtures and outdoor dining turning into the preferred option, especially in the Bay Area’s warmest cities.
2. More popups brought compelling, creative new food options.
Some of the year’s most thrilling eats in the Bay Area came from new popups helmed by chefs who lost their stable restaurant jobs during the pandemic and started cooking the food they love — and food that might have seemed too risky to build an entire restaurant concept around. Consider the creamy laksa from Dabao Singapore, the spicysoursalty Isaanstyle Thai fare from Intuon or the dazzling Basque cheesecakes from Basuku — the local food scene is much more exciting with these heartfelt popups in it.
3. With the popups, there was more public support for legalizing cottage foods.
Some of these great popups getting shut down by health inspectors — remember Broke Ass Cooks? — brought new attention to efforts to legalize cottage foods. While the state passed a law in 2019 allowing the sale of hot food items from private homes, each county must opt in and create its own regulatory process. Only Riverside County has the program up and running, but more counties such as Alameda County are working on it with more urgency because of the pandemic.
4. Cooking from fine dining chefs became more affordable and accessible.
Many of the Bay Area’s most expensive highend restaurants turned to takeout and meal kits during the pandemic, which made fine dining food more accessible than ever before. A memorable fourcourse dinner for four people — including a bottle of wine — from three Michelinstarred SingleThread, for example, came out to an unusually reasonable $ 200. Typically, a meal there costs more than $ 300 for one person. 5. Restaurants innovated by selling food as ministores. Many restaurants merged with retail during the pandemic, with some temporarily turning into fullon markets. It’s fun to envision a future where some of these hybrid models are permanent. That’s partially because it’s convenient to grab takeout from a restaurant and pick up flour and eggs at the same time. But these models also led to many restaurants packaging their own wonderful products, such as salad dressings from San Francisco newcomer the Anchovy Bar, jams from Oakland’s Sister and chile sauces from Chinatown favorite Mister Jiu’s.
6. Artisanal ingredients usually only available at restaurants became available for home cooks, further connecting locals with where their food comes from. the home cook, the pandemic brought unparalleled access to specialty products usually reserved for restaurants. Wholesale distributors like Four Star Seafood and ranches such as Liberty Ducks began selling directly to consumers for the first time, while farms like Dirty Girl Produce launched new farmbox subscriptions. For safety reasons, most of these options also became available for home delivery. Not only did that bring culinary exploration home, it further minimized the distance between consumers and the producers of food — a relationship that could continue beyond the pandemic.
7. More businesses and restaurateurs grappled with their role in building an equal society. Race and equity became prominent topics in the Bay Area restaurant world during 2020’ s racial reckoning. Workers took to Instagram to allege racism at businesses like Boba Guys, leading to tough conversations and promises for change in some cases. Meanwhile, fine dining chef David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos dropped out of the running for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef award a month before the announcement of the winners, citing how the industry was rampant with racial and gender inequality, among other things. The foundation would later cancel its annual award announcements amid its own concerns about a lack of diversity among nominees.
8. With more publicity around the problems with delivery apps, government officials took some action and more restaurants found alternatives. Delivery apps became fixtures of dining during the pandemic, but the situation also brought
more awareness to problems in the relationships restaurants have with platforms like Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash, Caviar and Postmates; in turn, some restaurants started their own delivery services. Since the start of the pandemic, multiple Bay Area cities have capped delivery app commission fees at 15%; both Grubhub and DoorDash have been at the center of controversies around listing businesses without consent as well as violating the 15% cap; and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that requires delivery companies to have an agreement in place with a restaurant before they can take their food to customers.
9. The Bay Area vegan fastfood market exploded with new activity.
In 2020 alone, popular operations like Souley Vegan, Vegan Mob and Amy’s Drive Thru, which is vegetarian but allows for all of its menu items to be ordered as vegan — opened multiple outposts in the Bay Area, despite the rest of the industry struggling to survive. Layered within the vegan fastfood trend is a rise in such businesses owned by minorities, including Malibu’s Burgers, a Blackowned former food truck venture that opened a new restaurant in Oakland this year.
10. Exclusive wine bottles and togo craft cocktails became more available.
A new alcohol market came to life as restaurants and bars looking to generate revenue began selling their prized wine collections and innovated to figure out craft cocktails for takeout. They were given a boost by California’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which temporarily relaxed certain regulations, allowing all restaurants to sell wine as retail purchases even if their liquor licenses hadn’t previously permitted it. This allowed Manresa in Los Gatos to sell over $ 50,000 worth of collectible wine between March and April. Meanwhile, the department also made it possible for restaurants and bars to sell cocktails as long as they’re with takeout or delivery food orders.
11. Restaurants served the people in a whole new way.
Many restaurants started cooking meals for homebound older adults, lowincome residents and others needing assistance during the pandemic, thanks to grants and partnerships with local nonprofits. Some worked together to bring SF New Deal to life, while others solicited donations to feed hospital workers. It was touching to see the restaurant industry connect to their communities in new ways and spring into action at a time when restaurants desperately needed aid, too.
12. Chefs innovated by collaborating with each other.
As the pandemic exposed flaws in the traditional restaurant model, some started experimenting with alternative ways to operate. Chefs and workers increasingly turned to one another for support, resulting in exciting food hubs and other collaborative spaces that they hope will outlast the pandemic. The Hidden Cafe in Berkeley, for example, hires chefs as parttime employees so they can legally host regular popups. Merkado in San Francisco, meanwhile, sees three different restaurants sharing the space so they all have a better chance of thriving.
Janelle Bitker and Justin Phillips are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: janelle. bitker@ sfchronicle. com and jphillips@ sfchronicle. com. Twitter: @ janellebitker and @ JustMrPhillips