Marin restaurateurs hope normal times are coming
Return of partial indoor dining brightens outlook of owners
Marin County restaurant owners are hopeful that the latest revival of indoor dining this week will endure until the coronavirus pandemic is over.
“It’s been rough but now hopefully we’ll go back to normal soon,” said Gabriela Vieyra, owner of the LaVier Latin Fusion restaurant in San Rafael.
Restaurateurs like Vieyra have had to do without indoor dining since November, when a surge in coronavirus cases prompted the county to prohibit indoor seating after it was reopened in September. A ban on outdoor dining followed in early December before lifting in late January. Marin restaurants were allowed to resume 25% of their indoor seating capacity on Wednesday after the county was downgraded to the second-most restrictive tier under California’s economic recovery plan. Three other counties were also moved out of the state’s most restrictive tier.
The change came after coronavirus infections began to decline from the winter surge. Marin is reporting a weekly average of about 22 new cases per day, down from an average of about 51 daily cases one month ago.
Vieyra and others are hopeful the downward trend in cases combined with the rollout of vaccinations will make indoor dining the new normal.
“We have reservations already made and people are very excited,” she said.
David Ruiz opened his Fairfax restaurant Stillwater in June when restaurants were limited to takeout only. He said he and his wife are lucky considering they’ve never been able to fully open. Marin County has not allowed more than 50% indoor seating since the pandemic hit in March.
“It’s been bizarre,” he said. “We joke it’s like the longest soft-opening you can ever imagine — the longest and scariest.”
Ruiz said he would be able to seat around 25 people inside, but likely will seat fewer for health safety reasons. After months of take
out orders and serving customers outdoors, Ruiz said he and his employees have become accustomed to the inside of the restaurant being more of an operations hub and staging ground than a place where people eat.
“To have people in our zone is weird,” Ruiz said with a laugh. “You have to get used to it.”
The minute Abe Hamami learned indoor dining would resume, he and his staff at Grazie Restaurant in Novato sanitized and cleaned the place in anticipation for Wednesday. Back in June, when the county briefly allowed for indoor dining before banning it just a week later, Hamami decided not to serve customers indoors anyway because of health concerns. But Hamami said much has changed since then.
“This time I noticed, and from the decision from the health professionals, the number of cases is going down,” he said. “And the people who have the disease are in the hospitals, so that encouraged me to open inside this time.”
The reopening was just in time, he said. While his restaurant and others received strong support from the community in the first several months of the pandemic with takeout orders, people became fatigued with takeout by the time of the winter closures.
“It was hard for people to live on to-go orders,” Hamami said. “We were going through a tough time and we are lucky we opened now at the right time. Otherwise, we will lose more businesses in the area.”
While the revival of outdoor dining in late January has helped restaurants, the cold weather deterred the nighttime crowds that usually would frequent the Joinery beer hall and rotisserie in Sausalito.
“Now with indoor opening up, we’re able to get more of a dinner crowd,” said Joinery general manager Jeff Hanmer. “A lot of excited people are coming out to dine again. There’s a lot of buzz going around for the reopening of indoor dining.”
Whether indoor dining is here to stay could depend on whether residents and visitors continue to adhere to public health safety measures and receive their vaccinations. After so many closures and reopenings this past year, Ruiz said he no longer has expectations.
“We came to the realization that we just take things how they are,” he said. “We don’t expect things to evolve. We wait and we adapt.”