The novel coronavirus pandemic dealt a staggering blow to the nation’s restaurants in 2020.
Not only were owners and chefs forced to completely shutter or limit service to take-out meals, they laid off most prep and wait staff in order to eke out a profit. Employees moved, switched careers — or hunkered down on unemployment.
Any way you look at it, the year since mid-March 2020 was a lose-lose for most restaurants.
But some proprietors and chefs spun restrictions against onsite dining and flipped sit-down restaurants into drive-up, take-out hot spots.
Take Michael Cherney, owner/chef of Solvang’s Peasants FEAST with his wife, Sarah, who also manages it. The restaurant is located at 487 Atterdag Road.
“On March 1, 2020, we signed the lease, and per the owner, were given 30 days to open; the owner didn’t want the building sitting empty,” Cherney said.
Nineteen days later, Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down California, urging residents to stay at home.
Eager to launch, the Cherneys had purchased some assets from the space’s prior tenant — “we had tables inside, and new chairs in boxes,” Cherney said. Days before March 19, he had advertised for staff.
He said the couple had refinanced their home and were poised to hit the ground running in order to open within a month. Recalling those first uncertain weeks, Cherney said: “We had to move forward.”
And so they did, opening for take-out only on April 1, 2020.
As the region’s teachers shifted from in-person to online education in a matter of days, the Cherneys did the same for their business. Within 48 hours, a good friend had crafted the Peasants FEAST website for online orders, Cherney said.
On opening day, April 1, “we were all working” — “we” being Michael, Sarah and one other employee, he said. The restaurant quickly became known as the “Peasants Feast Drive-Through,” as customers who had ordered online could drive around the back of the restaurant from Copenhagen Drive. The Cherneys would exit a door on the building’s north side and hand the order through the car’s right window.
Cherney now says that “takeout was the best thing that could have happened” in the early days of Peasants FEAST. They filled orders, focusing on locals’ favorites, such as the Solvang Hot Chicken Sandwich.
He, Sarah, and their children, Sabian, now 13, and Reina, now 12, made the restaurant their home away from home. Sarah homeschooled the children. “It was our safe zone, here,” Cherney said.
Cherney, a native of the San Fernando Valley, started his culinary career in Las Vegas before moving to the now-closed Sides Hardware and Shoes as chef, where he met Sarah, its manager, who had honed her management skills at various eateries in Southern California and the Santa Ynez Valley.
After his stints helping Cat Cora with her Mesa Burger concept, catering in Paso Robles and at Firestone in Buellton, Michael and Sarah founded Peasants FEAST as a catering company to celebrate the peasants whose farming efforts support restaurateurs.
When summer 2020 arrived and the restrictions were eased, outdoor on-site dining was re-introduced. Cautiously (for the most part), customers returned to favorite restaurants and sat at outside tables spaced at least 6 feet apart. Portable heaters kept them comfortable outside on patios.
Eateries that lacked permanent outdoor space, such as Buellton’s popular Industrial Eats, converted sections of adjacent parking lots into dining space. In Santa Barbara, the city closed several blocks of State Street to motorists, allowing restaurants to expand onto sidewalks and the street.
Per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines still in effect today, customers remained masked until they were seated at tables to eat and drink.
Most restaurants still adhere to those rules, and require guests to re-mask when away from their table, such as en route to restrooms.
As 2020 wore on, Peasants FEAST saw orders for its Solvang Hot Chicken Sandwich skyrocket, “from about three a day to 70 or 80 per day now,” Cherney said, adding that local residents kept Peasants FEAST “afloat during the thick of it” last year.
On Thursday, to celebrate his eatery’s successful first year, Cherney roasted a whole pig and offered the community free pork tacos, he said.
Peasants FEAST has grown in staff to a team of 19, which includes Sabian and Reina, Cherney noted. The outside patio, with distanced tables, seats about 50 people, and space inside can accommodate an additional 45, although when we spoke in mid-March, the inside had yet to be arranged in a socially distant format.
Current hours are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. As time passes and if the pandemic continues to wane, the Cherneys eventually will add dinner hours, he said.
While Peasants FEAST found take-out food a success, Luca Crestanelli, executive chef and owner/partner at both S.Y. Kitchen and Nella Kitchen & Bar in Santa Ynez and Los Olivos, respectively, shared that he thinks otherwise.
When we spoke March 22 outside Nella on the patio, Crestanelli called takeout a losing proposition for his eateries. “We had so much invested that we couldn’t even have broken even” if they’d relied on carry-out meals, he said.
Crestanelli and his team manage both the established S.Y. Kitchen and Nella, which had a soft opening last fall and re-opened Valentine’s Day with an expanded menu and “non-stop” hours from noon to 9 p.m. Thursday through Monday.
Nella has grown from a staff of five to 50 since its opening, and between the two sites, a “great team” of more than 100 employees clean, prepare and serve Italian at S.Y. Kitchen and California cuisine with a focus on Roman “pinsas” and small plates at Nella.
With Santa Barbara County having advanced into the less-restrictive red tier March 16, Crestanelli has already seen an influx of local residents and tourists. “It’s only been a couple of days, but people are happy to be inside again, because it’s a step toward normalcy. It’s more personal,” he said.
Crestanelli expects bright futures for both restaurants: “This is a big economy … and (at Nella) we have vacation rentals and a hotel (the Fess Parker Wine Country Inn) nearby.”
Nella can seat 100 guests on its front, back and side patios. The red tier allows restaurants to re-open indoor seating, but limits capacity to 25% of available seats.
Last summer, pre-Nella, the outdoor seating at S.Y. Kitchen “was a game changer” for the company, he noted. “Summer outside saved us, and now we’re in a better place.”
(Laurie Jervis / Noozhawk photo)
I’d agree: A good friend’s birthday is March 27. I tried to book online reservations at six restaurants in the Santa Ynez Valley. Only one had an open seating for five guests. We’ve re-embraced outside — and limited inside — dining once again.
In Santa Barbara, at the luxury Belmond El Encanto resort, chef Bruno Lopez arrived in November 2020. He relocated to Santa Barbara from the Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage, where he’d been executive chef since 2015, he said.
The El Encanto prides itself on its reputation as a getaway for guests who are mostly from Los Angeles, Lopez said. During the pandemic restrictions before and after his arrival last fall, the kitchen focused on “plates for two, or the entire family,” Lopez said.
Julia Solomon, marketing and communications manager for the hotel, described how the restaurant added “more robust menus for kids” as part of the switch toward “in-room dining in our cottages, or on their patios.”
In December, faced with yet another shutdown, “we had more time to plan our future,” she noted. As the on-site marketing employee, Solomon relishes having been “tasked to pivot” by continuing to sell the El Encanto experience to potential guests while adhering to state and county COVID-19 restrictions.
As the pandemic wanes, Lopez anticipates a renewed focus on “health, portion size and more-healthy eating, including organic and sustainable foods.”
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.