These Stanislaus restaurants followed COVID-19 rules. What indoor dining means to them
For restaurant owners who have been patiently following the rules and not allowing indoor dining through the latest pandemic shutdowns, this week’s reopening news in Stanislaus County came as both a relief and a reward for their vigilance.
As the county reentered the red tier for its COVID-19 outbreak level, restrictions have loosened and restaurants are allowed to reopen indoor in-person service with a 25% capacity limit.
But since the stay-at-home order that was issued last November, compliance for the in-restaurant eating ban in the county has been spotty at best. Many restaurant owners chose to defy the health orders, and continued to serve inside.
Those who stuck it out said they did so for the health of the community, and their employees and families, health. Now that in-restaurant dining is back, some are also reaping the rewards of loyal, thankful customers returning.
“It’s been overwhelming, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing off the hook on Tuesday afternoon (when the county’s red-tier status was announced). Our long-term older customers were very excited,” said Smoky’s Neighborhood Grill owner Mike Nelson. “I just wanted to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. I wanted to always do the right thing and get past this the right way, the legal way. And I wanted, hopefully, to be able to protect my employees and customers.”
Compliant restaurants pivoted back to takeout, family meals
Smoky’s off Bangs Avenue has been offering takeout only, and restarted its family-size dinner meal options while in-restaurant dining was closed. Pivoting to takeout or relying on outside dining has been the lifeblood for compliant restaurants in the region.
Like Smoky’s, downtown Modesto’s Tokyo Express had only been offering takeout. Owner George Chen said the relatively small size of his business, with just four or five tables available at 25% capacity, has made shutting down inside dining easier. Still customers have been eager for him to reopen, especially as neighboring restaurants defied rules and opened their doors.
“Some of the customers, they understand and they’re okay with it,” Chen said. “In the last few weeks, they saw a lot of restaurants that were open and they were anxious for us to reopen.”
Across the street from Chen’s restaurant, Taqueria Cardenas has been diligent about following the rules and didn’t even have its indoor tables set up on Tuesday when the county changed tiers. Husband-and-wife owners Luis and Rosalia Cardenas said it’s been difficult watching customers walk out after being told they can’t dine inside.
“I need the customer inside, people were coming in saying I needed to open. And I need it to start to pay the rent,” Luis Cardenas said. But they offered only takeout until Wednesday, when they reopened their inside dining.
He said seeing restaurants all around him serve indoors has been confusing. Others have found it frustrating to watch fellow restaurateurs decide to reopen in defiance of the health orders.
Frustration, understanding about restaurants that defied rules
“We want to open up the doors as much as everyone else does, we want to raise the revenue as much as everyone else does, but we’re following the rules,” said Thai House’s Malay Boutdy, the daughter of the Tully Road restaurant’s owners.
Thai House has been a staple in Modesto for 19 years, and has been open only for takeout through much of the pandemic, offering “maybe a total of two weeks” of outdoor dining, Boutdy said.
Boutdy said the tier change was so abrupt the restaurant wasn’t prepared for it, so they’re planning on opening their indoor dining next Tuesday.
They’ve been following the rules strictly since the beginning of the pandemic. Boutdy has a medical background herself, and her parents and aunt are high-risk, so she said it was important that they didn’t risk anyone to exposure.
Boutdy said she wishes small business owners could have gotten more funding or leniency from their landlords to support them through the pandemic, or advocated together as a group for such benefits.
Instead, she said, everyone was “out for themselves,” which led other businesses to approach the rules in a more lax manner.
“If there’s a gray area (they’re) not going to follow the rules” she said. “They’re doing what they have to do to survive. Everyone should step back a little bit to see what we can do as a community to get back to ‘normal.’”
Customer loyalty has been key to takeout restaurant survival
Enforcement and incentive for following the regulations should come from local officials, she said, adding that “no one should be getting in trouble for their actions, they’re just trying to survive.”
Like Boutdy, other owners said while it has been difficult to watch other establishments flaunt the rules, they don’t necessarily condemn those businesses.
“I just stay in my lane. It’s not my place to judge. Everyone does it for a different reason. I am glad I never had to contemplate that to survive. It’s hard,” said Patricia Ashman, owner of Willie’s Pizza & Wings in Turlock. The East Canal Drive restaurant has been offering takeout and outdoor dining in its new patio structure during the in-person shutdown.
In Denair, Sonia Odicho and her husband Tony Asmar have been running Oasis Grill since 2008. Odicho said they’ve been doing takeout only since April, and will continue to do so even as Stanislaus goes back into the red tier.
Odicho said her dining area is too small to make it worthwhile to open with only 25% capacity, but she’s seen a steady stream of customers during the pandemic. Her business has benefited from word of mouth advertising on Turlock To Go, a local Facebook group where people and restaurants can post recommendations and advertise their businesses.
Additionally, Odicho has had a loyal customer base to support her and the decision to stick with takeout.
“They all understand and they appreciate that we stayed open for them,” she said.
Odicho said she’s waiting to open up her dining area until she can do so at full capacity. She understands other owners’ urge to open now, but she wants to do so only “in a safe way.”
The pandemic has taught Odicho to be resilient, she said, and just how many people appreciate Oasis Grill and its owners.
“I didn’t know what I meant to a lot of people until the (pandemic) and Turlock To Go came,” she said. “This is what kept us going.”
This story was produced with financial support from the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
To help fund The Bee’s economic development and children’s health reporters with Report for America, go to https://bit.ly/ModestoBeeRFA
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 9:25 AM.
