Outdoor restaurant service transforming Petaluma waterfront

Marisa Gomes is a server at Seared, a restaurant in downtown Petaluma. Walking from her station of tables back to the kitchen Thursday night she stopped to let a white Tesla drive by.

For the last month, this steak and seafood establishment backing onto Water Street, just south of the Washington Street Bridge, has been open for outdoor dining only — about 20 tables set up on cobblestones, overlooking the river.

This new wrinkle has complicated things for the staff. In addition to much longer roundtrips to the bar and kitchen, Gomes has to deal with those cobblestones — “which can be tricky, when you’re carrying martinis,” she said — plus railroad tracks, not to mention traffic on Water Street.

“It’s like an obstacle course,” Gomes said. And how does she feel about working in these conditions?

“I’m really happy we’re able to be open,” she said. “Look how gorgeous a night it is. We’re lucky to be out here.”

Her gaze took in the outdoor dining areas of Seared and its waterfront neighbors to the south: Risibisi, Cucina Paradiso and the Water Street Bistro, just across from the bowstring trusses of the Balshaw Pedestrian Bridge. Precious square feet once used for parking had been repurposed — with the city’s assistance — into added space for extra tables. Flames from patio heaters bathed the area in golden light that reflected off the river.

That glow, and the chatter and laughter of diners, is an unexpected dividend of the coronavirus. While there was no mistaking that sluggish waterway with the Seine, the surge in outdoor dining has transformed this stretch of Petaluma’s waterfront into something more cosmopolitan, more European.

“It’s like Italy,” said Dale Richardson, after lunch Friday at Cucina Paradiso. “It’s beautiful.”

With the pandemic disease still spreading in Sonoma County, restaurants remain limited to outdoor food and beverage service, taking their core indoor business off the table. Petaluma joined Santa Rosa, Sonoma and Healdsburg in clearing the way for restaurateurs to set up outdoors to stay open.

The revitalization of this cobblestoned corridor coincides with the start of the long overdue dredging of the Petaluma River, which began Sept. 5. That $10 million project will remove the mudflats that have clogged the river’s downtown corridor and forced repeated cancellations of beloved traditions like the holiday Lighted Boat Parade and the Petaluma Yacht Club’s Memorial Day regatta.

While Petaluma officials have been trying for over a decade to restore the luster of the waterfront, said Nancy Sands, the city’s economic development specialist, “sometimes it takes a business need and a community need” to reach that goal.

To help restaurants and storefronts weather the pandemic, Petaluma unveiled in May its so-called free range permitting program. The brainchild of city manager Peggy Flynn, that program fast-tracks permit applications to help businesses expand onto sidewalks and parking spaces while public health orders related to COVID-19 restrict their ability to operate indoors.

Petaluma has issued 45 free range permits, and not only to restaurants. In addition to transforming the waterfront, the program has helped stabilize the health of numerous businesses.

With its 22 outdoor tables, Cucina Paradiso is bringing in about 60% of the business it did in prepandemic times, said Malena Hipolito, who owns the business with her husband, Dennis Hernandez. But the restaurant has been able to hire back its full staff of 29 people — all of whom, incidentally, are working much harder than they did before the pandemic.

All those tables and umbrellas and serving stations have to be set up in time for the lunch rush, she pointed out, then carried back inside each night.

It’s like setting up and breaking down a separate restaurant, every day, Risibisi owner Marco Palmieri said.

Servers have much longer trips from customers’ tables back to the bar, or kitchen. At Seared, Gomes is logging 7 or 8 miles per shift, she said.

Risibisi general manager and headwaiter Jacob Gamba, who keeps track of his steps with his Apple watch, said that he and his fellow servers averaged 8 to 10 miles per shift. His personal high: 12 miles.

The Free Range program can’t help everyone. Central Market, just south of the Water Street Bistro, has no parking spaces to annex, as it were, and is surrounded on other sides by benches and bike racks.

That hasn’t kept it from opening a patio space of a dozen tables, on the north side of the restaurant, where there is no barrier between diners and pedestrians, which can be problematic.

“Sometimes, you’ll have a kid come skateboarding through,” said Sarah Martin, a senior server and manager at the restaurant.

Despite those drawbacks, Central Market’s regulars are delighted to be back, she said — and hopeful the restaurant will make outdoor dining a permanent option. “There’s been a clamor to keep it available throughout the year.”

The city’s been trying for a long time to upgrade and beautify the waterfront, said Petaluma’s Suzanne Cunha, while she and friend waited to be seated at Cucina Paradiso on Friday.

“Maybe COVID is the time they’ll finally make it happen.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.