How Petaluma can eat its way through a quartantine

The local food events that have canceled are too many to list, but if you have tickets to any, you have likely received the announcements by now. For those still scheduled, check the event’s social media page.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants are scrambling to do what they can to not only keep their doors open, but also to service their regular customers as best they can.

Petaluma restaurants are doing what they can during these trying times, including offering curbside service, free delivery or even temporarily laying off workers so that they can file for unemployment immediately.

This is the time to reach out to friends, family and neighbors in order to offer help. To support local restaurants and businesses, consider ordering take-out or delivery, buy gift cards for later, and consider the small guys before shopping the big non-local retailers.

Finally, understand the hard decisions that businesses have to make, along with their sacrifices. Instead of getting frustrated, try to be understanding and as soon as the dust settles, get out there and support your favorites.

Temporary closures

Aqus Cafe has decided to close down for the foreseeable future, in an effort to safeguard the community. Another huge disappointment was the announcement that Whisper Sisters is suspending operations for the time being.

Other recently announced closures include the Tea Room, Fourth & Sea, What a Chicken, Speakeasy, Traxx and Seared.

Check the restaurant status list in the Petaluma Foodies group on Facebook for the latest information.

Curbside

By the time of this printing, restaurants may have either voluntarily or been ordered to cease with dine-in.

McNear’s is one of the leaders in our community and was one of the first to announce that they were offering curbside pick-ups, which considering the normal parking situation in that area, is something I would love to see continue into the future.

Other west side restaurants offering curbside delivery are Bagel Mill, Boulevard Café, Butcher Crown Roadhouse, Charley’s Wine Country Deli, Hallie’s, Kabuki, Lombardi’s, Lunchette, Maguire’s Pub, Petaluma Pie, Pho Sonoma, Quinua, Ray’s, Risibisi, Rosen’s 256 North, Sake 107, The Shuckery, Stockhome, and Sugo, Wicked Slush, Vopli’s, Wild Goat Bistro, and Wine or Lose.

The east side is doing its part with plenty of dine-out options, including Palm’s, Sonoma Sourdough, Flamez, Don Pancho’s, Pongo’s, and Alfredo’s, which may be offering free delivery. What a great time to try Alfredo’s great Italian food, delivery directly to your home. About as far east as you can get, Two Niner Diner will also be offering curbside pick-up.

Although we love their back patio, we are likely to restrict our enjoyment of Pub Republic’s excellent food through their curbside food delivery service. Los Reyes Taqueira has also announced curbside delivery.

On the north end of town, Roy’s has no curb, so instead is offering gravel-side delivery. Just over the freeway, Beyond the Glory started off by offering curbside pickups but has expanded to offer free delivery throughout the city limits if you met a minimum order requirement, which is not hard to do with all their great menu items.

Anna’s Seafood started offering delivery a couple of weeks ago, so you can now either have your order brought to your car or your home.

A bit farther north, Applebee’s will bring food to your car, as will Twin Oaks up in Penngrove. And while up there, Penngrove Market is open for business, with plenty of essentials still stocking their shelves, as well as fresh-made pizzas and other deli items. And across the street, you can pick up food from the Grateful Greek. The friendly staff at Washoe House is also ready to delivery to your car.

We have word that Estero Café and Dinucci’s in Valley Ford will remain open with curbside pickup, as will Osteria Stellina, which is a real hidden gem of an Italian place out in Point Reyes Station and Ginochio’s Kitchen, offering killer BBQ out in Bodega Bay, both of which make for a great country drive.

Coffee shops

Acre, Petaluma Coffee and Tea and Starbucks are offering curbside delivery. Hats off to Starbucks, which actually pulled all their tables in at least their downtown location so as to discourage close-quarters congregations.

Beer, wine, spirits

Tasting Rooms have all closed up for visitors but are still offering to-go, pick-up options. These tasting rooms include Adobe Road Winery, HenHouse Brewing and Barber Cellars. Griffo is offering curbside bottle and mixer pick-ups. Just honk or text when you arrive and they will bring out your order.

A couple of wildcards, LaLa’s Jam Bar, which offers a lot of great local specialties, like Petaluma Toffee, and Sedition Brews are both offering free delivery.

Grocery stores

Grocery stores are likely going to remain accessible and several of ours also offer restaurant quality food in their hot bar area. Penngrove Market has a great pizza oven that helps them make some excellent hot dishes, including roasted chicken. Petaluma Market has unfortunately suspended its hot bar. Other smaller grocers include Charley’s and Ray’s.

Meal delivery

Of course, meal delivery is already available for many commercial services, but our favorite is the locally owned and operated Petaluma Food Taxi. Unlike most of the others, which stick the restaurants with much of the costs, Petaluma Food Taxi works directly with local owners to make sure their pricing scheme works for both customers and the restaurants. All we ever hear are great things about Petaluma Food Taxi, including that they are working to maximize sanitation when picking up and delivering your food.

Speaking of food delivery, the main concern here is not contamination of your food, but instead, it is the risk associated with the person to person contact normally involved. You can shout your appreciation through the door and most services allow for tipping over the phone/online, so for the safety of your delivery person, who is putting themselves at risk by visiting so many people in one day, both at the restaurants and at our homes, request to have your food dropped off outside your closed door instead of taking delivery by hand.

Cooking at home

Jennifer Reichardt, founder/winemaker at Raft Wines and CEO of Liberty Duck points out that ranchers and farmers are also going to be hit pretty hard by the slowing restaurant business. Along those lines, Jennifer announced that she’d be more than happy to “make a duck delivery to a car, or drive orders around locally.” Offering whole ducks, or breasts and/or legs, you can place your orders at www.libertyducks.com.

For those looking to do a bit of home baking, Keith Guisto Bakery Supply has announced that although their March classes have been postponed, you can still place orders for KGBS’s great baking supplies.

To place an order of flour and grains for home delivery, visit centralmilling.com/store. I hear that you can also order for curbside pick-up but call them for more details on that.

Doing our part

If we vigilantly hunker down for the next two weeks, we should be able to nip this thing in the bud before we get anywhere near running out of toilet paper.

John Crowley of Aqus makes a great point in a YouTube video that this is a good opportunity to learn who your neighbors are and make sure that you are all looking out for each other. I encourage you all to do what you can to support our local food and drink makers. We are all likely going to have to tighten our belts a bit, but where and when we can, we need to support those local businesses that are open and available to help, and once things are back to normal, we are going to really need to step up to the plate for those that have been forced to close temporarily or else some of our favorite local restaurants and bars are sure to close.

Many restaurants have not yet fully recovered from three years’ worth of lackluster sales due to fires and the ensuing slowdown in tourist dollars. A single bad month could easily sink them and here we are on the edge of what might be their worst month or two ever.