No grand opening: Why the pandemic has been extra hard on Sacramento’s new restaurants

The coronavirus pandemic has stripped Sacramento’s restaurants of their dining rooms and has many struggling to keep the lights on. For those that have yet to get their feet settled, it’s especially hard.

More than 20 restaurants have opened in Sacramento and Placer counties in the last three months, trying to carve out a place in their respective neighborhoods while handcuffed by social distancing requirements and fears of virus transmission.

“We opened in the middle of a pandemic, so people don’t know what we are and where we are and that we’re open for business,” Maydoon co-owner Idean Farid said. “Nobody really knows what Maydoon is or what kind of restaurant we are ... it’s hard to explain your story with takeout.”

Maydoon opened at 1501 16th St., Suite 111, on June 22, about a month after Farid’s father Mohammad sold M. Shahrzad Fine Persian Cuisine, the Rancho Cordova restaurant father and son ran for 17 years. Mohammad has since joined Idean in Maydoon’s kitchen, while Idean’s mother Golnar helps with front-of-house service and a network of family friends chip in support.

The Farids had initially planned to unveil Maydoon, the grid’s only Persian restaurant, with a grand opening. People could ask questions about dishes like gormeh sabzi (green stew with beef, sautéed herbs, kidney beans and dried lime served over rice) or kashkeh bodemjoon (eggplant dip made with yogurt and mint oil) while enjoying cocktails centered around pistachio or rosewater flavors. As social media posts spread of Maydoon’s food and remodeled interior, Farid thought, word about the new player in town would get around.

Shelter-in-place orders put the kibosh on those plans. Sacramento County nixed restaurant dine-in service nine days after Maydoon opened, though they’ve have added about six outdoor tables. Customers who know about Maydoon have been extremely supportive so far, Farid said, but word-of-mouth has spread slower and volume remains lower than anticipated.

“That’s probably the main struggle we’ve had, because if we were able to have a grand opening and have people come in, it’d be easier to get our name out there and have people understand the atmosphere we’re trying to create here,” Farid said. “We mainly have to focus on to-gos and hit that out of the park.”

Majka Pizzeria & Bakery

Lack of traffic isn’t the problem at Majka Pizzeria & Bakery, which opened June 27 on the ground floor of a new high-rise building at 1704 15th St. The vegetarian pizzeria makes 50 pies a day, available for pickup in 15-minute time blocks Thursday through Sunday, and had sold out by 1:30 p.m. on a recent Friday despite opening at 4 p.m.

Owners Alex Sherry and Chutharat Sae Tong met while working at Berkeley’s famous Cheese Board Pizza, and moved to Sacramento in early 2019 with their 2-year-old daughter Esmé.

In addition to being a family last name on Sherry’s paternal side, Majka (pronounced mie-kuh) means “mother” in Serbian. Sherry and Sae Tong use a different kind of “mother” in forming their pizzas’ sourdough crusts, made without commercial yeast.

Motherhood is also why Majka’s hours and staff are so limited. The couple lives with Sae Tong’s mom, who cares for Esmé while mom and dad are at work.

To limit transmission of coronavirus, Sherry and Sae Tong are the only ones allowed inside Majka. The four or five employees they planned to hire are gone, along with the six indoor tables they’d serve.

“Opening a restaurant is very uncertain in a normal situation, and opening a restaurant now is absolutely insane. That’s the best way I can put it,” Sherry said. “But the Sacramento community really supports local small businesses, and that’s been awesome to see for us.”

Dreams of different breads and pastries made from house-milled whole grains have gone out the window for now. Majka’s menu consists of the daily rotating pizzas, drinks and a limited supply of miso chocolate chunk cookies, plus a dill-heavy ranch dip and green hot sauce similar to The Cheese Board’s famous papi chulo.

That minimal menu and hours are unlikely to increase as long as COVID-19 remains a threat. Sae Tong and Sherry are both maxed out working 15-hour days Thursday through Sunday to keep Majka running its limited capacity. It’s been particularly hard on Sae Tong, who would have spent more time at home with Esmé had Majka been able to hire other employees, Sherry said.

“We can only be open four days a week because we need to be home, too. Family is super, super important to us,” Sherry said. “My wife definitely doesn’t like being away from Esmé so much. That’s the main thing that’s been taken away from us right now and one of few things that isn’t so great ... (Esmé) is definitely not used to it, but fortunately she has a pretty great grandmother.”

Chulla Cafe struggles to find employees

Tamba Keifa hired just one employee, chef Jimmy L. Lopez, before opening Chulla’s Cafe at 4845 Watt Ave., Suite A in North Highlands in early June. He’d like to eventually add more, especially since his 11-year-old niece will soon leave the cash register and go back to virtual learning.

Good help is hard to find, though, and resources are thin. Unable to secure a business loan, Keifa funded Chulla’s opening from his own savings. Chulla’s also doesn’t have enough of a track record to qualify for local and federal government assistance being extended to restaurants with deeper roots, Keifa said.

Like Maydoon, Chulla’s Cafe has had trouble reaching possible customers. The restaurant is far from breaking even and isn’t particularly visible in a mostly-empty shopping center. Then there are people like Sae Tong’s mother, who don’t feel comfortable entering a business for takeout given the threat of the coronavirus.

“We know we have a crowd that wants to come, but they’re worried about visiting any eating place and the inconvenience of it,” Keifa said.

Keifa grew up in Guinea and was studying at a Sierra Leone university before he fled amid the country’s civil war in 1998. He received an associate’s degree from Diablo Valley College and double-majored in political science and African American studies at UC Davis, working at the Target distribution center in Woodland to make ends meet, before earning a master’s degree in higher educational leadership and policy studies from Sacramento State University.

When not teaching pre-Civil War African American and African history class at Los Rios Community College, Keifa spent the last seven years brainstorming how to showcase the Black diaspora through a restaurant before settling on borderless coastal cuisine, he said.

Slavery and globalization brought Black people and their food to different parts of the world, and the first (and sometimes last) stop was shoreline communities an ocean away from their native coasts, Keifa said. As a result, dishes like red snapper, Bantu calamari and Madagascan rice complement hamburgers, pancakes and steaks on Chulla’s menu.

Black-owned restaurants are rare in greater Sacramento, and those with menu items like Ivorian-style plantains or Moroccan peanut stew are even scarcer. Yet even a unique concept like Chulla’s Cafe may be short-lived if things don’t change soon.

“I created this (restaurant) not only for the money, but to put something out for the benefit of society. I can’t do that if I’m making $200-$300 a day,” Keifa said.

This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 4:00 AM.