The hottest item at Sacramento restaurants isn’t a dish or a drink. It’s blankets

BYOB doesn’t mean booze anymore.

Sacramento restaurants hunkering down for a winter with no indoor dining have started selling blankets to keep customers warm. Proponents say they add a level of warmth and snugness unattainable through other means like heat lamps while avoiding COVID-19 exposure.

“It’s kind of like camping. It allows people to be more comfortable, stick around a little longer, have some more wine and more food and relax a bit,” The Rind co-owner Sara Arbabian said. “We’re in a very different climate — no pun intended — of restaurant dining, and so why not lean into it?”

At a Handle District meeting earlier this year, Arbabian jokingly suggested she might walk around midtown selling cheap blankets to outdoor diners like a paletero. Instead, The Rind now sells $5 blankets as well as $18 bulky shawls, made from softer materials and somewhere between a blanket and a scarf. The 10 blankets Arbabian purchased to start sold out within two weeks, while shawl sales have been slower.

Some customers have told Arbabian that The Rind’s setup reminds them of travels in Europe, where restaurants offer complimentary blankets for use at the table to be left behind for the next customer.

“I think it adds a level of intimacy,” Arbabian said. “It’s making you more humans and bringing you home, in a sense. We’re taking that aspect of cozying up at home with wine and food and a blanket, and bringing it to the restaurant.”

Outdoor-only dining poses a litany of challenges for restaurateurs, from rainy weather to downsized seating capacity in areas that aren’t al fresco-friendly. Heat lamps are hard to find at reasonable prices, and the prospect of a statewide ban of outdoor dining, similar to Los Angeles County’s ban, looms over every day.

California guidelines for outdoor salons, card rooms and general business operations say tents should be open on three or four sides, but the state’s Department of Public Health has been opaque on whether those rules extend to restaurants, Politico reported. Those that adhere to the guidance expose their customers to the elements; those that don’t reduce ventilation and create a COVID-19 risk environment similar to or even worse than indoor dining.

But blankets? Blankets are cozy and cheap. They’re personal, with little coronavirus transmission risk if not shared between households. And unlike the meal consumed, they’re an investment consumers can use time and again.

Blankets for sale

Kasbah has loaned free blankets to outdoor diners for the last several winters, co-owner Debbie Chang said. The pandemic has made the prospect of reusing blankets between various diners unpalatable, though, and while the metallic emergency blankets given to marathon runners and exposure victims can be found at some New York restaurants, they’re probably excessive for Sacramento dining — not to mention wasteful, since they’re usually only good for one use.

So Kasbah began selling Ikea blankets in late November for $5 apiece, just enough to cover the purchase cost and labor. They’ve sold 15 so far and inspired The Shack general manager Christopher Fairman to start doing the same, he said.

“Right now we have six heaters throughout the patio, but not everybody can be in the direct heat of those, so its a nice thing for customers to stay a little warmer,” Fairman said. “I always joke that it’s like a romantic thing, cuddling up in a blanket.”

If customers only want a covering for their meal, though, The Shack and Kasbah will happily take them back. The East Sacramento burger joint and midtown Moroccan lounge both began selling blankets for $5 apiece in late November. Customers can take them home after, a note on the basket reads, or leave them for washing and distribution to homeless people on the surrounding blocks.

“It’s been a really hard year, and it’s good that people are trying to watch out for each other, and that includes those in the unhoused community that we see every day around the restaurant,” said Chang, who bought the restaurant with fellow longtime employee Tanya Azar in 2016.

The Rind also started publicizing its direct blanket donation system as well as an agreement with neighboring St. John’s Lutheran Church after Arbabian spoke to Chang, the former said. Yet Arbabian would like to eventually introduce blankets made with a little more craftsmanship, like those sold at The Jungle Bird.

The midtown tiki bar’s dark green blankets come emblazoned with The Jungle Bird’s name and roll up into a purse-sized Velcro pouch complete with two handles. At $20, they’re keepers unlikely to be left behind.

For now, the other restaurants are sticking to Ikea blankets as much for small investment as for their reusability. Though a homeless crisis persists in all parts of the city, many East Sacramento residents would rather look the other way than provide assistance, said Fairman, whose fiance is a social worker at a homeless nonprofit. Yet for some in the hard-hit restaurant industry, this year has been a reminder to count one’s blessings and help those in need.

“One great things about the (restaurant) community is we’re all struggling, but we’re trying to help our fellow humans,” Fairman said. “You feel the struggle from less hours or (money), then you realize that other people have it worse.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 12:53 PM.