Coronavirus may destroy a staple of small-town California life: the family-run restaurant

Mark Morais’ grandfather Egisto started serving food to his friends at 14743 Walnut Grove-Thornton Rd. in Walnut Grove more than 100 years ago. After World War II, he began charging people and put his last name on a sign outside the door: Giusti’s.

The Italian-American restaurant a half-hour south of Sacramento has the kind of historic charm that led Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” to feature it on a 2009 episode titled “Family Favorites.” Giusti’s is known as much for the 1,200-plus trucker hats nailed to the ceiling and more than 300 pieces of memorabilia on its walls as its family-style bowls of minestrone and salad.

It’s survived recessions, the popularization of credit cards — only cash and checks are accepted — and a 1986 townwide flood that shut business down for months. But the coronavirus pandemic, Morais said, “is a totally different deal.”

Giusti’s faces a problem that could decimate scores of small-town restaurants across California: they’re not built for exclusively to-go service, not in the way metropolitan hotspots — which aren’t exactly thriving either — can manage it. Small customer pools and an old-fashioned ethos surrounding meals don’t lend to sheltering-in-place, which could leaving societal gaps throughout oft-ignored areas of the state.

Morais’ riverside restaurant and bar lives by its summers, when 75 percent of customers are out-of-towners mooring their boats at Giusti’s dock. It’s a 75/25 split the other direction come winter: locals from the 1,500-person town of Walnut Grove and nearby Isleton make up the vast majority of Giusti’s patrons.

May is normally Giusti’s busiest month of the year thanks to warm weather, Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day, but Morais has kept the restaurant shut down out of concern for the health of his staff, some of whom have worked there nearly 40 years.

“I actually got a (Payroll Protection Program) loan, so my employees, I have been fortunately able to pay them. But I’m afraid for when that runs out after eight weeks. What the heck do you do then?” Morais said.

Similar divides exist in Amador County wine towns and restaurants along the Lake Tahoe shoreline, where business owners depend on weekend trips from more populated regions to stay afloat. California tourism is expected to decline by $72.1 billion (49.8 percent) this year from 2019, according to a study by Philadelphia-based Tourism Economics.

Only place in town

Knights Landing’s seasonal visitors come under different pretenses. Harvests draw migrant workers to the no-stoplight Yolo County town each spring and fall, joining a year-round agricultural community of 1,000.

Knights Landing residents eat at Las Maracas Mexican Restaurant not only for the quality of food, but because it’s the place to go — as in, the only place to go. As the lone restaurant in town, Las Maracas’ community impact extends beyond its kitchen.

“It’s a friendly place. People come here and they take their time,” Bueno said. “It’s more than just, ‘Come and get some food.’ It’s going out to get something to eat and being in a comfortable place ... we treat each other like a family and try to do the best for our customers.”

The booths and bar that normally seat about 60 people have been empty since mid-March, and takeout revenue hasn’t budged. If anything, Las Maracas customers are ordering easily transportable burritos instead of the slightly more expensive combination plates at which they’d previously pick at for an hour or two, Bueno said.

Each Sacramento restaurant that closes as a result of the shelter-in-place order will be a hit to the city’s robust dining scene, one less option for lunch breaks and nights out. If Las Maracas doesn’t survive, well, there’s a convenience store in town.

Bueno tries not to mind the nearby Sutter County line, where health director Dr. Phuong Luu (who also oversees Yuba County) started allowing businesses to reopen last Monday in defiance of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide shelter-in-place order, as did officials in sparsely populated Modoc County in the state’s northeast corner.

Many in these counties have grown frustrated by the severe life disruptions the stay-at-home orders have caused. Restaurants in most rural counties are shuttered, despite those areas having some of the state’s lowest coronavirus rates.

Newsom began allowing businesses such as bookstores and florists to reopen for to-go service on Friday. He said Thursday that restaurants could begin seating customers upon meeting certain health and tracking criteria, but a Bee analysis found no Sacramento-area counties have the necessary amount of “contact tracers” required to follow the virus’ spread.

Restaurants that open prematurely risk sanctions from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, whose agents handed out warnings in the Yuba-Sutter area last week. They also visited a cafe in the 2,000-person town of El Dorado that’s been particularly vocal about ignoring the statewide ban on dine-in service and other safety precautions such as wearing masks and keeping people six feet apart.

California cracks down on open restaurants

ABC agents across the state had told 80 businesses statewide to stop serving alcohol on-site as of May 1, and all but one had complied, according to a media release. Those that ignore the first warning could have their licenses revoked.

“For any licensee who has continued to operate despite the Department’s efforts to persuade them to voluntarily comply, the Department is pursuing administrative action against the licensed premises, an action that could result in the suspension or revocation of the license,” the release said.

Like their city counterparts, the rural restaurants with the best chance of survival may be those that already had embraced the nationwide to-go trend before the pandemic hit.

Frank Tofanelli’s burger shack in the 7,000-person town of Loomis, Taylors, is pulling in about half its usual revenue with a pared-down menu, fewer employees and limited hours. Meanwhile, his Arden Arcade and Citrus Heights diners Flapjacks and Country Waffles are netting just 15 percent of their normal business.

“Because (Taylors is) a hamburger stand, we’re doing okay even though we’re out in a rural area,” Tofanelli said. “A breakfast restaurant isn’t set up for to-go food. But a hamburger stand is all to-go, so it’s working out pretty well.”

Far-reaching Placer County had just 165 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Thursday among its 400,000 residents, most of whom are concentrated in Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln. More than 1,500 business owners in the county have signed a petition calling on Newsom to let them reopen, and the board of supervisors has threatened the state with a lawsuit.

Tofanelli would like to reopen Taylors’ 30-seat dining room when safe, he said. But with major COVID-19 outbreaks seemingly a world away from Loomis, getting his staff and customers to abide by the new rules would be its own headache.

“Honestly, these kids don’t worry about it and it’s hard to make them worry about it because they’re kids,” Tofanelli said. “I wish people would realize we don’t have high rates (of infection) because we’ve been good and stayed separate. All I need is one employee to contract it and then we’re shut down.”

This story was changed June 5 to correct the spelling of Mark Morais.

This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.