How Coronavirus Is Impacting the Portland Restaurant World

City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) are attempting to make the city’s COVID-era plazas and dining patios permanent. In a Monday morning press conference, Hardesty announced that she is “directing PBOT to begin the transition to making this program permanent,” continuing to offer free permits through August 31. However, Hardesty noted that to bring her plans to fruition, the rest of Portland’s city council needs to approve PBOT’s proposed budget.

“We are building community one street at a time with these plazas,” Hardesty says. “This is a big win for Portland.”

On March 11 at 11:59 p.m., Oregon will lift its indoor mask mandate once again, making it one of the last states in the country to do so. Oregon first lifted its indoor mask mandate in June 2021, followed by a spike in cases; in response, Gov. Kate Brown re-instated the mask mandate in August, right as the delta variant was beginning to gain ground in Oregon.

When the mask mandate was first lifted last summer, the state allowed private businesses to set their own masking requirements; many restaurants decided to continue to require masks. Those that did, however, reported higher numbers of customer attacks, from diners who felt entitled to enter the business maskless. The week after the state first lifted the mask mandate, St. Beatrix employee Brit Abuya noticed customers immediately started challenging the bakery’s mask requirement. “When the mask mandate was lifted, that entire week everyone sort of pushed back, questioning, as if the pandemic was over,” they said in an August interview. “We even had masks to give people, and we had people decline a mask. I’m not trying to be an asshole; I just want to protect myself and the people who are coming here.”

Oregonians will be able to enter restaurants and bars maskless even sooner than expected. Today, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that the mask mandates in their respective states will expire at 11:59 p.m. on March 11, meaning by March 12, diners throughout the West Coast can forgo their face coverings in indoor public spaces.

The mask mandate currently applies to all indoor public spaces in Oregon, including K-12 schools; school districts around the state have publicly pushed to remove mask requirements for weeks. When the mask mandate disappears, Oregonians will be able to go mask-free in restaurants, bars, and cafes, as well as schools; masks will still be required in health care settings and while using public transit. Business owners will be able to instate their own mask requirements if they wish.

Oregon has accelerated its timeline to lift its statewide mask mandate. Today, February 24, the Oregon Health Authority announced that Oregonians will be able to enter restaurants and bars maskless by March 19, almost two weeks ahead of the previously announced schedule.

In early February, the state indicated that the statewide mask mandate — required for all indoor public spaces and K-12 schools — would expire on March 31. The announcement came as COVID-19 cases dropped significantly across the state; however, representatives from various Oregon school districts have communicated a desire to accelerate that transition away from masks, and even actively defy the state mask mandate.

When Mirisata, the vegan Sri Lankan pop-up, announced its plans to open a SE Belmont restaurant, the ownership team noted that the business would be worker-owned — in other words, a co-op. At the time, there were very few truly worker-owned restaurants in Portland, if any; since then, other bars and restaurants have played with versions of worker ownership, from places like Ripe Cooperative and Kachka offering profit sharing to Workers Tap’s fully democratized ownership model.

But Mirisata isn’t exclusively run by worker-owners. Worker-ownership is only eligible for employees working more than 32 hours per week at Mirisata, and new full-time employees need to stick around for a six-month trial period before officially becoming worker-owners. Plus, not every employee is interested in the responsibilities or commitment of becoming a worker-owner. So, last week, a group of Mirisata’s employees did something unusual within the co-op world: They unionized.

For a brief stint this summer, Oregon restaurants and bars were free to fill their restaurants to full capacity without a mask requirement. But with COVID-19 cases rising around the state, Oregon leaders have decided to reintroduce a mask requirement in all indoor public spaces, including restaurants and bars.

Even beyond the mask mandate, many Portland restaurants and bars are starting to voluntarily re-institute safety protocols to mitigate the potential for spread. Some restaurants are waiting to reopen their indoor dining rooms, and a growing number of bars and restaurants in Portland have started checking diners’ vaccination status before walking them to their tables or taking their orders.

One day, while Kachka co-owner Israel Morales was working on payroll, he decided to do some additional math. He took the total tips the Russian restaurant had made that month and divided it by restaurant’s total number of employees. What he discovered blew him away: If the restaurant split its tips evenly, everyone at the restaurant could make at least $50,000 per year. “We started running the numbers, and it’s actually true, give or take,” says Bonnie Morales, the restaurant’s executive chef and co-owner. “If you take that 20 percent income that goes into the business, but distribute it more equitably, everyone can make at least $25 per hour.”

The Morales family have been thinking about their tipping structure since the restaurant first opened in 2014; with the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic bearing down on them, the Kachka team decided to prioritize a more stable, equitable pay and benefit structure for all of their employees. Starting this year, Kachka will institute a 22 percent service fee in place of tipping, which means employees’ wages will start at $25 per hour. It’s a part of the restaurant’s larger transition into a more equitable business model, which includes free health insurance for all employees and, by the end of the year, profit-sharing for its staff.

Oregon lifted its mask mandate for outdoor public spaces Tuesday, effective immediately. The mask requirement applied to any outdoor public spaces where people could not socially distance, like farmers markets or concerts. That means restaurants and bars can allow customers to dine outside without strict adherence to mask requirements, if they choose to do so.

In August, Gov. Kate Brown reinstated the state’s mask requirements outdoors for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, which made it the first state in the country to do so after the Delta-variant-fueled surge that summer. Oregon was the only state that still had an outdoor mask mandate in place, and is currently one of five states that still has an indoor mask mandate (plus Washington D.C.).

Since it arrived in Oregon in 2020, COVID-19 has impacted countless citizens, from those who have gotten sick to those who have lost work. The full impact remains unseen, and even with vaccination numbers rising, the situation is still dire: Hundreds of new cases in Multnomah County each day, debt skyrocketing among business owners and renters. The food industry — a huge facet of Portland’s identity, and the leading industry within the state — has struggled in particular, with restaurants and bars shut down for months, restaurant owners grappling with the decision to reopen, and cases still looming large.

With this new surge of unemployment over the last two years, food insecurity has spiked. Now, communities in Portland and beyond are finding ways to help through mutual aid Facebook groups, restaurant worker unemployment funds, pop-up kitchens serving free meals, and food rescues repurposing and redistributing potential food waste. Many of these groups have existed long before COVID-19, but their impact is particularly meaningful now.

Sometimes, ideas come at odd hours from strange sources. Bar veteran and liquor rep Lucas Plant discovered this two-and-a-half years ago at 3 a.m. one morning, standing in his kitchen drinking cinnamon toast–flavored cereal milk out of his daughter’s plastic bowl, adorned with princesses and fixed with a plastic straw on the lid. It struck him: Why not make an adult version of this — a plastic cup with an attached straw and removable lid that can be reused multiple times and eventually recycled when needed. So he called his uncle, an engineer who had, coincidentally, been the one to design the very princess bowl that sparked Plant’s idea. Together, the two decided to design a reusable cup that could cut down on single-use plastic containers and provide an alternative to bars, restaurants, and even corporations and large venues.

After more than two years of planning and development, Lucas Plant and his business partner Erik Martin — co-owner of Portland-based Aria Gin — have formed Greenway Dynamics and released Sip (spelled on the website as S!p): plastic, dishwasher-safe, BPA-free, reusable bar cups with sealable lids and built-in straws, all made from at least 30 percent recycled material and easily recyclable. Eventually, Plant says, they would want it to be a closed-loop system, with Sip cups made from the recycled remains of other Sip cups. The website claims that the cups each eliminate, on average, 500 single-use cups and straws from circulation.

Food and agriculture workers who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine are eligible for booster shots in Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown announced the state’s plan for administering COVID-19 booster shots: Oregonians over 65 years old and people 18 to 64 with underlying conditions are eligible, as well as workers who are in occupational settings that increase their risk of developing a serious case of COVID-19 — including food, agriculture, and grocery workers.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have endorsed the use of Pfizer booster shots in certain populations, namely adults 65 and older, adults 50 to 64 years old with underlying conditions, and those who work in places with an increased risk of COVID-19 spread. Those occupations, as defined by health officials, include first responders, health care workers, educational workers, manufacturing workers, those who work in correctional settings, the US Postal Service, transit workers, and food workers. The Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup, which helps inform policy decisions related to the COVID-19 pandemic along the West Coast, independently reviewed the data and the federal recommendations, and also signed off on the plan for booster shots; however, the workgroup expanded the recommendations for younger people with underlying conditions, recommending anyone between the ages of 18 and 64 with underlying conditions.

By the end of the month, Portlanders will have to say goodbye to Aviv’s vegan shawarma fries: The Middle Eastern vegan restaurant announced on Instagram that it will close all of its locations for good. The smaller shops on Killingsworth and Madison have already closed their doors; the restaurant in the Pearl will close at the end of September.

“The pandemic hit us hard, and like every single restaurant across the world, we have come up against our share of struggles and setbacks,” the Instagram post reads. “It’s been a challenging year and a half to say the least. Unfortunately, we have made the hard decision to close all Aviv locations this month. We really hoped this day would not come, but it is time.” On social media, there were no indications that a closure was coming; the restaurant had just announced the opening of Tiny Aviv on Madison in August.

This story mentions threats of physical violence and sexual assault.

At St. Beatrix, the Northeast Portland bakery known for its ranch croissants and flower-adorned cakes, a can of bear mace sits behind the front counter. St. Beatrix owner Jess Smith bought it after a customer threatened to rape one of her employees, one of several incidents in the last eight months that have left her and her staff feeling vulnerable and frustrated. “It’s been super challenging,” she says. “Having to tell customers ‘no,’ they’re not used to that, and they react.”

You’re likely seeing corn ribs all over Instagram this summer, posted by buzzy new pizzerias, top Portland chefs, and notable food influencers: a tangle of corn, cut lengthwise into quarters, then fried or roasted to draw out the sweetness of the peak-season kernels. Think of them as the slender, more shareable cousin to the hefty summer standby that is corn on the cob. Some chefs simply fry them, drizzle them with sauce, and serve them with a lime wedge; others marinate and roast them. The idea is to eat them like spareribs, but instead of sucking juicy meat off a bone, diners gnaw plump kernels off a rigid core.

Corn ribs went viral on Tik Tok in February, but it was a notable corn rib dish by Momofuku Ssäm Bar executive chef Max Ng that most directly influenced the trend we’re seeing now in Portland, at the very least coining the term “corn ribs” (an Austin restaurant, Hai Hai Ramen, says they’ve been serving corn this way under a different moniker since 2016). The restaurant shared Ng’s version, a quartered-and-fried corn cob with squid ink aioli and whipped ricotta, on Instagram in the summer of 2017, catching the attention of restaurant critics and chefs across the country. Chef Kasey Mills of Sesame Collective, the restaurant group behind places like Shalom Y’all and Lil’ Shalom, credited that Instagram post as inspiration to add corn ribs to his menu every summer since 2017.

Portland’s pandemic-era patios, city block plazas, and street-side dining rooms will stick around through June 2022. Yet again, the city has extended the Healthy Businesses permit program and its funding, which allows restaurants, bars, and cafes to build outdoor dining areas in spaces typically set aside for cars.

Portland’s Healthy Businesses permits are a part of the larger Safe Streets Initiative, the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s COVID-19 response program. Safe Streets essentially makes changes to city streets to allow walkers and bikers more space to socially distance while also allowing businesses outdoor spaces to serve customers. The Healthy Businesses permits let restaurants build outdoor dining pods in parking spaces and build covered awnings for tables on sidewalks. The program has been exceptionally popular: The bureau has processed 1,800 permits for more than 800 individual businesses, and a survey of Portlanders showed that 94 percent of respondents felt that the Healthy Businesses-related outdoor dining areas should remain open. In the last year and a half, Portland restaurant owners have built individual covered cabanas, shut down full city blocks for pedestrian plazas and communal dining areas, and turned parking lots into full-blown dining rooms (although Portland restaurant owners do not need a permit to build outdoor dining areas in private parking lots).

Oregonians will need to wear masks in all indoor public spaces starting Friday, including restaurants and bars. In a press conference Wednesday, Gov. Kate Brown announced that the state will reintroduce its mask mandate starting August 13, keeping it in place for the foreseeable future.

In a Tuesday press release, Brown teased that the state’s COVID-19-related mask mandate would return, as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to rise across the state related to the highly contagious delta variant. Recent projections from Oregon Health & Sciences University suggest Oregon will surpass its hospital bed capacity by September, and the state broke its all-time record for both COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations yesterday, even considering the nearly 73 percent of Oregon adults who are vaccinated. While the percentage of COVID-19 cases in vaccinated Oregonians has risen, the percentage of vaccinated Oregonians with COVID-19 remains extremely small compared to cases in unvaccinated Oregonians.

Oregon will, once again, require masks indoors, though the details have yet to be announced. In a Tuesday press release, Gov. Kate Brown announced that the state will re-instate statewide indoor mask requirements, providing more details in a Wednesday press conference.

The governor’s press release comes one day after Multnomah County announced its county-wide indoor mask mandate, which will go into effect Friday, August 13. The latest wave of COVID-19 safety policy is a direct response to rising cases and hospitalizations throughout the state: the Oregon Health Authority reported 2,329 new and presumed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, with Oregon’s total COVID-19 death toll closely approaching 3,000 people. Oregon Health & Sciences University modeling shows that just under 1,100 Oregonians could be hospitalized with COVID-19 by mid-September, which would far exceed the state’s hospital bed capacity.

Starting Friday, anyone five years old or older who enters a Portland restaurant will need to do so while wearing a mask. Multnomah County has opted to instate a face covering requirement for all public indoor spaces, including businesses, starting August 13.

More than a month after the state lifted its COVID-19 safety framework, the virus has spread dramatically throughout the state, including Multnomah County: The county reported 94 new and presumed COVID-19 cases on August 6, the most of any other Oregon county. As the local surge continues and the highly contagious delta variant rises in numbers, Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury decided to institute an executive order later this week, requiring masks for all vaccinated and unvaccinated residents in all indoor public spaces.

COVID-19 rates have surged again across the country thanks, in large part, to the delta variant and loosening restrictions. In response, some major American cities have started to re-institute safety mandates for businesses: In New York, all restaurants and bars will need to start checking proof of vaccination to dine indoors starting August 16, and Los Angeles County renewed indoor mask requirements in mid-July. However, since Gov. Kate Brown lifted all restrictions on June 30, neither Oregon nor Multnomah County have instituted anything more than a mask recommendation. As a result, many bar owners and workers found themselves where they have been all throughout the pandemic: forced to develop and build their own safety precautions where necessary.

There are a number of reasons food service workers feel discomfort at the premise of instituting their own restrictions beyond state mandates: In the past, customers have screamed at employees, posted one-star Yelp reviews, and physically harmed restaurant staff enforcing COVID-19 safety policies. As a result, some industry members are leaning on the power of solidarity: The founder of one of Portland’s most influential cocktail bars, Daniel Shoemaker of Teardrop Lounge, figured it was best to have a unified front in instituting a vaccination policy. When he and his staff decided it was necessary to implement vaccination checks for all indoor diners, he reached out to his peers in the industry to form what he jokingly refers to as a “vaxx cabal,” a loose coalition of bars all requiring some proof of vaccination. “Primarily, I wanted us to have a common voice,” Shoemaker says. “I know there’s going to be vitriol and antipathy voiced online, so the hope is that we provide ground cover for each other, it’s a whole cabal of us doing this. We share the wealth and we share the burden as best we can.”

When Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced that the state would lift the majority of its COVID-19 safety mandates, Steven Nguyen, the owner of the SE Hawthorne boba cafe Fat Straw, began to prepare. He planned to reopen the interior of his cafe two weeks after the restrictions disappeared, which would give him the time to staff up and clean up the space.

But in those two weeks, the delta variant — a highly contagious strain of the COVID-19 virus — gained ground throughout the United States, swiftly spreading through unvaccinated communities and even infecting vaccinated individuals. Hospitalizations and deaths crept upward, almost exclusively comprised of unvaccinated individuals. In Oregon, the delta variant is not quite as prevalent as it is in other parts of the country. However, COVID-19 is still spreading rapidly throughout the state, especially in counties with low vaccination rates: In late July, the state reported thousands of new cases each day, a peak in the spike that has occurred since the state dropped its COVID-19 safety mandates. And hospitalizations are continuing to rise.

Although the state has lifted most of its COVID-19 safety mandates, Multnomah County is asking its citizens to wear masks indoors once again.

In a statement released today, July 26, Multnomah County health officials made new recommendations when it comes to masks, requesting everyone five years and older don face coverings while in public indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status; the county would prefer everyone two years and older wear masks, if those two-to-four-year-olds can tolerate a face covering. This advisory is meant to be a protective measure, to not only prevent more restrictions on businesses, but more importantly, to evade unnecessary illness and death. “We have an opportunity to make a difference in our county’s case rates right now. But if we don’t act, we can expect an exponential rise in cases, especially in pockets with low vaccinations. This could lead to preventable hospitalizations and even death,” Public Health Director Jessica Guernsey said in a statement. “Masking is a step we can all take right now to keep businesses open and move ahead with our plans for the school year. This is the thing that will make a difference.”

Rihanna Walton had worked in the service industry since they were 16 years old. When the pandemic struck, they were working as the bar manager for cocktail bar Tough Luck, mixing mezcal and whiskey drinks and developing the wine list for the mostly neighborhood crowd. In March 2020 they lost their job, like hundreds of thousands of other restaurant workers, but by June, when bars began reopening for outdoor dining, they returned to Tough Luck. They left around two weeks later. “I felt like we put in all the systems to make a safe experience and did everything in my power to execute it, but people weren’t ready to be back out in the world,” they say. “People touched me, people came up to me in the bar and talked to me with no mask. I found out that [my partner] was immunocompromised, and at that point it wasn’t worth contracting COVID and killing them to give some bro a beer.”

Today Walton works in the cannabis industry and has little interest in returning to the service world, despite a recent attractive offer to run a bar program. “I’m taking a big pay cut, but my mental health has improved so much, my physical health has improved so much,” they say. “If I hadn’t had the break of the pandemic to step away and not work 60, 80 hours a week at multiple jobs... I didn’t have time to think about the ethics of it, or how it was affecting my body and mental health.”

Employees of the Oregon-founded grocery chain Fred Meyer could go on strike at any moment. All of the Fred Meyer warehouse workers represented by Teamsters Local 117 have voted to authorize a strike, related to contract negotiations and the company’s COVID-related safety policies. If the union strikes, it could cause food distribution disruptions at 180 grocery stores across Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska.

In a 335-0 vote, the union agreed to potentially call for a work stoppage as early as yesterday, as a response to the company’s policies when it comes to COVID-19 safety protocol. The union says the company did not respond to Teamsters Local 117’s petition to lower production standards, which they say directly resulted in an increase of COVID-19 infections; they also said the company “suspended safety meetings during the worst parts of the pandemic,” in the words of union member and shop steward Matt Collins. The company’s choice to reject the union’s safety proposal, which would have allowed employees to refuse a task they think could risk their health or the health of customers, was a last straw, instigating the decision to vote on a potential strike. “With all the COVID outbreaks that wreaked havoc on the warehouse, you’d think they’d be a little more concerned about our safety and the safety of the public,” Collins said in a statement. “But, sadly, that’s not the case.”

Jojo Offers Newly Vaccinated Oregonians a Shot at $250 in Chicken and JojosJojo owner Justin Hintze is trying to encourage the Oregonians who have yet to receive their COVID-19 vaccination to get their shots. Customers who arrive at the Southeast Portland cart with proof of first vaccination between July 19 and July 25 can enter into a raffle for a $250 Jojo gift card. Erica’s Soul Food owner Erica Montgomery did something similar in June: North by Northeast Community Health Center posted up outside the cart to offer vaccines, giving those newly vaccinated visitors a $25 gift card to the cart next door. Currently, 67.9 percent of Oregonians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, but the number of Oregonians receiving vaccines every day has slowed. As the delta variant gains ground around the world and the state’s cases continue to creep upward, the pressure to vaccinate the remainder of the Oregonians resistant to getting the vaccine is mounting across the state. Find a COVID-19 vaccine here. [EaterWire]

The Independent Restaurant Alliance of Oregon Is Offering Free Workshops for Food Service WorkersThe Independent Restaurant Alliance of Oregon, in conjunction with Travel Oregon, is offering free workshops for restaurant workers and owners through the end of the year, covering a wide range of subjects: how uninsured restaurant workers can get the right insurance through the healthcare marketplace, how restaurant owners can find the right insurance plan for their staff, and financial literacy for restaurant workers. The first seminar, on racial equity for restaurants, was held on Monday, July 19. Learn more about the trainings and workshops here. [EaterWire]

The Small Business Administration has released a list of the more than 100,000 food and beverage businesses approved to receive grants through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, the food industry stimulus program developed in part by Portland’s own Rep. Earl Blumenauer.

A part of the American Rescue Plan, the fund was supposed to prioritize businesses owned by veterans, women, and marginalized groups. However, white business owners began to file lawsuits, saying the policy was discriminatory against white men; some female business owners and restaurateurs of color reported that lenders were rescinding the previously approved grants related to the lawsuits. The SBA froze payments to 2,965 priority applicants, redistributing the funds to non-priority businesses.