••• “To support local businesses”—including Roy (above) and the Press Room—”Allen Construction is building parklets free of charge.” And there’s one under construction at the Renaud’s on Coast Village Road. —KEYT
••• Some clarity about the county’s recent health order forcing bars to close: “The health order issued Monday said bars that sold food and alcohol in the same transaction could remain open.” Because the presence of food stops the spread of the virus? This is so arbitrary. —KEYT UPDATE: California governor Gavin Newsom has ordered 19 counties—including Santa Barbara—to halt indoor operations immediately at restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, museums, zoos, and more. And bars must close entirely (which presumably doesn’t include bars that serve food). The county has yet to issue its own order reaffirming Newsom’s.
••• Having survived last Saturday’s soft opening, Roman-style pizzeria Noemi “will be open full time in a couple of weeks. In the interim, we will be open for dine-in, take out and delivery on the weekends.”
••• Secret Bao is offering roasted pork bo ssam ($65 and it feeds two to three people) this Friday and Saturday for curbside pickup, and it may have already sold out by now. Order a kimchi pancake while you’re at it….
••• Insomnia Cookies is opening at 430 State Street (between Haley and Gutierrez). —Restaurant Guy
••• I reached out to The Daisy—one of the more delightful restaurants to debut in recent memory—to see if it was still planning on reopening around now, but alas, that’s not the case. Here’s the response from owners Dominic and Carmen:
Well, this is a difficult question to answer with any certainty.
We had initially hoped to open this week. But no longer. Our lunchtime customer base is still absent—either working from home or taking care of kids who are unable to go to school or to camp, etc. Ultimately, it would likely cost us more to be open than to remain closed.
The last thing we want to do is to reopen only to have to close down again. It is too great an expense. Even as I type this, bars are having to close again and restaurants could well be added to the mandated closures if the rate of infection and death continue to rise.
Mainly though, we don’t think it is yet safe for our customers, our staff, or ourselves. The well-being of the people in our society is our paramount concern. If we could guarantee good health, we might possibly open sooner but that’s simply not something available to us (or anyone).
So, we hope to open sometime in August but the healthcare and medical professionals will be our guide, not an abstract political ideology.
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