LAKEPORT >> As the communities of Lake County return to their homes and pick up their everyday lives following the Mendocino Complex-caused evacuations, local restaurants are opening their doors despite challenges posed by the fires. With mandatory evacuations issued at their peak to more than 19,000 Lake County residents, scores of businesses were forced to close, some for 10 days or more.
The entire city of Lakeport was under mandatory evacuation for a week, and some sections of the North Shore of Clear Lake were evacuated until August 9. John Arslanian, co-owner with Scott Price of Fresh & Bangin’—a pair of eclectic, highly praised restaurants in Lucerne and Lakeport—said Monday that though he was glad to be home after the evacuations, it had “been a rough start” for his business. While his Lucerne location remains closed indefinitely after being shut down under evacuation orders, Fresh & Bangin’ Lakeport is up and running again, seven days a week.
Arslanian added that business had been better in the evenings—the Lakeport restaurant was full during the dinner rush last Saturday—and slower in the days. “It has been hit and miss,” he said, adding that he had been shut down due to evacuations before.
For other local business owners, the fire evacuation was a new challenge. Francisco Cervantes, Executive Chef at Park Place, an Italian-American restaurant in Lakeport that has been in business since 1986, remarked Monday that “pretty much everybody” on the Park Place team had been evacuated from their homes during the fires. “There were the floods the year before last,” Cervantes said, but he noted that this had been the first time the restaurant had closed in recent years due to wildfire.
Now that Park Place and other restaurants around the lake are open once again, they are taking notice of the eagerness of Lake County residents to get back out and find some relief post-evacuation. “We’re back to normal,” Cervantes said.
In terms of business in the week since reopening, Cervantes said that they had been a little bit slow, but not as much as he expected. Cervantes mentioned that the Summer Concerts in The Park series held in Library park, just across the street from Park Place, had been drawing crowds. He said that Park Place had been doing well in the last week, at least in part because “it’s a chance for people to get out of the smoke and enjoy local food.”
That particular sense of relief also came to mind for Nice’s Boathouse Bar & Restaurant owner Diane DeMichele, who said Monday that “the smoke is worse than ever” in Nice. Despite this, “I couldn’t believe it, but we had a great weekend,” DeMichele added, saying that business had been surprisingly strong since North Shore evacuations were lifted and the restaurant was able to open after more than 10 days of closure.
Even so, the list of hardships that businesses in the Mendocino Complex evacuation zones have had to endure is substantial. DeMichele said that her employees, who had been out of work for the entire closure of the Boathouse, had been desperate to pack in extra shifts upon returning home from evacuations, and to get their paychecks as soon as possible.
In addition, DeMichele said that when the mandatory evacuation came in for Nice, the Boathouse was still up and running. There had been at least 20 people eating dinner in the restaurant when “police came up to the door” and said to “get out.” DeMichele closed the restaurant herself, sending all of her employees home to pack their things immediately. The financial strain was hard for DeMichele, but business was tenable. “I have bills due, but I have good insurance,” DeMichele said, adding that though she felt like she was “on a shoestring” the past week, she was confident she could give all of her employees what they were owed, thanks to the good weekend business.
