Food halls have had their own set of challenges since the pandemic hit. Most relied on indoor seating, so some food halls had to temporarily close until they could add enough outdoor seating to satisfy demand.
The restaurants at SOCO/The OC Mix in Costa Mesa have fared better.
There was the initial shock of closing, then reopening, then moving to outdoor-only service. Fortunately, OC Mix has an expansive patio courtyard with plenty of seating, plus an added patio dining are in a section of the parking lot complete with faux grass flooring, umbrellas, and shrubberies.
So what’s open at the OC Mix? Longtime favorites ARC Food + Libations and Shuck Oyster Bar are both busy, as is Taco Maria.
Also open: The Cheese Shop, Portola Coffee Roasters, and several others.
There’s a new pop-up called Paragon Café inside Shuck Oyster Bar. It’s open for breakfast 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. serving dishes such as bourbon-glazed chicken and waffles.
Moulin and Susie Cakes are temporarily closed, but Greenleaf Kitchen & Cocktails has finally reopened after being shut since mid-March.
“Reopening Greenleaf at SOCO is exciting and emotional for all of us on the team,” said Jon Rollo, founder of Greenleaf Kitchen & Cocktails. “As a small business owner who had to temporarily close during the pandemic, I can honestly say it’s been at times scary and unpredictable for everyone. Being able to serve the Orange County community again is a fresh, healthy start we all want to share.”
Rollo has two Greenleaf locations in Costa Mesa (the OC Mix and 17th Street), and five in Los Angeles. The restaurant on 17th Street has stayed open, although Rollo said he had to let some of his Orange County team members go. He has been slowly bringing them back, but challenges remain. Three of the five Greenleafs in L.A. have closed.
“We have seven locations and had planned for several more, but instead we went from seven to four,” Rollo said. “I don’t know if they are closed permanently, it depends on so many variables—conversations with landlords, our assessments of that location, whether we think there is enough residential pockets around to make the effort to get them back open. It’s an enormous task to reopen and regenerate goodwill. We’ll have to ride it out and see if we will reopen them.”
Rollo noted that reopening a restaurant is difficult in some ways because now he has to get buy-ins from his staff and customers that they have a new way of doing business and those expectations must shift.
“There are so many fundamental changes to how we formally were running things—we have had to change vendors and farmers and producers, and distributors. We had to convert the menu items to fit what we can get. Before I could get a broader range of farmers we worked with, but now I have had to consolidate to those who survived. Sadly, so many of the farms we worked with for years, small family owned farms, have had to close up shop.”
Fortunately, said Rollo, the outdoor seating has been a blessing.
“The nature of our model is the California indoor/outdoor lifestyle. We have patios at our locations, and cities and landlords have been accommodating and helpful in terms of getting additional seating. We are in the hospitality business and people want to come to places they will enjoy.”
Greenleaf has always had a robust catering division, which Rollo said is still going strong, but different than before.
“There are no group meetings, no celebrations, no typical catering events happening. We started serving thousands of meals to local hospital networks. We did 80,000 meals to Children’s Hospital L.A. alone.”
Rollo is delivering individual meals and cocktail kits to people holding Zoom happy hours or Zoom lunch meetings. Greenleaf also offers grill kits, cocktail kits, family meals, and other items designed to make dining as stress-free as possible.
“Hopefully the silver lining is that the outdoor bistro environment is a pleasant experience, which is what people need. They need something they can enjoy during this period.”
Rollo remains optimistic. He’s still planning on opening locations at John Wayne Airport and LAX, and with any luck he’ll start to reopen his restaurants in Hollywood, Century City and USC Village, and “get back on the path of getting great food to the rest of southern California.”
Greenleaf at OC Mix: 3321 Hyland Ave., Unit C, Costa Mesa, (714) 862-2480, greenleafchopshop.com
