‘We are excited.’ Tri-Cities restaurant owners relieved to have diners back inside

Hungry customers around the Tri-Cities can now pull up a chair inside their favorite restaurant without doors and windows open to the cold.

“Good news — We’ll make it easy. All you have to do is show up and be hungry,” Porter Kinney joked with the Herald about dining at one of his three Porter’s Real Barbecue restaurants.

On Sunday, Gov. Jay Inslee’s office announced that the South Central Region of Washington was approved for Phase 2 reopening — including indoor seating with reduced capacity for restaurants, bars and movie theaters.

The quick about-face came after saying late last week that the area had not met the necessary goals. But the state discovered that a Walla Walla hospital had incorrectly reported its COVID data and the adjustment meant the region could open up more.

The South Central region is one of eight regions in the state and includes Benton, Franklin, Yakima, Walla Walla, Columbia and Kittitas counties. All other regions already qualified for Phase 2 reopening.

Until now, restaurants, bars and wineries were limited to takeout or open air dining since mid-January.

And, again this time, there is no guarantee that any of the regions won’t slip back into Phase 1 if infection and hospitalization rates increase.

The state Department of Health will make assessments every other Friday, and decisions will be announced the following Monday. The next evaluation is Feb. 26

But Tri-Cities restaurants and others were quickly switching gears Sunday and Monday to take advantage of the change. Seating capacity still is limited to 25% and service must end at 11 p.m.

Community support

“I’ll be the first person to say 2020 was a hard year,” Kinney said. “It has been very difficult to not have customers come in and eat, but we are really fortunate.”

While Porter’s Real Barbecue laid off employees when the COVID restrictions began last March, Kinney said he brought all his staff back within a month. He has been able to keep everyone on the payroll ever since.

“We’ve had tremendous support from community. We’ve been able to do well overall,” he said. “Our business has not been threatened seriously.”

Many other food and beverage establishments didn’t fare as well.

Still, many Tri-Cities mainstays are gearing up to get back in the swing of things.

The Towne Crier at 1319 George Washington Way in the Uptown Shopping Center in Richland closed down when the state rolled back indoor dining in mid-December.

Towne Crier is also now opening Feb. 17 for the first time in two months and will be open daily from 3 to 11 p.m.

“We tried takeout, but it wasn’t successful,” said Paul Chartrand, co-owner of the Towne Crier. “People come to the Crier because it is a place to meet friends.”

Chartrand took over the Uptown bar that started in the 1970s after the original owner retired in 2003. But he wasn’t a newcomer to the place. He worked as a bartender at the Crier during his college breaks and still has no plans of retiring.

“We are excited as most of local small businesses,” he said. “We are not a franchise with big money. We are hanging on the best we can.”

Community support

Kinney says that it isn’t lost on him that the Tri-Cities community is the only reason Porter’s — and other locally owned places like his — have been able to stay afloat and not close permanently.

“It sounds canned, but it is a reality that without overwhelming support of the community we would not be here,” he said.

Kinney said the proof is in how Tri-Citians responded to Porter’s “pay it forward” program last spring.

Customers could come in and make donations for the restaurant to send meals to first responders — allowing revenue for the restaurant while also giving people an easy outlet to make a charitable donation that stayed in the community.

“I was pretty blown away about the number of people that stepped up and participated,” he said.

Kinney, who grew up in the Tri-Cities, now is looking forward to having more face time with those who have helped keep his restaurants afloat during the tumultuous year.

Although, he added that he still plans on having takeout and delivery available and finding any way he can to get Porter’s food to customers.

“I really care about the community here,” he said. “We want people to come in and spend some time with us.”

Dovetail Joint Restaurant opened on the Jadwin Avenue side of the Uptown Shopping Center in Richland just a few months before the pandemic shut everything down.

Maren McGowan opened the Mediterranean-style restaurant with her husband Matt in late 2019 as a labor of love. She said at the time that she loved the vibe of the Uptown and that it didn’t feel like a corporate strip mall.

McGowan emphasized that they are not merely investors — they are the owners and employees, and have to wear a lot of hats.

“Restaurants tend to open with their chin barely above water,” Maren McGown said. “We had to open now to stop hemorrhaging money.”

The pair who have decades behind them in the dining scene decided to remain closed to indoor dining even when others around them tried to open with the open air guidelines.

“We don’t really feel like the sun is going to shine through the clouds and everything will be totally normal,” McGown said.

Still, she believes the worst is over. She credits her staff — that was reduced from 20 to 10 — for sticking it out and being willing to be flexible with hours to make it work.

“We aren’t born and bred with money. We just have been doing this for a long time,” she said. “It has been very challenging but, we got through hardest part, I think.”

This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.