4 • March 2021
BUSINESS NEWS
Coast River Business Journal
Restaurants emerge from pandemic forest
Story by Edward Stratton
Coast River Business Journal
estratton@crbizjournal.com
Restaurants weren’t allowed to seat diners when
Pattaraporn “Patta” Lorwatcharasophon took over
the entire ground floor of Pier 12 in Astoria, where
she recently opened The SEA Crab House and Raw
Bar.
But like other restaurateurs emerging from a
winter of shutdowns and dining restrictions because
of the coronavirus, Lorwatcharasophon felt confi-
dent the North Coast is coming out of the woods and
into what forecasts to be a strong tourism season in
the spring and summer.
Lorwatcharasophon, who emigrated from Thai-
land, started with her husband Dacha “Kim” Pathum-
ratanathan in a food cart, Thai Me Up. The couple
turned the food cart into a Lincoln City restaurant
before expanding to Seaside. They opened The SEA
Crab House, a double entendre ode to the ocean and
their Southeast Asian heritage.
Lorwatcharasophon gave away 9,999 eggs —
nine is a lucky number in Thai culture — when she
was able to secure a lease for the entire ground floor
of Pier 12. Baked Alaska co-owners Christopher and
Jennifer Holen abandoned the space after 20 years,
worried they could not make a large, fine-dining
restaurant profitable in the middle of a pandemic.
Lorwatcharasophon, who opened in late Feb-
ruary when restaurants in Clatsop County were
allowed to operate at half capacity indoors, said she
felt confident things would only get better. She is
also looking for a space in Astoria to expand Thai
Me Up.
“I’m very positive after tracking all the num-
bers we’re almost done with winter,” Lorwatcha-
rasophon said. “We’re almost over (the virus). The
more people get vaccinated, the more they’re going
to be living.”
Silver Salmon Grille closed with most other Clat-
sop County restaurants in mid-March 2020 because
of the pandemic. It reopened, had a good summer
and was forced to close again when the county
entered an extreme risk warning in late November.
“The first time, it cost me over $10,000” to close,
said chef and owner Jeff Martin. “But it’s probably a
good $7,000, $8,000 each time.”
Martin kept the restaurant closed until late Feb-
ruary, when the state deemed the county at only
moderate risk from the virus. He’s cautiously opti-
mistic the county is out of the woods in terms of
dining shutdowns. But Martin installed a vending
machine — the Silver Salmon Express — outside
the restaurant offering parts of his menu to go. He
learned about the contactless sales strategy from Pix
Patisserie in Portland.
“This way, if I get shut down again, at least I
can do takeout and still have the machine going, and
keep my operation going,” he said.
Terry Robinett owns Merry Time Bar & Grill
and Labor Temple Diner and Bar in Astoria with her
PHOTOS BY EDWARD STRATTON/COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
ABOVE: Pattaraporn “Patta” Lorwatcharasophon recently opened The SEA Crab House and Raw Bar in Astoria. BELOW RIGHT: Terry Robinett
feels hopeful about the future after withstanding multiple openings and closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
HAILEY HOFFMAN/COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
Kimberli Hausen grabs a container of Blackened Steak Tips
from the Silver Salmon Express, a new vending machine in-
stalled outside of the Silver Salmon Grille.
husband, Todd. The couple had to lay off most of
their workforce at the start of the pandemic, help-
ing them get unemployment benefits. Like Silver
Salmon, the restaurant stayed closed during some of
the shorter-lived periods of limited indoor dining at
the height of the county’s risk profile. Robinett said
it was expensive to open and close the two locations,
and difficult to put her employees through the yo-yo
of working and being laid off.
“Sending them off into the unemployment sys-
tem one week, and then saying, ‘Oh, come on back
to work this week,’ then next week, ‘Get back on
unemployment’ … It just seemed kind of cruel,”
Robinett said.
Merry Time and Labor Temple reopened in early
February as the county’s risk profile lowered. Rob-
inett said she’s trying to remain optimistic about
staying open, customers adhering to safety proto-
cols and her restaurants having a good rest of the
year heading into better weather and the busier tour-
ist season.
“I feel like we’re coming out of the worst of
everything,” she said.
Sara Lu Heath, executive director of the Asto-
ria Downtown Historic District Association, senses
some optimism among small business owners as the
state loosens virus restrictions. The downtown asso-
ciation recently toured around 10 new businesses
that have opened since the beginning of the pan-
demic, including a new breakfast spot on Pier 11, an
Italian market on Commercial Street and The SEA.
“I think that people are feeling that the vaccine
— (if) it’s not getting to people yet — it’s going to
be getting to people soon,” Heath said. “And so I
think they’re much more hopeful … that it won’t go
too far back in the other direction.”