Former Sonoma County restaurateur carves new path in life as seafood broker

THE NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

October 4, 2021

How the restaurant industry is doing

Labor and food costs remain top challenges for the restaurant industry, the National Restaurant Association recently reported. Here’s what the trade group found:

• 75% of restaurant operators said recruitment was their top challenge as of June — the highest level ever recorded

• The full-service restaurant segment was down 626,000 jobs, or 11%, below pre-pandemic employment levels

• Menu prices have increased nearly 4% through June

Meanwhile, the California Restaurant Association reported that 36,379 of the state’s restaurants applied for aid from the federal government’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Of those applicants who were deemed eligible for help, 15,988 received a grant, including more than 600 in the North Bay.

That means 20,391 of those restaurants did not receive that funding.

“There is enormous unmet need,” said Sharokina Shams, vice president, public affairs, California Restaurant Association.

But the CRA doesn’t yet know the whole story, Shams noted, as state agencies either haven’t crunched the numbers, or released them, to show how many restaurants there were before the pandemic compared to now.

“We do know that pre-pandemic, there were more than 90,000 restaurants in California,” Shams said. At the beginning of the pandemic, the CRA projected that 30% of the state’s restaurants would close permanently without significant aid, she noted.

Over 30 years in the restaurant business, Brian Anderson has made a lot of contacts. What he didn’t expect was those contacts would allow him to turn a new page in life.

A veteran chef and restaurateur, Anderson had decided pre-pandemic to sell Bistro 29, the French restaurant he operated in downtown Santa Rosa for a dozen years. His immediate plan was to decompress and spend time with family, and take occasional gigs, including making deliveries for Uber Eats and doing contract work for Ancient Oak Cellars, as he told the Business Journal in March.

Anderson also was beginning to lay the groundwork for Bistro 29 Catering, a private-chef catering company he would ramp up after the pandemic ends.

But there was something else in the back of Anderson’s mind, which he shared last week with the Business Journal for a six-month follow-up story.

As he was shuttering Bistro 29, Anderson had a conversation with Bob Costarella and his son, Joe, owners of San Francisco-based Costarella Seafoods, his soon-to-be-former fish vendor. They wanted Anderson to come work for them once the pandemic-battered restaurant industry began to rebound.

He tucked that thought away. Then, as restrictions began to lift earlier this year, business picked up at Costarellas. And they came calling.

Anderson joined the seafood distributor in May, officially becoming a fish salesman.

“I’ve had a good relationship with the owners for over 15 years,” Anderson said, noting he also used to send them business leads. “And they liked my style as well, as far as how I communicated with people. … I wanted to go work for somebody who’d I like to work for, and I believe in their product.”

Anderson went into the job with the mindset of a restaurateur who knows the kind of fish he wants. But he quickly found out other restaurateurs are interested in a plethora of fish, so he’s been doing a lot of learning. That includes watching the fish cutters at work.

“You think you know how to cut a fish when you're a chef and then you go watch those guys,” Anderson said with his infectious laugh. “They’re cutting thousands of pounds a day. It’s crazy.”

Anderson’s lifestyle also has changed for the better.

After years of late nights, he’s now up and at 'em at 4:30 a.m.

“We have to get our orders in for restaurants by 9 o'clock, so the trucks can get out to make deliveries,” Anderson said.

Early shifts also mean he’s home earlier. Some days Anderson drives into San Francisco. Other days he works within his assigned territory, the North Bay, visiting restaurants and making cold calls.

It’s a far cry from his days running a restaurant, which had been plagued for years by a number of challenges — parking and homelessness problems, nearby wildfires and financial struggles.

Anderson had planned to close his Santa Rosa business at the end of his lease in July 2020, but when COVID-19 hit, he shuttered three months early, selling to the owners of Mi Ranchito, who have two other Sonoma County restaurants.

While now a fish salesman, Anderson also is forging ahead with Bistro 29 Catering — as time allows and on his own terms — to “satiate my need to cook for other people, but without being overwhelmed.”

He is now much less stressed, but also often thinks about his former life.

“Now that I'm selling fish and still dealing with food, sometimes I go into restaurants and I see kitchens and people working,” Anderson said. “I get a little bit reminiscent about that. But for the most part, I’m happy to walk out afterwards.”

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and education. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.