After closing Santa Rosa’s Bistro 29 early in pandemic, chef launches in-home catering
When Brian Anderson closed Bistro 29 last year, he didn’t leave the way he wanted to.
Stressed after 28 years in the restaurant business and hassled for 12 of those by operating in downtown Santa Rosa — with its parking challenges and problems like homelessness — Anderson had hoped to close Bistro 29 at the end of his lease in July, selling to a waiting buyer.
But COVID-19 changed that. He closed April 25.
“When I think of the good nights and when business was great, there’s nothing more fun,” Anderson said. “But all the other nights when you're not doing as great and you have bills to pay, then it becomes a little bit more of a struggle. … It’s a hard business.”
Anderson had hoped for a bit more time before he closed the French restaurant he owned and operated for a dozen years. He sold to the owners of Mi Ranchito, who have two other restaurants in Sonoma County.
Throughout the years, Anderson had worried about his employees, sometimes having to figure out how he would pay them so they could support themselves. Saying goodbye for good wasn’t easy.
“One of the days that sticks in my mind was the 17th of March, when I called everybody and told them I have to lay them off,” Anderson said.
Even Anderson wasn’t sure what he would do next. He planned to take a vacation, then decompress for a while before venturing back out into the working world. But with COVID-19 running rampant, the vacation was short and anything but normal. There also wasn’t an abundance of job opportunities.
Anderson went to work briefly as a driver for Uber Eats, then one day on a coffee run ran into Melissa and Ken Moholt-Siebert, owners of Ancient Oak Cellars in Santa Rosa. They offered him contracting work to help with the ongoing rebuild of their 31-acre property that was destroyed in the 2017 Tubbs Fire. The couple had lost everything: their home, equipment, a more than 100-year-old barn and their estate vineyard. Anderson continues to do that work, along with his son, Tom.
And he plans to get back into the food industry, in a way.
In January, Anderson started a private-chef catering company, which he hopes to grow to its full potential after the pandemic has faded away. He named it Bistro 29 Catering.
“It's exciting for me again,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of given me a new look at cooking as opposed to working in an actual restaurant, and I can do what I know how to do — use my years of experience, cook for people in their homes and not be stressed.”
He also is feeling healthier.
“I’m definitely calmer and more relaxed,” Anderson said, though he also looks back a lot, and especially misses his employees and customers.
But that may change once Bistro Catering 29 can operate free of restrictions.
“Some of those same customers that I had want to use me as a private chef for an event or a catering (gathering) of some sort,” Anderson said. “And I hope (my business) really will flourish.”
