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Emergency Care
A pandemic restaurant story NEWS
Simi’s Junkyard kept alive by “community love”
by Kimberly Rivers
kimberly@vcreporter.com
Loyal fans of The Junkyard Cafe in Simi Valley will not miss their favorite restaurant anymore since it opened up it’s dining half of the tables. Garfield is putting up fencing outside to allow more out door dining. “We bleached the restaurant from ceiling to floor.”
rooms on Monday, May 25, after a two-month closure.
“The opening went remarkably well,” said Evelyn Garfield, owner, called The Queen by regulars. “We implemented all the systems that we had thought of, and believe it or not, they all worked.”
The Junkyard installed plastic sheeting between booths and removed troversy around this whole thing.” Some see restrictions as “taking away their rights” while others consider reopening “highly irresponsible and that folks who are going out are ruin ing it for the world. That is kind of the gist of the way I hear it. A lot of people stay neutral and polite, but some get really upset.” Garfield doesn’ t want any of her employees to have bring it to me. I’ll be personally handling any issue.”
The Junkyard Cafe entrance (above) and interior (above, right) had a positive reopening this week after being closed for two months. (Photos submitted)
Garfield expressed worry about the first forecasts for the restaurant sector.
She also is aware of the “con to police customers who might push back against any of the restrictions. “All of a sudden I am the police. I’m trying to walk through all the possibil ities in my head. That is keeping me up at night. I’ve told all my employees that if they run into any situation to
“From what I saw last night [in downtown Ventura], a lot of those requirements are not being implemented,” said Rice about the first evening restaurants were able to open their dining rooms in the county. “We are in no hurry to make a
by Kimberly Rivers
kimberly@vcreporter.com
Peirano’s sticks with takeout for now
6 — — MAY 28, 2020 “ It is not simply opening our doors. If we are actually going to follow the guidelines, it is a significant change in normal business,” said Jim Rice, co-owner of Peirano’s Market and Delicatessen on Main Street in Ventura. He spoke to the VCReporter on May 23 about the decision not to reopen the dining room and patio at Peirano’s right now as many restaurants and businesses were reopening.
mistake. Our first priority is to protect our employees and customers.”
Peirano’s has contracted with World Central Kitchen, a national nonprofit organization providing food to those in need during disasters, and with local restaurants to support locally owned businesses. “That has really helped. We’ve prepared 300 meals every morning. That allowed us to bring back almost half of our staff. We are running pretty lean and mean.”
Peirano’s also shifted to online sales, and that has worked so well that it will remain even after things fully reopen.
Pointing to extensive efforts made throughout the county to protect the community, Rice said, “We’ve all worked really hard at being safe, to just toss it all away now is crazy.” He added that reopening too soon could put the to-go and curbside business “in jeopardy.”
But if opening day is any indicator , customers are fine with the new rules.
“The customers were so nice, super fun and positive energy,” Garfield said on Tuesday, May 26. The overall feel ing: “We are going to be ok.”
She said prepping to reopen under the rules has been challenging. “There
“Spacing is the least of the issues,” he explained. Peirano’s patio could easily be spaced to meet the new rules. “But there is no shared condiments, no salt and pepper at the tables. Silverware has to be single use.” The requirements include a 15-minute sanitation between each table sitting, and having entrance and exit at different locations. He said the restaurant will reopen the dining room and patio, but wants to make sure staff is fully trained and is a long list, things to do required by the county.”
But one gray area is screening guests for symptoms. “I don’t know exactly what that means. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. My employees aren’t either. What if it’s not done accurately? We are trying to do our best and just make sure we are in full compliance. My biggest con cern, number one, is the health of our employees. I do not want to screw it up and get shut down.”
Garfield says the Junkyard is a “high volume, eclectic” restaurant that normally seats 250 people. She laid off all but three of her 50 employees, and cut open hours back, but “we’ve been open everyday through the whole thing for takeout and delivery.” Even so, many costs stay the same. “Our normal electricity bill is about $7,000 to $9,000 a month, plus per mits, licenses. There was a learning curve of how to do deliveries . . . we have taken on more and more debt.”
Garfield applied for the various loans made available, but the restau rant didn’t get funding. And because it had to lay of f most of its employees, it didn’t qualify for the PPE funding that requires 75 percent of employees to be retained. “With an empty restau rant there was nothing for them to do. I want to reiterate that the funding model wasn’t good for restaurants and bars.” She points to a few restaurants in the area that have closed for good as a result of the pandemic.
A positive experience during this event has been the feeling of commu nity support Garfield has experienced. “They are coming out to support us.” Sharon Austel of the Rotary Club of Simi Valley sponsored meals from the Junkyard for all the workers at the Simi Valley Hospital. Others spon sored meals for employees of the Simi T rader Joe’s and the local fire station. “These are the kinds of things keeping us alive.”
Customers showed strong support for the restaurant, even putting up signs around town directing people to the restaurant for takeout or delivery. “Our customers built these wooden signs in the style of my menu that said Junkyard Takeout and Delivery and ‘We miss you like crazy,’ that’s our tagline.” Other signs said “ ‘You’re gonna make it’ and ‘We’re gonna make sure you make it.’ That is the best part of this whole story, the com munity love,” said Garfield. “And so we did. We’re here.”
that customers will also comply.
“It doesn’t do us any good to implement all safety features internally and to allow the public to just disregard them.”
“Some things are going to shake Photo from Peirano’s Facebook page.
The Junkyard Cafe, 3585 Cochran St., Simi Valley, open 7 days a week 7 a.m. - 10 p.m., 805-520-5865, www. thejunkyardcafe.com
Local medical uniform shop hanging on
by Kimberly Rivers
kimberly@vcreporter.com
Staff of Scrubs on the Run. ( Photos submitted)
By now the public knows about PPE, or personal protective equipment: masks, goggles and face shields. But medical scrubs, the uniform healthcare workers wear, are also an important part of protecting them — and their families after they come home.
“They are easy to change [in and out of] and keep down germs,” said Reyna Chavez, owner of Scrubs on the Run. The store sells scrubs and other medical uniforms and supplies from locations in Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Ventura. “We are the only supplier from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles.”
“I think our industry will be ok and probably stronger than before,” said Chavez, who has seen an influx of customers that were not previously wearing scrubs. The whole design is to “protect yourself and cleanliness. They are a better barrier than reg ular clothes and scrubs are very fashion forward.”
On March 20, she closed the Oxnard location for a month. Even though she didn’t have to lay off any employees — staff went to other locations — busi ness is still down. She received a loan through Women’s Economic Ventures.
“The WEV loan came through much faster than the PPE loan or through our normal bank,” said Chavez. “It closed in three days. We were able to stay open, but our numbers were down. It’s just not business as normal.”
Chavez said that when the pan demic hit Ventura County, a lot of workers in healthcare settings wanted scrubs. The company was already selling online, but with an all-sales-final policy due to the coronavirus, “It can be tricky if you’ve never worn scrubs before” to get the fit right. Now, she says scrubs are required in many depart ments as part of PPE and people are needing them the next day. “They would say they can’t go to work tomorrow without scrubs.”
After the Oxnard location closed, Scrubs on the Run had to double up its employees in the Ventura and Thousand Oaks shops due to new health and safety pro tocols. Since it is an essential business, it remained open. But the stores had to develop processes for steam sterilizing uniforms that were tried on, and keeping a “quarantine rack” so customers are touching fewer items.
The shop has started selling cloth masks made locally, and recently received a shipment of face shields. Chavez says some offices are wanting their employ ees to have that protection, but if they need to talk on the phone, the face shields are much easier than masks.
“It is day to day. We are trying to keep up with all the changes,” said Chavez about the current business operations. “We put a plan together and present it to staff. We never did Zoom meetings, now we are doing them once a week. And this might be the new way of shopping, it’s working. Everyone has remained flexible and helpful.”
Even though Scrubs on the Run has an online presence, Chavez said the focus is “on our com munity.” She is trying to develop relationships with Ventura County hospitals, hoping they will switch to supporting a local supplier of uniforms and scrubs.
“They use out of state suppliers, one in Texas. CMH [Community Memorial Hospital] is literally in our backyard,” Chavez said. She was in talks with Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks before the pandemic. “We have a rela tionship with [the CMH] residency program, providing their lab coats. But scrubs [orders] are filled by an out of state company still.”
“We will be more successful if we help each other to rebuild our community.”
Eye on the Environment Nurses week honors Medical Environmentalist by David Goldstein
Nurses Week, celebrated earlier this month, honors those frontline workers who heal the sick and are today helping to protect us from a spreading pandemic. The commemo ration began with one particular nurse in mind. Starting in 1954 to mark the 100th anniversary of Florence Night ingale’s mission to care for soldiers in the Crimean War, the commemoration was formalized in 1974, centering on May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale.
A British social reformer and stat istician, Nightingale revolutionized nursing by recognizing the relationship between the environment and medi cine. She is called a Medical Environmentalist for her work in transforming hospital environments, which previously were large, windowless warehouses full of rows of beds. She recognized the importance of windows, light, fresh air and separating patients by condition. Although the method of transmission for infections was unknown during her time, she greatly reduced the spread of infections in hospital environments.
A nonprofit organization specializ ing in environmental medicine, La Médecine Environnementale, on their website, medecine-environnementale. org, traces the origin of environmental medicine to Hippocrates’ treatise, “On Airs, Waters, and Places.” Although many ideals of the ancient Greeks car ried through to modern times, medical diagnosis took an unfortunate turn away from the Greeks, into a more “ideological or philosophical-based (non-scientific) approach,” according to La Médecine Environnementale.
Nightingale put medical science back on track. Now, environmental medical science addresses “the true causes of diseases… not just their symptomatic effects,” according to La Médecine Environnementale, prescrib ing preventative measures such as “a healthier lifestyle” and “precautionary protection measures to face environ mental factors causing the diseases and af flictions.”
Nurses and other medical providers honor Nightingale’s legacy by caring not just for those afflicted by their environments, but also for the envi ronment itself. At the most basic level, this includes managing the waste generated by their own facilities’ medical procedures.
his romantic tenor , as an example of the many nights spent consoling the brokenhearted with his peaceful demeanor . It is also recommended to listen to their version of “Blue Moon” and let Henry take you on a ride with his flute floating through the heavy groove that established his fami ly as the royal kings of the West Coast Latin jazz sound.
Life, Lived Henry Estrada 1936-2020
Being a real musician and a responsible father and husband at the same time is no easy task. The odds are stacked up against you because one has to be almost superhuman to pull it off. You have to be dedicated to your craft, get up every morning and haul your butt to work, provide quality time for family and still make it to the gig. Well, through the grace of God, that’s what Henry Estrada accomplished in life. Fifty-plus years of music and family with an extraordinary gift and talent to touch people
For example, last year, hospitals in Ventura County salvaged over 7,600 pounds of medical devices no longer able to be sterilized for reuse, packing and providing these to Stryker Incor porated, which operates specialized sterilization and reconditioning equipment. This reuse funded the planting of 93 trees in the Monongahela National Forest. Each year, reforestation efforts occur in a different location, with a number of trees dedicated to each of its customers, in accordance with the amount of medical items salvaged.
Some hospitals in Ventura County not only recycle bottles, cans, paper and the normal items expected for recycling in public places. They also pay extra for separate collection of their food waste, which is hauled away for composting.
You can also help properly manage medical waste. Bring expired med ications and used needles to proper disposal facilities, which you can find under the “hazardous” tab at Earth911. com. When you pick up a prescription, at your consultation for how to take a drug or use a syringe, ask the pharma cist to include information about how to properly discard leftover materials.
When you are recovering in a hospital room or waiting in a patient room at a doctor ’s office, do not use the container labeled “bio waste” without consulting an attending medical pro fessional. Items in those containers must be specially handled, at great expense.
You also sometimes have an opportunity for an unusual type of reuse. Some one-time use items used on you, such as scissors and blue plastic sheets, may still be useful to you, and if you ask, medical professionals often allow you to take them home for repurposing.
David Goldstein is an environmental resource analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency.
MAY 28, 2020 — — 7 with his soul. There’s no doubt Henry belongs in the same breath as Stan Getz and Paul Desmond as a pioneer of the West Coast Jazz sound. But his legacy is that of just being a humble cat who could play with anybody, but wisely chose to make sure his family came first.
