Tom Douglas and other Seattle restaurant owners transform eateries to keep afloat during COVID-19

For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here.

Just a month after famed Seattle restauranteur Tom Douglas shuttered 12 of his 13 restaurants in March, shifting from around 800 employees to just five as a result of the novel coronavirus, he opened the doors to one new venture.

Serious Takeout is the new kid on Ballard’s block, doling out no-contact takeout, drive-thru service, and delivery via Caviar, DoorDash and ChowNow.

Nestled at 5118 14th Ave. N.W., the hub for all manner of fire-roasted pizzas like that of buffalo mozzarella, sweet fennel sausage showered with roasted peppers, and seasonal mushroom dolloped with truffle cheese, works as a replica of it’s former Serious Pie chain.

Thankfully, per Serious Pie’s menu, Serious Takeout will also offer baskets of Dahlia Bakery cookies (another Tom Douglas hotspot,) myriad cocktail kits and grilled sandwiches dripping with caramelized onions.

Their no contact walk up, pick up and delivery is open 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. (or until they sell out) Wednesday through Sunday.

Douglas said it was time to build “from the ground up” under difficult conditions at a virtual Town Hall event earlier this month, and hopes to move forward, bringing some employees back after letting go most of his workforce when the outbreak began.

The current takeout space formerly operated as Tom Douglas’s catering operation, but now joins the shortlist of Seattle restaurants debuting new directions and opening doors in the midst of stay-at-home orders.

Mirroring restaurants include that of Canlis’s family meal delivery platform, chef Brendan McGill’s new Italian sandwich, pizza and bagel haven in Georgetown, and Columbia City’s Vietnamese café, Coffeeholic.

Even Woodinville is working around stay-at-home orders with new restaurant renovations.

The city’s Hollywood Tavern, open since 1947, has officially launched the Hollywood Drive-In. While on a typical non-quarantined day the restaurant may dole out casual Northwestern fare and Woodinville whiskey sips in a refurbished, distillery-adjacent roadhouse, the new feature dishes out single and double burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, Cajun tots and soda.

To support the neighborhood’s wine industry, visitors can also purchase half-price bottles of wine to go.

And alongside Hollywood Drive-In’s $25 gift cards accompanied by a koozie, visitors can even pick up toilet paper rolls, “2-ply, $6 for 4 rolls if it’s still available.”

The Drive-In menu is divvied out Wednesdays through Sundays from 12 p.m.-8 p.m.. Visitors can call the Tavern to place drive-in orders and pay by phone, or text Hi to 99814 to register, order and pay via text.

“We’ve missed serving our guests, and if our drive-in allows us to feed our fans and get paychecks into the hands of even a few of our staff members, we can feel like we are doing something during this tough time,” said Thomas Self, operating partner of Hollywood Tavern. “The Tavern has been here since 1947, and we are not about to let these challenging times stop us.”

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE: