Zabdi Teriyaki co-owners Mario and Rosa Marcial stand outside their restaurant on Thursday morning. The Japanese restaurant has lost nearly two-thirds of its customers since dine-in service was suspended for restaurants statewide.
Zabdi Teriyaki is open for takeout and DoorDash only.
One of Zabdi Teriyaki's top-selling dishes is its spicy chicken, which sells for $9.75.
Zapdi Teriyaki co-owner Rosa Marcial hands a customer their to-go order.
Editor's Note: The Chronicle is working to assist local businesses suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 virus spread and associated government orders to close or limit commerce. There will be a feature on a local business in each edition of The Chronicle and at chronline.com moving forward. To be considered, email reporter Eric Trent at etrent@chronline.com. Additionally, The Chronicle will continue to offer its coverage of the coronavirus and its effects across the community, state and nation free outside of our paywall at chronline.com.
When Zabdi Teriyaki co-owner Jennifer Marcial watched Gov. Jay Inslee issue a stay-at-home order live on TV on Monday, March 23, she expected the worst.
Inslee ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses in the following 48 hours that day and Marcial figured that included restaurants. Problem was, Gov. Inslee didn’t specifically state which types of businesses were deemed essential, and even after investigating further online and reading news articles, she still couldn’t find a list of essential businesses. Finally she made it to Gov. Inslee’s website and read his statement.
“But it didn’t have anything specific,” Marcial said. “I had to keep looking and keep looking, and that’s when I saw restaurants are still open for to-go and delivery orders. We really thought we were non-essential. I thought we were going to have to close down.”
Lack of detailed information during the novel coronavirus outbreak, both by the federal government and Washington state leaders, has led to a lot of confusion for Marcial and Zabdi Teriyaki, an entirely family-run Japanese restaurant that features everything from yakisoba noodles to tempura.
Marcial was worried back on March 15 when Gov. Inslee signed the emergency declaration shutting down in-house dining at bars, restaurants and places of entertainment. She and her family have been on edge ever since, never knowing exactly what each restaurant restriction is going to mean for their business. That’s what’s been toughest about this whole situation, she said.
“It’s the not knowing; not knowing what’s going to happen next,” Marcial said. “We’re all frustrated because every day something else changes or something is thrown at us in a different way. And not understanding what’s going on. The lack of detailed information.”
It’s just one of many problems Marcial and Zabdi Teriyaki have run into in the last couple weeks. The restaurant has lost nearly two-thirds of their regular business, Marcial said. Their busiest hours used to be during the dinner rush between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Now, if they’re completely slow by 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., they’ll just close and go home. It’s already happened three or four times in the past 11 days.
It’s become tough to deal with for the burgeoning teriyaki joint that first opened on Aug. 14, 2019 and had seen a recent boom in customers. Zabdi Teriyaki has a 4.8 rating across 40 Google reviews as of March 26.
“Our name was just getting out there,” Marcial. “We were just starting to get clients in here all the time. Since this all has been happening with coronavirus, we’ve seen a complete drop.”
One thing that’s kept Zabdi’s afloat recently has been its partnership with DoorDash, a food delivery service. DoorDash takes 32 percent of the daily sales it’s a part of, but has proven to be the main driver of business for Zabdi the past couple weeks.
For Marcial, who is also a middle school teacher, she’s reminded of past historical events she’s read about that are similar to what people are currently going through with the coronavirus pandemic.
“When you hear and teach about things that have happened in the past, like the Great Depression and the stock market crash, you don’t realize because you didn’t live that,” Marcial said. “Then when it happens to you, it’s like, ‘Wow, how did they feel?’ And we’re not even half as bad as people that were going through the Black Plague and all of that. Still, it affects the economy and the people around you.”
For now, she and her family are left holding on and bracing for what’s to come next. Either way, they’re confident they can endure and come out the other side.
“We have hope,” Marcial said. “We have hope things are going to work out for us. What we do is keep working forward. We’re just looking forward to everything panning out. We wish all businesses that are going through this the best of luck.”
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Reporter Eric Trent can be reached at etrent@chronline.com. Visit chronline.com/business for more coverage of local businesses.
