About Us

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We hope this finds you well and staying safe. I know this has been a challenging, confusing time for everyone. We have been working constantly these past few months to pivot our business, come up with new procedures and ways of making and serving food, and look ahead to the future. It has been stressful and challenging, but we have also had some wonderful opportunities to witness community spirit, love of neighbor and the resilience and innovative spirit for which Winston-Salem is known.

As Phase 1 is scheduled to come to a close at the end of this week, we wanted to give you an update about what we are planning and what we foresee for the rest of the year.

At this time:

• The Porch: The Porch will remain OPEN for Pick-up, Delivery, Dinners on the Porch and Grab & Go. Once it is allowed, we will allow customers to purchase alcoholic drinks to enjoy outside only while they eat their take-out food. We will not provide table service or inside dining for the foreseeable future.
• Alma Mexicana: Alma will re-OPEN for Pick-up & Delivery Wednesday, May 27th. If allowed, we will sell alcoholic drinks for customers to enjoy outside only. We will not open the dining room this summer because we would not be able to seat enough customers safely to make opening the inside dining room a viable option. Additionally, we anticipate that we may not be able to keep Alma open at all during the Winter months, depending on developments with the virus, so we will manage our business during the warm months with an eye towards possibly shuttering it once again this Fall.
• Canteen Market & Bistro: Canteen will remain CLOSED for the foreseeable future. We do not believe that there is a way to financially sustain the restaurant operation and employees in the next year under the Canteen business model given the current situation. Dinners on the Porch (the parent company of The Porch & Alma) will assume the lease and we are evaluating numerous possible evolutions in the amazing space that we created Downtown over the past 18 months of operation. 

As we all step into whatever the future holds, I sincerely look forward to the day when we can return to something of what makes a restaurant come alive - a noisy, intimate, unique space where we are delighted to see an old neighbor, share a glass of wine with a girlfriend, and delight in a dish we’ve never tried and are happy to discover that we love. I know that those things are not “essential” - they are indeed luxuries, and we can wait patiently while we get through the hard work of what lies ahead in the next year, but they are things that make us feel alive and happy, and they are the the “why” for all of us in this ridiculously difficult business of running restaurants.

With sincere appreciation and love,

Claire Calvin & all of us at The Porch, Alma Mexicana and Canteen