Chris Holen cruised into Astoria in an old Volkswagen Westfalia, newly married and fresh out of culinary school.

He and his wife Jennifer were passing through in June 2000 on the way to Alaska, where they would unveil a half-baked plan to sell food out of their van at summer music festivals, and decided to make a quick stop in Oregon’s oldest city.

As the Holens meandered around, they strolled along lifeless sidewalks past pawn shops and empty storefronts. Within minutes, they came up with a crazy idea.

“We don’t immediately agree on everything,” Holen said. “But we looked at each other and said the same thing: ‘Let’s move here.’ We just absolutely fell in love with it.”

Over the last two decades, the Holens and their restaurant — Baked Alaska — have become fixtures in the town of about 10,000, outlasting recessions, a housing crisis, and every other regional obstacle. Along the way, the sleepy town has blossomed into one of the most popular destinations in Oregon, drawing more than 125,000 tourists a year with a thriving brewpub culture, burgeoning arts and music scene, unique museums, funky festivals and historic charm.

But now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Astoria’s soul and future are being tested like never before.

Just as it gears up for peak tourist season, the town — and its neighbor to the south, Warrenton — has been besieged by mass layoffs, indefinite closures to the businesses that make it special and unease about what lies ahead. Even during self-isolation and social-distancing, the tight-knit community is continuing to stay connected and engaged through a variety of creative and quirky ways, sticking to the core of what makes it unique. But while many remain optimistic the area can regain its mojo when the coronavirus pandemic eases its grip on society, others are worried this could be a debilitating blow to the region.

“There is going to be a psychological fallout from all this,” said Jeff Daly, who was born and raised in Astoria and returned in 2010 after running a production company in San Francisco for 30 years. “We’re going to lose bars, restaurants and food spots, and many other businesses. In the 1980s, Astoria was a rough-and-tumble town. There were five bars you could go into at any time and buy any kind of dope you wanted and watch a fight in the meantime. It was a rough place. Downtown was empty. Well, dang, we may be going back to that again.”

•••

When the Holens arrived in Astoria 20 years ago, it more closely resembled its rough-and-tumble past. But there was something about the picturesque setting, nestled along the south shore of the Columbia River where it connects to the Pacific Ocean, and something about the peaceful vibe.

There was soul. There was friendliness. There was opportunity.

So, shortly after pulling into town, the Holens walked into a downtown real estate office with an unusual question: “Is there a café for sale?”

“No,” a realtor replied. “But there’s a lady with a place around the corner that’s hardly ever open. Maybe she’ll want to sell it.”

They walked a block-and-a-half down the street into a tiny spot with a handful of tables and no customers, introduced themselves to the owner and wasted little time.

“I just straight up asked the lady, ‘Would you be interested in selling? We’re driving through, love the town and want to open a restaurant,’” Holen said. “She looked at me like everyone else — like I was nuts — and within 30 seconds said, ‘You know, why not?'”

Holen bought the joint, moved into a larger, fancier place on the riverwalk less than a year later, and he’s called Astoria home ever since. Nowadays, Astoria’s rough-and-tumble past is long gone.

Hotel Elliott and the Cannery Pier Hotel and Spa draw tourists for luxury stays. Buoy Beer Company and Fort George Brewery have made the town a go-to craft beer destination. The historic Liberty Theatre has been restored to host local, regional and national performing arts. A dozen eclectic and culture-rich museums dot downtown. And annual events like the Fisher Poets Gathering, Festival of Dark Arts and Pacific Northwest Brew Cup have been created and evolved into popular annual regional attractions.

“We’re a Sunset Magazine feature piece now,” Daly said. “Every three months, an article appears about this beautiful town on the ocean, along the river, with museums, scenery and outdoor living. It was the perfect little chamber of commerce community.”

Baked Alaska, Chris Holen's popular riverwalk restaurant, would have celebrated its 19th anniversary on Monday. Sean Meagher/Staff

•••

Baked Alaska was supposed to celebrate its 19th anniversary on Monday, commemorating the moment Holen expanded from his original seven-table café to its current picturesque location perched along the Columbia River. Instead, the restaurant and its stunning water views sit lifeless.

Holen held off closing his doors until the last minute, hoping that the impact of COVID-19 wouldn’t stretch all the way West to the coast. But when Gov. Kate Brown issued her stay-at-home order in late March — and relegated bars and restaurants to takeout service only — he finally relented, breaking the news to his 25 employees that they would be laid off indefinitely. In short order, businesses across the region shuttered and scores of folks lost their jobs.

Buoy, the flagship Astoria brewery that sits a stroll down the riverwalk from Baked Alaska, went from employing nearly 100 to five. Fort George, the popular pub that boasts outdoor cornhole and live Sunday night music every week, endured a similar hit, laying off workers and transitioning most of its full-time staff to part-time.

A wealth of coronavirus-related attention has been focused on metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco and Portland. But small towns across the country, including the Oregon Coast, are suffering, too. Clatsop County stretches from Astoria to Cannon Beach and encompasses more than 1,000 square miles, including roughly 40,000 residents — and an average annual employment of about 19,200 — according to Kevin Leahy, the executive director of Clatsop Economic Development Resources.

In February, the county’s unemployment rate hovered at 3.9 percent. But during the last three weeks, Leahy said, 1,878 people have applied for unemployment insurance, a figure that is likely 100 or so short because the state is so far behind in collecting and reporting unemployment data. Leahy estimates at least 14 percent of the county is suddenly unemployed, and that’s “on the low side.”

The county is dominated by small businesses and, Leahy said, 65 percent of those are family-owned. So while Hampton Lumber Mill in Warrenton continues to churn out wood chips, in part to help with increased demand for toilet paper, and the breweries are maintaining normal production levels, tourism will always be an economic driving force. Leahy said 29 percent of the Clatsop County economy — roughly $580 million a year — centered on tourism.

The area is only beginning to embark on its busy season. Brown and other government leaders have been hesitant to speculate about when state-at-home restrictions will be eased, let alone lifted. But if they linger much longer, the economic impact in Astoria and Warrenton will be painful.

“The last few weeks, between the beautiful weather and spring break, this town would have absolutely been packed to the gills,” Astoria Mayor Bruce Jones said. “But it’s a ghost town right now. We hit our peak in July and August and the first half of September. If in fact we remain completely closed down then, or if we have a further outbreak and things close again, that will truly be devastating. A lot of places make more in those months than they do the whole year.”

Evidence of that came in the nascent stages of statewide shelter-in-place orders, right around the time Oregon entered spring break week. Tens of thousands of tourists ignored Brown and flocked to the coast for planned vacations and day trips, creating a parking lot on highways and making a mockery of social-distancing practices in the coastal towns.

Local politicians were outraged by the disregard, and Warrenton Mayor Henry Balensifer made headlines when he organized an emergency city meeting on March 21 to pass resolutions that declared a state of emergency and evicted tourists from the area. Jones quickly followed suit, and the numerous lodging options in the two towns — from campgrounds to Airbnb’s to luxury hotels — remain closed to vacationers until at least May 18.

“We can’t handle having thousands of people flood the city,” Balensifer said during his emergency March meeting. “My message is: tourists, don’t come here. Not right now. We’ll welcome you back later. The beach is always going to be here, clams are still in the ocean. They don’t catch COVID-19.”

The Oregon Coast braces for an uncertain future as the coronavirus pandemic impacts tourism, results in mass layoffs and causes indefinite closures to local businesses. Sean Meagher/Staff

Quietly, many residents can’t help but feel a little resentment that they’re forbidden from surfing nearby beaches, visiting local parks and traversing outdoor trails — including Warrenton’s 11 miles of waterfront land — because tourists flooded their town. And there’s a growing sentiment that, because they’ve mostly been spared from COVID-19 — only six people in Clatsop County have tested positive and none have been hospitalized in critical condition — it doesn’t make sense that a small town should be shut down. But Jones is doing everything he can to douse that sentiment with cold water.

“I keep hearing, ‘Why can’t we reopen the economy, we don’t have anyone sick?’” Jones said. “Well, we’ve been spared regionally because of a combination of good luck and people consciously practicing social-distancing. If you’re paying attention to what’s happening in the rest of the country — and the rest of the world — you’d know that if we relax now and welcome people back to our community, we’d be hit with the virus badly and quickly.”

•••

It’s a little before 7 on Friday night, just about the time young kids across Astoria and Warrenton are getting ready for bed, and Balensifer has settled into a comfy chair for a new weekly ritual: Storytime with the Mayor.

When the layoffs started and schools shut their doors, Balensifer thought about the myriad ways kids’ lives would be changing. At the very least, he figured, he could promote a little literacy and give them a regular activity to look forward to. So he partnered with the Warrenton Community Library to host a weekly story session, and every Friday night, Balensifer reads one book and one offering from Aesop’s fables via Facebook Live.

His cat, Scruffles The Shop Kitty, has even made a couple impromptu appearances, helping Balensifer discover “my inner Mr. Rogers.” The move has been a hit. Traffic on his Facebook page has increased each week, Balensifer is receiving pieces of “fan mail” and people are even chatting him up during visits to the grocery store.

“People come up to me and say, ‘You’re the mayor, right? Thank you so much. I look forward to that every week,’” Balensifer said. “And this is people aged 65 all the way to little kids. I hope it’s just one way to provide a little normalcy in a time that is so chaotic and stressful and constantly changing.”

It's merely one of the countless creative ways Astoria and Warrenton are adapting and staying connected during the pandemic.

Watershed Wellness is offering 15-30 minute virtual Chinese herbal medicine consultations. The Liberty Theatre has archived a variety of its old live performances to watch on its Facebook page and is organizing a “virtual Netflix party.” Holen has expanded his popular side project — the “Chef Outta Water” video series — to include a how-to for “cooking at home during a global pandemic,” that includes “helpful cooking ideas, tips and recipes to help keep food on the table at home.”

On Easter Sunday, a Warrenton pastor stood outside in front of his church with an AM/FM transmitter and held a service as people sat in cars in the parking lot and listened on radios.

Buoy has been delivering beer throughout Astoria, is using its Pilot House Distillery to make hand sanitizer for local emergency service and healthcare workers, and plans on hosting a “virtual run” in May to benefit the parks department. Also, the brewery’s employees, despite being laid off, continue to communicate through a Facebook group chat and occasionally meet for “social distance walks” along the riverwalk.

Local businesses like Frite & Scoop, Busu, Good to Go and Idlewild Biscuits have teamed up to offer joint delivery and curbside pickup of their products. And on Thursday, Fort George reopened its kitchen to bake its beloved wood fired pizzas, offering them with to-go beer for delivery and contact-free pick-up.

Meanwhile, Daly continues to drive his old school refurbished train around town every day at 5 p.m., tooting the horn and blowing bubbles, and has produced a series of silly PSAs on YouTube about social-distancing and shaking hands amid COVID-19.

Astoria has blossomed into a popular tourist destination because of its breweries, museums, burgeoning music and arts scene and funky festivals.

All the while, the vibrant Astoria music scene is adapting and continuing to entertain. Local musicians Gabrielle Macrae and Barry Southern of The Horsenecks and The Waysiders have organized a Facebook “Quarantine Happy Hour” featuring a mix of local and regional artists curated by Astorian musicians. Reach Break Brewing, in addition to offering online beer purchases and home delivery in Clatsop County, is hosting a virtual happy hour on Sunday afternoons.

And even though Fort George has had to postpone its popular Sunday night music performances for the first time since opening in 2007, it’s still powering through on a fun collaboration with Portland’s Von Ebert Brewing and Jealous Butcher Records called the “45 series” in which the trio will distribute a special brew and record. The music, featuring a collaboration of musicians from the breweries and Astoria, was supposed to include an April release party and a short promotional tour in Oregon and Washington. But now, Fort George is working on a direct-to-door shipping concept.

“This is a creative town and, especially over the last few years, so many more artists have moved to town,” Brian Bovenizer, marketing and sales director at Fort George, said. “We’re all working together to make things happen with the resources that we have. We have to try new things. I didn’t know if we’d get to finish the (45 series) project, but we’re charging ahead and trying to be creative. It feels good to say, ‘Let’s go for it. Let’s not let all this stop us.’”

So while some can’t help but feel worried about the future and what Astoria will become when things return to normal — whatever normal will look like — others remain buoyed by the town’s creative soul and persevering spirit.

“I guess I’m optimistic about things,” Jessyka Dart-Mclean, marketing manager at Buoy, said. “I’m hoping that people do a much better job on a regular basis of washing hands and stuff like that. But we’re a social animal and I think this is hard on a lot of people and they are going to crave that normal togetherness when this is all over. We have a very tight knit group here and we’re going to get through this.”

•••

On a recent afternoon, Holen went out for a stroll along the scenic downtown riverwalk that props up Baked Alaska and so many other successful Astoria businesses.

It was a pristine spring day with sunny skies and temperatures hovering over 60 degrees. Under normal circumstances, it would have been overflowing with couples holding hands and leisurely bike riders and out-of-town visitors soaking in the town’s splendor.

But as Holen sauntered along, he was practically alone, with just one person riding a bike in the distance. It was a sight he had rarely seen in 20 years, but he’s hopeful it won’t become the new norm.

“It’s bizarre,” he said. “That’s the best word to describe it. Straight bizarre. But you know what? What’s really cool about Astoria is that we’re not just a beach town to go see the coast and walk around in the sand. We’re a real town. People live and work here. They’re creative and they’re driven and they’re inspired by where we live and work. That has not — and will not — change. This is an authentic and amazing place and savvy travelers will come back. We’re going to be OK.”

— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories