After Seabirds mysteriously shuttered from late June into August, questions swirled about whether the vegan staple—which has a cult-like following from Orange County to Los Angeles—was going to survive the pandemic or, like some of the prominent food spaces in Los Angeles have experienced, permanently close.

Owner Stephanie Morgan stressed that Seabirds is not permanently closing and, in fact, has officially reopened with a bit of patio space she hopes to expand along with an extreme sense of caution.

“We shut down due to a culmination of high stressors: COVID-19 cases were on the rise after dining rooms opened, we had a scare where we thought an employee was positive—turns out they weren’t—and the staff felt unsafe with guests in our dining room without masks on,” Morgan told the Post. “Our crew needed a break to de-stress and relax a bit. We had a meeting with all of our managers and we decided closing for a month just felt like the right thing to do.”

Morgan also noted that she is in the midst of working on new menu items and encourages most people to get their food via take-out, but said that if guests wish to dine on the patio, the Seabirds crew will be serving food on paper trays and on sheet pans to “be a bit more sustainable and to offer a small improvement to the dining experience. Maybe, better than eating out of a box and a bag, I hope?”

Seabirds opened its truck in 2010 with the sole mission of “pushing the boundaries of vegan cuisine.” That mission proved successful, giving the restaurant its first brick-and-mortar location at Costa Mesa’s The LAB. The small shop off of Fourth Street, just a tad east of Alamitos, opened in 2017.

Morgan is also in talks with the landlord to extend the outdoor dining toward the front of the space just west of Seabirds’ location. No formal agreement has been made.

Seabirds is located at 975 E. Fourth St.