Chef Gori Igarashi wears a tall ballcap with a cannabis leaf embroidered on it and a thin towel tied around his neck as he hunches over a burner, tossing fried rice in a wok. A pair of men pinball between stations in Susukino Ramen Bar's (1504 G St., Arcata) open kitchen, ladling out broth, checking the fryer and reading orders from a wall-mounted touchscreen. To the side, a server runs her finger along paper tickets, hunting for an order that hasn't gone out yet and double checking the rest.

It's the second night of Susukino's soft opening but it's not particularly soft — the house is packed, and more customers are milling by the door. At the counter, a diner raves over his bowl of noodles and offers encouragement: "You guys are getting slammed but you're doing a great job."

Three new Arcata restaurants have had soft openings this month: Susukino Ramen Bar, Venecia and Havana. Among them are first timers in the restaurant business and old hands taking up legacy locations. The three are entering the dining scene at varying speeds as they test out recipes and workflow in the kitchens and front of house.

Ronuk Patel and his cousin Roshan Patel had been partners in Devi Cannabis, but wanted to move out of the struggling industry. Once settled on the idea of a ramen restaurant, they reached out to friends they'd made on visits to Sapporo, including Igarashi, who'd been cooking in ramen shops for a decade, though they'd not yet tried his noodles. Up for the venture and move overseas, Igarashi took them on a whirlwind tour of ramen shops to learn what they'd need to set up in Arcata.

Igarashi, whose signature noodles include spicy sesame tan-tan ramen and a vinegar spiked soup, is adjusting to cooking in the U.S., where ramen restaurants are expected to offer a wider variety, including a vegetarian option, rather than one house specialty. And unlike his own shop in Hokkaido, where he worked solo, he's communicating with a staff of people in the kitchen and on the floor. He says, "It's more fun," and despite the language barrier, they've been able to communicate well enough, and he's confident they'll work out the kinks of opening week.

Gaurav Mehta, the third partner in the business, has experience in the local restaurant industry but the Patels are learning as they go, so the week-long soft opening has involved a steep learning curve, particularly managing the flow and communication from the back of house to servers. Hiring experienced servers has been a big help, says Ronuk Patel, as has the patience of those staffers. He says he's told them, "Hey we really don't know what we're doing ... just bear with us and we can figure all this out."

Feedback, says Ronuk Patel, has been mostly positive and the critiques generally fair. There's been some frustration over the reservation system and while most people say they love the noodles, trouble with a boiler the first night gives credence to an online complaint about undercooking. The pork belly "wasn't up to what I wanted to be" that night either, he says, but "we fixed that for sure." The happy humming from a couple at the counter seems testament to the improvement.

Now fully open, this weekend Susukino will test out late-nights hours and DJ music. It's a gamble this far from the nightlife hub of the plaza and he says the team is going to watch the traffic and adjust accordingly. "I think people will show up, but you don't really know."

Over in the former home of Mazzotti's, chef Woody Cabello-Penn is helming the kitchen at Venecia (773 Eighth St., Arcata) with familiar faces, as a number of kitchen staff and servers came along with him from the recently shuttered Tavern 1888. "That's the only way I could have gotten it open, because half the team had been together beforehand," he says.

None of the former restaurants' recipes are on the comparatively brief menu of Venecia, which is owned by Jack Wu, of Jack's Seafood and Ginger. "I just tried to keep it simple and keep all of my local purveyors," says Cabello-Penn. "It's classic Italian American-style food but I try to keep a little taste of Humboldt in there as well," as exemplified by the Ferndale lamb in the Bolognese sauce. "I feel like it's a lot better to have a small, well-executed menu than to have a ton of items and not be able to do it too well."

"I don't know how long we can call it a soft opening; I think it's open now," says Cabello-Penn of the weeks since the first service on Sept. 9. The gradual approach has its advantages, though. "We want to fix any issues with the food or the service before we have a line out the door," he says, "let people trickle in." He's already made adjustments to the menu, like letting the lasagna go after finding the pizza oven unsatisfactory for the task. Customer feedback has been helpful, too. "The first couple weeks, I didn't have gluten-free pasta and now I do. It's actually been more popular than expected."

Experimental breakfast hours have been abandoned for a couple brunchy items and opening at 11 a.m. The lunch and dinner offerings are fairly solidified now, but Cabello-Penn says, "I'm always trying new stuff, and the menu will eventually change."

The transition from the Plaza Grill to its replacement Havana (780 Seventh St., Arcata), a Cuban-Californian fusion restaurant, follows a less conventional path. Along with Havana's dishes showing up as specials on the Plaza Grill menu during the 35-year-old restaurant's final month, on Sept. 19, Havana held a pop-up night that was packed with nostalgic Plaza regulars and patrons eager to sample what's coming ahead of the official Oct. 16 opening.

Co-owner Shona Baum is pleased with the turnout. "We basically sold out of almost all our food but ... at the end of the night," and she was happy to see so many empty plates with little evidence of their plantains and ropa vieja stew left. That members of salsa groups showed up to dance was pleasing, too, she says. "We really want it to be a community space."

"The number of details ... that need to be attended to in order to do a good job and getting feedback from the community is super important," says Baum. Some of the Plaza Grill staff is staying on, which should make the changeover a bit smoother, and the "Cuba contingent" from the original restaurant in Havana is getting acclimated in Arcata. Plaza Grill's split kitchen — a larger space in back and a smaller one with a pass-through to the dining room — requires adjustments in workflow, too, to get dishes out faster.

The slow rollout of the food, Baum says, is helping the staff familiarize themselves with the new menu, as well as gauge local response to the dishes. Burgers and steaks may remain options since, she says, "It's a fusion restaurant." She says she appreciated Plaza Grill owner Bill Chino's advice to ask patrons what could be improved, rather than asking how they liked everything, as most people will rave aloud and keep critiques to themselves. They've already gotten some useful feedback from people who felt it was too loud, now that the carpet has been removed in favor of the redwood floor. Baum is on the hunt for solutions to make the room a little quieter.

"I feel like fundamentally, people will be voting with their feet and on social media," says Baum, who'll be paying attention for both.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.