The iconic Golden Hill Cafe at 25th and C streets has been losing customers lately, say employees of the popular, longtime diner.
But it’s not because of prices, service or food quality. It’s because of the loss of street parking due to a nearby construction project, they contend.
“All the construction workers across the street are parking in our street parking area, you know, in front of our restaurant, all the way down the street, all the way up the other side of the street,” says server Trudi Erickson. “My customers can’t find a place to park. They tell me they would have come in to have breakfast, but can’t find any place to park.”
Erickson, a server who has worked at the community gathering spot for 36 years, and her co-workers have noticed panel vans bearing the names of contracting firms sitting for hours in front of the restaurant. There’s construction workers’ cars and trucks too. All are taking up scarce street parking.
It’s the cost of rapid development across the city. Construction crews move in to build new projects that could boost the local economy, but in the meantime, blocked streets and lost parking put a strain on business districts where many local shops and eateries are already battling the effects of a challenging economy. And tensions rise.
Golden Hill is no different. Erickson and a co-worker told Times of San Diego they noticed that public parking spots began disappearing about the time construction began on a mid-rise project now nearing completion. The site, 1101 25th St., is a Cast Development project known as Alüm, which stands tall over the surrounding neighborhood. Plans call for an eight-story, 113-home mixed-use complex set to include a ground-floor retail tenant, a restaurant and cocktail bar.
The long-time staff of the Golden Hill Cafe say they have all seen firsthand how customer traffic has declined as construction continues. Other nearby businesses like the popular Krisp market and Panchita’s Bakery have been largely unaffected because their customers can park in a private lot.
Day to day, Golden Hill Cafe employees have watched the progress of the construction by looking through the cafe’s windows, and while doing so, they noticed a trend that puzzled them.
Sometime after the construction began, the staff noticed that parking enforcement officers had stopped chalking tires and returning to write tickets in timed parking zones.
Times of San Diego followed up with an inquiry to the San Diego Police Department and representatives from Councilmember Stephen Whitburn’s office and asked why the city’s parking division appeared to have stopped ticketing cars in front of the restaurant.
Whitburn’s office did not respond, but Ashley Nicholes, communication manager for Police Chief Scott Wahl, said that as far as her office was aware, there “was no direction given to not enforce parking restrictions in the area.”
As to the apparent lack of enforcement, she said that “SDPD has hired several new parking enforcement officers, so it could be a natural transition of employees that led to the change in enforcement posture in that area.”
Nicholes added that the department spoke with the cafe manager and employees “to let them know we would keep an eye on the area, and also to let them know how they can use the Get It Done app to report parking violations in the future. We have also connected with members of the construction crew to bring awareness of the importance of following all parking regulations and were assured they would share that with their employees.”
The on-site foreman for the project, Joe Garza, said he had spoken with some area store owners in advance but not to workers in the cafe.
Garza agreed to walk the public parking area in front of the cafe with Times of San Diego and saw five different signs offering parking information. One of them, a sign slightly obscured by tree leaves, read, “Two-Hour Parking 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.” This changed his thinking.
He immediately began texting, telling the waitresses, “I’m sending a text to all of my foremen to let them know their employees should only park here two hours at a time, and I am sending along a picture of the two-hour parking sign.”
As he finished sending the texts he stopped out in front of the cafe, saw the Golden Hill Cafe server Erickson, and stopped to shake her hand and smile.
