THE OTHERS COULDN’T EVEN MAKE THE CAKE, LET ALONE THE FROSTING
“In the end, I am most great-full for the neighborhood we helped to build and to have lived the American Dream” ~ Alan Bilmes of City-Deli
A few weeks ago, I was in a local coffee shop with a friend. We got into a conversation about the Pho place that recently opened in yet another one of Brian Malarky’s defunct “linen” restaurant spaces. This one was formerly called Gabardine. We were arguing whether this Pho place was even viable in the space, and I looked at the guy sitting next to us and asked his opinion. That guy turned out to be Mike Wright, Alan Bilmes partner and co-owner at Hillcrest’s landmark City Deli for 29 years. His response echoed my sentiments exactly. “There’s no parking, the people in this neighborhood have money but they never go out to spend it, and the intersection is a train-wreck waiting to happen.” Nobody expecting to run a successful business in this industry would ever open a legitimate restaurant on that corner.
Years ago I came to San Diego hot off the boat from Boston via New York. I hadn’t been here long when I got a craving for a Hot-Pastrami on Rye, and my total understanding of the local landscape was the block where the restaurant we just opened on Coronado was. This was a solid decade before Yelp and I probably didn’t even have an email address yet!
My boss suggested City Deli. So off my girlfriend and I went. It was a successful restaurant, on a major corner and in a huge glistening space on what was clearly a historic building in a pretty nice neighborhood. Now, for whatever reason my boss thought it was necessary to ‘warn’ me I was going to a gay neighborhood. I remember thinking how absurd that was. I didn’t realize how conservative San Diego was until sometime later. Anyhow, we walked into this spot and I remember how my girl’s jaw dropped when she saw the dessert cases.
Now I’m not going to say it was the best Pastrami sandwich I ever had––I’m a Brooklyn kid after all––but I will say that it is was a great Pastrami sandwich and still to this day is one of the best slices of carrot-cake I’ve ever eaten. The butter-crème frosting was totally on point and the sandwich was good enough. We returned again and again. At some point I met Catherine, who had worked in that building for 35 years, and Alan, the owner. Years later, I sold them meat at my first sales job. I learned growing up that it’s this kind of local network that makes a social center thrive. Meeting Mike this day, years after City Deli shuttered their doors at one of our local OB neighborhood coffee shops Java Jungle, started up a few conversations that lead me to this piece.
Alan opened the restaurant in the early ‘80’s, a time when the city didn’t have much of a food scene, other then Italian and you could really only find good bread and baked goods at Salunto’s. City Deli was one of only five restaurants in Hillcrest the day they opened. It was a Friday. By Sunday they had to close because they ran out of EVERYTHING. Alan was from Canada and not even a citizen at the time and he and Mike came to San Diego with basically just the shirts on their backs. With the financial help of Ken Miller and an SBA loan they finally secured from the 19th bank they applied to, these two made it work. They joined the Hillcrest Business Association and got involved in all kinds of community causes, becoming a safe-haven for kids after school, a hangout for actors after shows, and an iconic corner that’s sadly been lost to commercial gluttony for higher rents and soulless renters. Hillcrest grew up around the City Deli, not the other way round.
What could possibly bring down such an institution? Alan and Mike say it was social media. That, coupled with a Starbucks and a Burger Lounge on every corner, killed peoples desire to meet socially at the local establishment. “People just stopped talking to one another. They were all just on their devices talking to themselves about themselves.” City Deli existed and began in a social media free vacuum. It was a time when San Diego’s self-proclaimed foodies, narcissistic food writers and even Yelpers were nowhere to be found. People actually sat and talked over coffee and a slice of pie.
Space after historic space fell to the highest bidder and greedy landlords. Rents went up, along with the cost of doing business. City policies, permitting headaches, plagues of locust, angry clowns––you name it. The deck was stacked against them. I have often written about the benefits of a crowd sourced platform and social media, but in this case it was a story of “another one bites the dust.”
We see economic ‘development’ taking place all over this city that was a small town not so long ago. The problem, as I see it, is that most of the investors are not local, and they don’t give a crap about our communities and local events. The guy from Montana that owns a chain of 14 coffee shops, 8 of which are on your block––do you think he gives one iota of crap about your neighborhood? The parking situation at the beaches and downtown are the icing on the cake. We’re giving first-tier cities a run for their money on gouging for parking and making the TOW-companies rich beyond their wildest dreams.
This story is not meant to be a bitch session. It’s a perspective on the ‘Changing of the Guard” created by foreign “Land Banking” development companies, a PR savvy clown-show and often a platform of over-priced smoke and mirrors. I’ve seen owners of food events funneling money from charities into their own personal bank accounts. Landlords extorting unrealistic rents from tenants, and industry salaries that are the same as the day I arrived here two decades ago.
Yesterday I met with a gentleman from my Alumni Relations at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. This school is an industry heavyweight in everything food, beverage and culinary. A professional Hospitality Industry Mecca. They have always been on the fore-front of our industry and have the forward thinking skills to understand that networking high profile alumni together in San Diego county will help bring opportunity to all our alumni from the past, present and in the future. In the weeks to come, I’ll be following up with stories from other owners, operators and families of San Diego institutions about the changing landscape and where they see the future opportunities.
The American Dream is still here and opportunity is always ripe for the picking. I believe we need to invest in our communities as a community. Like Mike Wright said, “those 30 years were fabulous. I met so many amazing people and we were invested in the neighborhood first the whole time.” Maybe one day you will hear yourself saying the same thing!
Biomimicry Global Food-Systems Challenge
