IS EVERY RESTAURANT AROUND ME SHUTTING DOWN?
Earlier in the week, I saw an article announcing that Las Cuatro Milpas, the beloved San Diego institution of Mexican food, was shutting down after 91 years.
Thankfully, these were just rumors. Loose interpretations of discussions around the property and passing the restaurant on to a next generation.
Still, part of what made it so easy to believe was the fact that this autumn, an unseasonably high number of San Diego restaurants have closed their doors. Hammond’s Ice Cream. Voltaire Public House. Even Tip Top Meats, which has been serving for 60 years.
It does make you wonder, what’s going on San Diego? Turnover in the restaurant world is part of the industry, but San Diego seems to cycle through eateries faster than any other place I’ve lived.
I don’t envy many in the food industry. From the kitchen staff through management, it seems like a pretty cutthroat and chaotic environment.
In a lot of industries, the misery is typically concentrated with the frontline workers, as ownership sits pretty. But being a restaurant owner seems stressful and tortorus as well, unless you’re some sort of mega-owner at the top of a chain or conglomeration. But the fail rate is high, the burnout rate is high, and you better have a legitimate passion for what you’re doing.
Thankfully, I have met so many chefs and people in the food world who do have it.
Passion.
And they’re the perfect reminder that the root of the word passion basically means suffering. Your passion is what you’re willing to suffer for.
So, when a beloved independent restaurant closes up shop, it’s a pretty sad day. I mean, even the nostalgia of a big corporate chain brings up some feels (anyone else grow up with a Hungry Howie’s?), but of course, its even more tragic when what’s lost is a person’s passion project that they poured a lot of their soul into.
It’s made me wonder what it is about San Diego that makes it so prone to restaurant closures.
The obvious culprit would be the cost of living. And San Diego is expensive. At one point this year, it clocked in with the highest cost of living. Those costs tend to feed off each other, as more expensive rents necessitate higher wages, which increase operational costs.
And yes, all this is more manageable when things are distributed a bit more equitably throughout an organization, but it’s the small businesses that have their hands tied up.
I suppose this makes me feel a little more justified in a habit I picked up during the pandemic, of eating out a little bit more and convincing myself that in doing so, I’m doing my part to help keep local business afloat.
And to be sincere about it, that means actually eating out at a family joint that could actually appreciate and use the support. Not, like, Din Tai Fung, much as I love those dumplings. An actual migrant owned restaurant that helps connect people with culture is a nice bonus.
With all the announcements of restaurant closures the past couple of months, it’s kept me busy on a little quest to try and eat at as many of them as possible. That hasn’t been easy in many cases, as some of the most beloved institutions have had lines out the door since their announcements. But, hey, it’s been a tasty, bittersweet challenge.
For me, the most essential ‘last meal’ happened at a quiet curry shop in Pacific Beach. World Curry.
As its name implies, they spent close to 20 years serving up curry from just about every cuisine that had a curry to offer. Thai, Japanese, Indonesia, Indian, and even British curries were on the menu, and it was the British dish that had a spicy enough level of heat for people to get their photo on the wall for completing it.
The deeper reason I knew I needed one more meal here was a friend of mine. Years ago, we worked together at a nearby office, and World Curry was a frequent lunch suggestion. Three years ago she passed away unexpectedly, and it seems like recently her memory has been surfacing in all kinds of places.
I went to World Curry partly to relive all those lunch visits over one more plate of Balinese Beef.
While eating, I managed to get a little moment to talk to the shop owner. She shared a little bit about how things slowed down for them over the past couple years. I suppose I’m a classic example of why- with fewer people “going into the office,” lunch rushes have become a thing of the past.
I then told her about my friend and how much she loved her curry. I know closing a restaurant after 20 years isn’t an easy thing to do, but if the knowledge of someone’s fond memories there makes things any easier, I thought she should know. Plus, its one more person in the radius of my friend’s legacy.
At the risk of getting way too sentimental about something like restaurants, I’ll say this… be kind to the venues that host your day-to-day routines. You often don’t realize how baked in to the rhythms of your life they are until seasons change and they become strings of nostalgia.
And go ahead and support a locally owned family restaurant. Those things aren’t easy to own, and when you see someone put love into what they’re doing, don’t take that for granted. Remember, they also need revenue to keep it going.