New entertainment spot coming to high-profile site in SLO. Here’s what’s planned at The Hub
A unique new food, music and recreation hotspot is coming to San Luis Obispo — and it’s named, appropriately, The Hub.
The development will take over the massive lot at 1701 Monterey St. left vacant by the closure of Daylight Home and Patio in 2021.
The Hub will take that existing 12,000-square-foot building and renovate the inside to include a bar and tavern, restaurant, shopping and indoor live entertainment, according to a San Luis Obispo city staff report.
Outside of the venue would be a number of food trucks, a coffee cart, a bike display and outdoor activities such as games and axe-throwing, according to the report.
The project was appealed to the City Council on Tuesday after being approved by the city Planning Commission in May.
The City Council upheld the Planning Commission’s approval, meaning the development can now move ahead.
What is The Hub?
The Hub is a collaboration between eight popular local businesses: Central Coast Brewing, Krobar Craft Distillery, Nautical Bean Coffee, Art’s Cyclery, What the Truck Mobile Cuisine, Lone Oak Seltzer, SLO Axe Co. and Whalebird Kombucha, all of which are anticipating conducting business out of the spot.
On Tuesday, Central Coast Brewing owner George Peterson said the brewery is being “housed out” of its home at 1422 Monterey St., a spot it has occupied for 25 years.
That in part helped to inspire the formation of The Hub, which the business partners envision as “an integrated eating, drinking and recreational experience,” that could help revitalize the Monterey Street area, according to the staff report.
“We’re keeping the Monterey corridor hopefully alive,” Peterson told the City Council at its meeting Tuesday night. “It isn’t doing very well. If you haven’t noticed, things are a little weird with the current economic situation, and they aren’t going to get any better.”
The project is similar in theory to San Luis Obispo Public Market at Bonetti Ranch, located at South Higuera Street and Tank Farm Road in San Luis Obispo. The development likewise brings together a mix of businesses and experiences for people to enjoy.
For an idea of just what The Hub would be like, the partners shared a “Day at the Hub” schedule with the city, included in the agenda packet for the meeting.
Sample activities include grabbing a “healthy breakfast before a bicycle ride,” buying a four-pack of local craft beer for a barbecue, getting a flat tire fixed, meeting with friends for drinks, watching Tom Cruise films during movie night or even renting the commercial kitchen to jar “your grandma’s famous salsa,” according to the schedule.
According to the project plans, The Hub would feature a rotating lineup of food trucks. Beer, wine and kombucha tastings could be conducted on site, and diners could watch a whole slate of live music and performing arts acts at the same time.
Visitors could take their dogs and their kids to hang out as they play pickleball or throw axes, or enjoy quieter activities such as chess.
A shuttle to other local activities, such as hikes, biking and walking tours, would also be available.
“We’ve got a good group of very forward-thinking individuals that want to be a part of this,” Peterson said. “And we’re all cohesive, we’re all local, we’re all trying to do something that we can all enjoy, and bring whoever else wants to enjoy it with us.”
Council members were also very supportive of the project Tuesday night.
“I’m super grateful for the project to fill that site,” council person Andy Pease said Tuesday night. “I think it’s wonderful to see local entrepreneurs come together to make it happen in this way.”
Some neighbors protest Hub project
After the project was approved by the Planning Commission in May, a group of neighbors appealed the decision to the city, saying the project would negatively impact nearby homes with lighting, noise and traffic.
Hana Novak filed the appeal.
“San Luis Drive is a special neighborhood,” Novak said Tuesday night. “The concerns of the neighbors is that this will have the potential to become a large concert venue, a large drinking venue, with a lot of people coming in and out, and that noise will definitely spill over without adequate mitigation measures to protect the neighbors that are living on the other side of this project.”
Novak said she felt the project applicants should pay for that noise mitigation as well.
“I hope that this city council cares as much about neighborhood wellness as it does about the economic benefits of this project,” Novak said.
Peterson said the group has worked hard to limit the impacts on the neighborhood, including moving all outdoor activity away from the nearby homes and looking into sound barriers to help limit the noise.
“All of this is for the neighborhood, honestly, to prosper — not the other way around,” Peterson said. “We’re not trying to be bad neighbor. I’m a neighbor. I have been in this town for 40-plus years.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
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