Landmark SLO sandwich shop says it may be forced to close. You could help keep it open
A failed health inspection, personal challenges and aging kitchen equipment is threatening to put one of San Luis Obispo’s longest-running delis out of business.
Gus’s Grocery, which has served up sandwiches and other deli staples at the corner of Osos Street and Leff Street for more than three decades, is in danger of closing permanently unless the community steps up in a big way, owner Shannon Koester told The Tribune.
“I don’t know if I can make it till the first of the year at the rate it’s going,” Koester said.
Recent years have proved a challenge for Gus’s, including the financial toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with a slew of disruptions in the ownership’s personal life, Koester said.
Now, with business down in the wake of the health inspection and what may be the final month for the classic sandwhich shop underway, Koester is trying a different approach to get her business to a more stable place: running a GoFundMe campaign to shore up the persistent problems that have pushed the deli to the brink.
Issues with deli may force closure
Koester, who started working at Gus’s in 2001 and purchased the business in 2017 with her husband Kirk, said she’s not ready to let go of a business that’s been part of her daily life for more than 20 years.
As recently as early 2022, the shop was still operating mostly as usual but was feeling the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Koester said.
But in September of that year, Koester had a stroke that her doctors attributed to work-related stress — one of the most significant disruptions of her work life since she joined the business.
“I’m 99% sure this place is what put me in the hospital with my stroke two years ago,” Koester said. “My doctors were like, ‘You need to reduce stress,’ and I’m like, ‘Then I should sell my f------ business, because I don’t have another option.’”
On Christmas Eve of 2022, Kirk Koester died of a drug overdose, leaving Shannon to run the business as its sole owner going forward.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, Shannon said the business started to have issues maintaining its aging equipment.
As it stands, the deli’s walk-in refrigerator and drink refrigerator are not working, and the deli’s slicer is in need of a new blade. The business is extremely tight on cash, with the soda fountain machine often marked out of order due to an inability to keep it consistently stocked, she said.
Other issues have diminished the shop’s appearance in recent years; when Koester tried to have the floors fully scrubbed and re-polished, the work was not completed, leaving the floor worse for wear, and the building’s owner has been hesitant to make improvements to the exterior, Koester said.
Worst of all, the deli failed a health inspection in August due to continuing to do business during “a very obvious rodent infestation” that included “both live and dead rodents” inside the facility, as well as “excessive rodent dropping and urine.”
According to Koester, Gus’s was already in the process of having an exterminator fix the rodent infestation before the inspection but was ordered to close until the outstanding health issues were fully resolved.
The deli re-opened the next day following a re-inspection, but Koester said the damage was done. Foot traffic through the deli has fallen off significantly in the past two months and may not rebound for some time, she said.
While she’d prefer to keep Gus’s open, Koester said she recognizes that the business has cost her greatly, and it may not be realistically feasible in the long term.
“The thing is, is I love this place,” Koester said. “I have put my heart and soul into it for the last 22 years, almost 23 years, but honestly, the idea of just a regular 9-to-5 job has been extremely appealing to me lately.”
Deli needs community support to fix longtime problems
Koester said it didn’t occur to her to try a GoFundMe to fill Gus’s financial gaps until a customer suggested the idea.
With so many parts of Gus’s kitchen equipment broken or in poor shape, Koester’s only been able to sell a fraction of the things that customers expect from a deli, removing beer, fountain sodas and some meal items entirely.
Koester’s GoFundMe is asking the community for $4,500 to repair the broken equipment and has already raised $1,100 since being posted last week.
“It would at least be able to allow me to get equipment fixed, to be able to buy the products that I need to have — all of the stuff that everybody wants every day,” Koester said. “It kills me every time I have to tell somebody I don’t have something.”
Koester said she’d be the first to admit that she was hesitant to launch the fundraiser out of personal pride, but she believes the business can make its way back to profitability if it’s able to survive the coming month and fix its current problems.
“I tend to be a private person,” Koester said. “I know that all of these factors in my personal life have affected what’s happened here, and I need people to know that it’s not that I don’t care — it’s that my life has been a f------ s---show for four years.”
Interested parties can contribute to the deli’s future in San Luis Obispo by supporting the business in person or making a contribution through its GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-guss-a-community-staple-in-need.
This story was originally published December 10, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
