Stores empty. Bars closed. People gone. How coronavirus silenced SLO one Thursday night
Coronavirus’ impact on San Luis Obispo can hide during the day.
Sure, the restaurants have shuttered dining rooms. And the bars have locked their doors. Retail businesses have rolled their racks back inside, hiding goods from view.
In homes, children aren’t at school and parents who can be at home with them are.
Some are in their homes by choice and by order — others because they’re some of the hundreds who have been laid off from work by COVID-19 closures.
All that is true, but during the bright light of day, people are still out and about.
They’re taking pets for a walk, running into a grocery store and going to work at any of the jobs that have been deemed essential under San Luis Obispo County’s (and now the state’s) stay-at-home order.
The visual clutter of these routine activities somewhat masks the impact coronavirus is having on our lives.
At night, there’s no such luxury.
At night, it’s easy to see the beginnings of the cracks forming in what in the past has been called “The Happiest Town in America.”
On Thursday night — a night normally dedicated to a massive gathering of people and food downtown — Higuera Street in San Luis Obispo was devoid of life.
No throngs of Cal Poly students loudly laughing or yelling on corners. No families looking at tomatoes with young children perched on shoulders. No couples walking hand-in-hand as a guy in an apron and black T-shirt hollers about tri-tip.
Just empty streets and empty stores.
And it’s only 8 p.m.
‘It’s brutal.’ Order leaves downtown SLO abandoned
On Thursday night, downtown San Luis Obispo looked much like a scene from an apocalyptic film or TV show.
The dead zone started as soon as you turned right onto Marsh Street from South Higuera.
Winding up through the houses converted into offices and mom-and-pop shops, only a woman pushing a shopping cart ambled across the dark street.
At the corner of Nipomo and Marsh streets, McCarthy’s Irish pub lay silent, its neon lights glowing on an empty patio and two dumpsters in the parking lot. On Sunday — a lifetime ago during a global pandemic — its owner worried that he would go bankrupt if forced to shut down his bar and restaurants.
A day later the county stopped alcohol sales at bars and restaurants through St. Patrick’s Day; two days after that, the city ordered bars closed. By Wednesday afternoon, when the shelter at home order was issued, the writing was on the wall for McCarthy’s and dozens of other downtown San Luis Obispo bars.
“Everything is shuttered,” said Bill Hales, co-owner of Ash Management, which operates some of San Luis Obispo’s highest-profile downtown bars, including McCarthy’s. “We let everyone go.”
That’s close to 500 people across San Luis Obispo County, spanning dozens of popular restaurants and bars — and almost all of those in downtown San Luis Obispo — suddenly out of work.
“I’m devastated,” Hales told The Tribune on Friday morning, briefly stopping as his voice cracked with emotion. “It’s brutal.”
Though other restaurants are staying open through the epidemic, pivoting to curbside pickup and deliveries, Hales said it was just not feasible for ASH Management’s eateries.
“It’s a more complex process, and it just does not pencil,” he said.
‘No people downtown’ where Farmers Market would be
Across from the city’s Marsh Street parking structure, Barnes and Noble was dimly lit by pale overhead lights. Nobody will be wandering through its shelves any time soon — book stores are not “essential,” according to SLO County’s order.
Turning the corner at Santa Rosa and again at Higuera Street, a man and a woman are still out walking their chihuahua on the street. They peer about with interested eyes, but quickly cross at the corner once the light turns green. Soon they make another turn, heading it seems toward the residential homes that border San Luis Obispo’s downtown.
Down Higuera Street now, the emptiness is jarring.
On any normal Thursday night, here’s where people should be jostling for a look at fresh cilantro and kids should be bouncing on a giant inflatable slide.
Certified farmers markets are actually an allowed activity under the order — they provide access to fresh produce and food to residents — but before the virus was even officially in San Luis Obispo, organizers had decided to shut down the popular event through the end of March, because it qualified as a large gathering and could contribute to the spread of coronavirus.
Even so, the lack of a market, coupled with the stay-at-home orders, created a disorienting scene.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Downtown SLO CEO Bettina Swigger told The Tribune on Friday morning. “I was also downtown last night. I don’t know if in 37 years, if there has been a dry Thursday night where there were no people downtown.”
She likened it to videos circulating online of an entirely empty Times Square in New York City.
“I think our Farmers Market is kind of like our Times Square for our community,” she said. “It’s like ‘oh, that’s not happening, so that means something serious is happening.’”
Farmers Market was originally scheduled to resume on April 2, but Swigger said she doesn’t know yet what the future holds for the event in the midst of an outbreak.
‘We’re scrambling now.’ Woodstock’s adjusts to delivery changes
At the intersection of Higuera and Osos streets, the bistro lights hanging above Firestone Grill’s outdoor patio are off. The doors are flung open wide on the restaurant, but only one person standing behind the cash register can be seen.
Across the street, nobody is grabbing a slice and a pint of beer at Woodstock’s Pizza.
At Woodstock’s, already primed to make the switch to delivery and pickups given its fleet of mostly college-age drivers, the coronavirus outbreak has presented an opportunity for creativity — and a brief spot of humor in the face of an international crisis.
“We’re doing the best we can to adapt to the situation,” co-owner Laura Ambrose told The Tribune on Friday afternoon. “We have a team that is so highly creative, that we are now bombarded with ideas on how we can do things.”
Some of those include offering beers to-go (which the California Alcoholic Beverage Department made legal Thursday night) and coming up with alternative ways of delivering pizzas with no contact.
Ambrose’s favorite joking suggestion made by a staff member? Pool nets.
“We’re not lacking for ideas,” she laughed. “More it’s just trying to get things up and running as fast as we can. We’re scrambling now.”
Meanwhile, business is down 50% from where it should be at this time of year, largely due to the dining room closure, Ambrose said. There is also some confusion on what could happen to the restaurant’s primarily college-age delivery drivers if they choose to leave San Luis Obispo as they were directed by Cal Poly administration.
As of Friday, it looked like many of them were choosing to stay behind, she said, but that could still change.
“I think we will do fine for employees,” Ambrose said. “Now the goal is just to keep them all employed.”
‘No Plan B’ at Big Sky Cafe
Down the road and to the left, Big Sky Cafe on Broad Street is also trying to adjust to the new reality.
On Thursday night the restaurant was dark — it closes at 7 p.m. these days, in favor of opening for the more active breakfast crowd — but during the day, the restaurant is still a hive of activity. Granted, most of that activity is that of owner Greg Holt, who said he has no other option but to stay open and adapt to changing times.
“We’re a paycheck-to-paycheck restaurant,” he said. “Which is fine. This is what I wanted to do. But it took everything I have. There are no second options. There is no Plan B.“
On Friday, Holt was in the process of compiling the last full payroll his employees would have for the near future.
Business is down to 1% of what it should be, he said, and he’s already asked all of his workers who could go on unemployment to do so. The “skeleton-crew” that’s left is busy starting before 7 a.m. each day, cooking and running meals from the kitchen to the curb where they can be picked up or for delivery drivers or customers to grab, he said.
Even so, Thursday was the restaurant’s slowest day on record, Holt said. But he’ll keep going even if it’s just him and his wife serving up food alone, he said.
His one request to San Luis Obispo County?
“Go out and pick up food from the local restaurants,” he said. “Take care of your loved ones. This too shall pass.”
What does coronavirus have in store for San Luis Obispo?
The crosswalk light that cuts across Higuera Street between the Crossroads Plaza and Ross Dress For Less continues to flash despite no one on trying to cross.
The stores appear almost to still be open — the bright lights in the windows certainly give the look of activity. But the doors are closed, and no people mill about inside.
The entire scene gives the feeling of somehow having been left behind after the Rapture, like everybody was here one second, and — poof! — gone the next.
Swigger, when asked Friday what she thought all of this — the virus, the outbreaks, the closures, the change — could mean for downtown San Luis Obispo, pondered her words for a moment.
“I really believe that downtown is going to emerge from this stronger,” she said after a pause. “It’s going to look different. Our entire world is going to look different. I think there are going to be some things that emerge out of this that aren’t even conceivable right now.”
Creative solutions are arising every day, she said.
The Downtown Association has launched a virtual downtown portal to help people shop. They’ve started broadcasting a virtual Farmers Market event on their social media pages that showcases past performers and can provide people at home the opportunity to pretend they are walking along the streets of Higuera in happier times, with the smell of kettle corn wafting in the air. You can buy produce from local vendors through another virtual Farmers Market portal.
“I think the future is going to be bright,” she said, “but we’re going to be feeling our way through the dark for a little while.”
This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 2:48 PM.
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