Paso Robles restaurant closes doors after 8 years: ‘We’ve loved every minute of every day’
Cali Grill, an American restaurant in Paso Robles specializing in burgers, sandwiches and paninis, closed its doors permanently on Dec. 31 — the latest in a slew of restaurant closures across San Luis Obispo County.
Owner Adam Farelas attributed the closure to high costs of food, employment, a dwindling lunch crowd in a post-pandemic world and an uptick in online orders.
“With the economy and the pandemic and so many different struggles that came up over the years, the struggle just finally reached a point where we decided we didn’t want to do it another year,” Farelas said.
The restaurant was located at 711 6th St. in Paso Robles and served the community for eight years prior to the closure.
According to Farelas, in a post-pandemic world more people work from home and fewer are eating out on their lunch breaks. Instead, services like DoorDash and GrubHub are people’s go-to options, he said.
“They take a nice chunk of money out of every order,” Farelas said. “We ended up actually servicing more through these applications than we had walk-ins at lunchtime.”
“It just continued to eat away at the business,” Farelas added.
However, in spite of their struggles, Farelas said he and his family look back on their time at the restaurant fondly.
For the last eight years, Farelas and his wife have raised their kids at the grill.
“We love our customers and we love the community,” Farelas said. “We’ve loved every minute of every day that we served them and saw their smiling faces when they would eat our food, but it just got to be too much.”
The Cal Grill closure is the latest in a string of San Luis Obispo County restaurant closures in recent months. Vic’s Cafe in Paso Robles also closed in December, after 81 years in business. Meanwhile downtown San Luis Obispo has had a rash of restaurant closures since October, including Splash Cafe, Big Sky Cafe, Mint+Craft and Tortilla Town.
Farelas said the family may pursue another “food chapter” down the line, but for now they are taking the time to reset, take a short break and enjoy the new year with “less stress.”
“I’m gonna miss everybody, but I think it’s the right decision for our family at the moment,” Farelas said.
This story was originally published January 3, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
