A packed Monday evening in downtown Morro Bay is setting up local businesses for what's to come these upcoming weeks with spring break coming in full steam.
Local tourists and families spent their evening packing Embarcadero restaurants along the coast of Morro Rock, hoping to catch a sneak peek of the whale while dining.
At The Dough Connection, employees and management are keeping their fridges and supplies stocked for the spring break rush of families. Last year kept them on their toes with customers taking interest in the edible cookie dough sold at the shop.
“It was just like a swarm of people all at once for like a week or two," Nicole Jacober, a worker at The Dough Connection, said.
Jacober said so far it's been manageable with her under the impression that schools in San Luis Obispo County are on different spring break schedules this year compared to last year. She says it also helps they typically work in four-hour shifts for when tourists and locals visit for some sweets downtown.
On the north end of Morro Bay, workers at Federico’s, a new chain restaurant, said most of their customers are local and while lunch wasn’t much of a rush, the dinner rush served up a preview of spring break.
“We knew that from last year spring break does get pretty busy around here," Maria Hernandez, owner of Federico's, said. "So we brought in extra staff and so we're ready."
Hernandez and her husband opened the restaurant in January 2023 and said they’ve been getting a mix of locals who walk to the restaurant from surrounding neighborhoods and tourists from the island of Kawaii.
“We have a restaurant on the island of Kauai. And so we've got customers that have been to our restaurant," Hernandez added. "They come here and they bring their friends, they bring their family. The word of mouth is how I'm trying to get it out in the open that we are here.”
