Some local businesses in downtown San Luis Obispo are closing or moving on to a new chapter.
Local businesses KSBY News spoke with said it can be difficult to see other stores leave the community.
Marianne Seaborne, the owner of Maison Marianne, is closing her store after running the business off of Chorro Street for many years.
She is closing her store at the end of the month.
“I decided I wanted to retire at this point in my life and spend time with my husband who’s already retired and do some traveling, and spend some time with far-away family,” she said.
Seaborne’s five-year lease is ending and wishes her business could continue thriving in someone else’s care.
“I was unable to unfortunately find someone to pass the baton to,” said Seaborne. “I really wanted that. To keep the businesses going. I realized I couldn’t do it on my own anymore.”
Two restaurants in San Luis Obispo closed their doors last month. After four years, Taco Temple near Highway 101 closed on New Year’s Eve and the owners of Tortilla Town also had to close their restaurant last month.
In a statement, the owners of Tortilla Town said: “Unfortunately, we have closed our San Luis Obispo location at 890 Marsh Street as of December 18th 2023. Our lease has ended. Thank you for stopping by and we hope to see you at our Paso Robles location soon.”
Some local business owners said it’s important to shop locally and help other businesses succeed.
“When I see a local store closing down it makes me sad,” said Jeffrey Henderson, a Passport employee. “I feel like it's our responsibility to shop local and help as much as possible.”
“Shopping locally keeps the money in the town,” said Natalie Risner, owner of Apropos. “Supports a family — our family. I have kids and they go to dance and have activities, and that money stays here in the community when you shop local.”
Some said that parking prices downtown may make it difficult for locals to shop.
Despite the one hour of free parking, many are paying 3 dollars an hour to park.
“We keep doing everything we can as a city to attract locals and visitors and make it easy for them to park and come downtown to spend money,” said Seaborne.
“We’ve just seen a large group of locals just stop coming and when they do come, they tell us how frustrated they are, and they’re still frustrated,” said Risner. “Even though they have their hour free. They’re still frustrated. The city needs to do more to bring locals back downtown.”
In addition to the one hour of free parking, parking is free on Sundays in the parking structures. The city council passed a motion that any other parking rate increases are not planned to be implemented until July 1, 2025.
