Name: Diary of a recovery: One San Diego block begins to climb back from the pandemic
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Diary of a recovery: One San Diego block begins to climb back from the pandemic

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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | The intersection of Euclid and University avenues is starting to vibrate again with car engines and waves of rap music rumbling under conversations in Chinese, Cambodian, Thai, African dialects, Spanish, English and Arabic.A young Latina mom walks her toddler down the sun-baked sidewalk. A Black man jogs by White hipsters in sunglasses. A Muslim couple in traditional dress strolls down the block as two Asian kids on bikes weave into traffic. Fear of the virus and government social-distancing orders kept many San Diegans like these at home for the last three months. However, the lockdown is now lifting.Advertisement Health officials say four community outbreaks have been detected in the past seven days On this City Heights block, that means more folks are sitting down for chow mein at Lotus Garden or grabbing a burger at Brooklyn Bar &amp; Grill. Big Boys Barber Shop around the corner has started to give fades. Even The Tower Bar — a punk-music sanctuary whose calendar has been frozen for weeks — opened its doors on Friday for drinks, if not yet live music. The fate of this diverse San Diego neighborhood, like so many others, is inextricably tied to how the worst pandemic in generations plays out. In coming weeks, the San Diego Union-Tribune will chronicle the stories of the people who live and work around Euclid and University as they strive for some sense of normalcy. AdvertisementWill it take just a few weeks? Or months? Years even? Unemployment is currently at record levels throughout the region, including in low-income City Heights where out of every three people have lost their job. The neighborhood has a lower than parts of the South Bay, but it’s still among the hardest-hit areas in the county. On the street, many appear to be wagering that the worst is over. Some continue to wear face masks, but lots of others have abandoned them, if they ever wore them at all.Business owners mostly talk about COVID-19 as if it’s a boogeyman whose only real threat is to their finances. Quite a few have secured federal relief funds, though that support will end at some point soon. Their employees survived on beefed-up unemployment benefits, but that clock is ticking, too.That has left some teetering on the brink of ruin./Shimeles Kibret, owner of the Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, fields takeout calls during the coronavirus pandemic on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Genat Geday and Yetnayet Abebe work in the kitchen at Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, during the coronavirus pandemic on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /The dining room at Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, is currently closed as the restaurant just provides takeout service, during the coronavirus pandemic on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Shimeles Kibret, owner of the Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, works out of his dining room, which is currently closed as the restaurant just provides takeout service, during the coronavirus pandemic on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Woldu Endale, 64, of Imperial Beach and Yohannes Lechebo of North Park chat while waiting for their takeout food at Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Shimeles Kibret, owner of the Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant, speaks to his longtime friend Mark Yelles, who stopped by to try to help him with his finances on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; For weeks, Shimeles Kibret and his wife Yeti have been cooking and filling takeout orders at Red Sea, their Ethiopian restaurant on University Avenue. A steady stream of faithful customers kept the business alive, with dine-in service on hold.Shimeles wants to fully reopen but hasn’t been able to convince his staff to come back to work. They are concerned about their health and reluctant to give up collecting unemployment checks.“So if they work here five hour, four hours, they don’t like it,” said the 59-year-old refugee through a face mask on a recent weekday afternoon. The cordless phone rang, and he answered: “Red Sea.”AdvertisementHis wife walked out and put a bagged-up order on a folding table set up as a temporary takeout counter. Shimeles popped out of his seat, tucking a button-down shirt into blue jeans on his way over to a woman waiting to pay for the food.Shimeles said he doesn’t know anyone who’s caught the coronavirus. He’s more concerned about keeping his business afloat than the virus. So far, he hasn’t been able to secure any emergency relief funding.At the current pace, he said he can only afford to pay rent for another month or two.The fate of the restaurant will ripple beyond its own walls. Woldu Endale, 64, of Imperial Beach and Yohannes Lechebo, 70, of North Park, who were chatting while waiting for takeout, said the restaurant has for years been a favorite meeting place for many like them in the African immigrant community.“This is our place,” said Lechebo. “This is the food we eat. It’s our taste.”Next door at Brooklyn Bar &amp; Grill, owner Bill Lutzius has fared a bit better. He took the opportunity during the lockdown to change the name of his American-style gastropub from Chinatown Bar &amp; Grill because “too many people were coming in looking for noodles,” he said. Unlike Shimeles, Lutzius owns his building and doesn’t have a mortgage.Advertisement“I don’t have a huge backup to the plan,” said the 62-year-old native of the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn on a recent afternoon, chain smoking cigarettes on his building’s rooftop patio. “I can’t just be closed forever.”He said he’s not too worried about “the virus,” as he calls it.“I’m not freaking out,” he said. “I think it’s a doable situation. When people come in the bar and want to hug me, just don’t hug me, you know what I mean?”Lutzius has also struggled to find people willing to work. But he was eventually able to bring in kitchen staff and a few bartenders to reopen last month with other restaurants throughout the region. Plexiglass now separates the red booths that line a wall covered in framed photographs of New York City landscapes and film celebrities.On the opposite side of the room, a massive wall of liquor bottles sits above a sign that reads “Greetings from fabulous City Heights.”Behind the bar, Alexis Piotrowski served about a half dozen customers on a Wednesday around 5 p.m. At one end of the bar, a group of guys bantered and downed pints. A family ate hamburgers at a booth. The smell of beer and fried food floated on the air. “Oh, you’re no-ice always?” Piotrowski asked Maria Ruiz, 80, a regular with white hair and thick red lipstick whose typical order is a glass of water and a pint of beer. It was Piotrowski’s third day working at the bar and grill, shifts she’d picked up because her usual gig in North Park was still on hold. Piotrowski is too social to let the pandemic keep her from working. And besides, she’s “pretty sure” she had COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, a while back.Advertisement“I really think I had it, so I’m not too worried,” she said through a face mask. “I’m young. I’m heathy. I can’t be staying at home. I can’t see Maria at my house.”Bashir Abdi walked east along University from his nearby home to a collection of benches on the corner of 50th Street, where people in the local Somali community meet up for tea and coffee.The 49-year-old came to the United States in 2004 as an asylum seeker. He has supported his wife and four children driving for Uber. Now he’s on unemployment. “No Uber,” he said, his nose peeking out from under a face mask. “It’s risky with the coronavirus. That’s why I stay here in the home.”He said he’s a “little bit” nervous about getting sick. His brother’s daughter caught the virus, but she was able to recover.He’s more concerned about what he will do at the end of July, when expanded jobless benefits are set to expire. He said he will eventually go back to work, but he’s concerned there won’t be enough customers to survive.“Everybody stay home,” he said.Across the street on University Avenue, San Diego Electric was never forced to close on account of how much business it does with the Navy. The family-owned store has been around since 1965 and today sells a mind-boggling assortment of electrical equipment, some of it dating back to the 1920s.The Becker family runs the business out of a converted residential building stacked with carefully labeled old parts, from breakers to fuses to wires to cables to panel boards to conduit and on and on. AdvertisementBob Becker, 67, president and co-owner, said his mother used to come into the store every day until she passed away about 14 years ago at 93. He said not much has changed since.“You know how some people have their accounting systems stolen off the internet and have to pay a ransom? My sister still uses the pegboard system,” Becker said with a chuckle. Early on, the federal government sent a letter listing the business as “critical infrastructure.” It has continued to operate throughout the spring.Becker said that his sister, Judy, recently thought she might have the virus but tested negative twice. Otherwise, he said, there hasn’t been a lot of concern among the shop staff about the virus.Frank May, a 66-year-old Navy veteran, has worked at the store for two decades. A round, jocular man with a white beard and long pony tail, he likes to joke about his weight. But he said he has no pre-existing conditions and isn’t too worried about getting sick.He’s more fond of talking about the inventory that he painstakingly catalogued over the course of four years.“I’ve got breakers with ivory handles that Yale ordered to keep the traditional panel in place,” he said while conducting a tour. “Of course, they were $420 each.”Down the street across Euclid Avenue, Lotus Garden has had its dining room open for weeks. Owner David Chau said he’s doing roughly half the business he did before the pandemic. While some staff haven’t been willing to give up their unemployment benefits, others wanted to return, said the 61-year-old refugee, whose family fled Vietnam in 1975.“We probably save more money by closing, but I decide to open so that all the people have the job,” he said. “We doing OK. We have a lot of to-go, enough to pay for people’s salary, a little bit.”The tables inside the dining area have been spaced out and there’s a back room as well. But so far, they haven’t had enough customers to regularly fill up the restaurant, even with the new distancing guidelines.AdvertisementChau, who has a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University and worked for the Navy as a software engineer for 30 years, said he was able to secure relief funding from the federal government. At the current pace, he said his business can last until about the end of the year.Business has been brisker at the Minh Huong Supermarket behind the restaurant, which the Chau family also owns. “The business over there getting more busier because everybody got the money from the government,” Chau said. “They stay home, so they do more cooking.”/Mick Rossler, owner of The Tower Bar, talks to bartenders about plans for reopening the day before the bar was scheduled to reopen on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Jenna O’Brien, bartender at The Tower Bar, holds a pamphlet with information for reopening the day before the bar was scheduled to reopen on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Mick Rossler, owner of The Tower Bar, paints the floor in anticipation of opening up on June 10, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; /Jenna O’Brien, a bartender at The Tower Bar, works with a patron to make a pentagram on the floor to indicate where customers should order on the first day it was open after shuttering for months during the coronavirus pandemic on June 12, 2020 in San Diego, California.&nbsp; On Friday, the Tower Bar threw open its doors for the first time since the lockdown began. Its Art Deco building, on University and Reno Drive, dates back to the 1930s. It went punk in 2002. Owner Michael “Mick” Rossler gathered his staff prior to the reopening to talk about enforcing social-distancing and other rules in the small venue. For safety’s sake, a plexiglass shield was installed where the staff washes glasses behind the bar, several stools were removed and a star was taped to the floor to mark where patrons should queue up to order. “As a business, we’ve gone through a lot of adverse situations, and I guess we just have to roll with whatever comes along,” Rossler said. For all the adjustments, the bar took no time regaining its gritty vibe. AdvertisementBy 6 p.m. on Friday, about a dozen people gathered to socialize over cans of cheap beer and liquor shots. Clad in tattoos and black denim, the small crowd felt like a hopeful reunion of close friends. Still, the framed posters from bygone concerts — The Spits, Lower Class Brats, Black Lips — offered a harsh reminder of just how far the Tower was from the packed, sweaty nights that defined it.Rossler said he secured some emergency funding to help pay rent while the bar was closed and is determined to keep the establishment going. Fundraising efforts, such as sales of Tower-branded face masks and t-shirts, helped support the out-of-work staff.Christina Hankins, a 35-year-old San Diego native who sports long blond hair and lots of ink, has worked at the bar for the past decade. She lives with her boyfriend in a $925-a-month studio apartment in a building across the street. They’ve both been out of work for weeks, surviving on unemployment.On Friday, Hankins was at the bar, her Shih Tzu, Nugget on her lap, enjoying a drink with friends. She was mentally preparing herself to go back to work on Tuesday. With live music still prohibited, she’s worried she won’t make enough as a bartender to offset the unemployment benefits she’s about to lose. “Lucky for me, I’m from here,” she said. “My mom lives here. If I need, need, need, last resort, I can go there, but I’ve taken care of myself since I was 16. We need bands to play.”Hankins wholeheartedly welcomes the chance to socialize again. But going back to work also raises difficult questions. She regularly drops off food for her 92-year-old grandmother, who lives alone in San Carlos. AdvertisementFor now, they’re keeping conversations at a distance, through a screen door.“It’s scary,” she said. “I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen.” Get Essential San Diego, weekday mornings Get top headlines from the Union-Tribune in your inbox weekday mornings, including top news, local, sports, business, entertainment and opinion. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Show Comments

Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | The intersection of Euclid and University avenues is starting to vibrate again with car engines and waves of rap music rumbling under conversations in Chinese, Cambodian, Thai, African dialects, Spanish, English and Arabic.A young Latina mom walks her toddler down the sun-baked sidewalk. A Black man jogs by White hipsters in sunglasses. A Muslim couple in traditional dress strolls down the block as two Asian kids on bikes weave into traffic. Fear of the virus and government social-distancing orders kept many San Diegans like these at home...

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Joshua Emerson Smith

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The San Diego Union-Tribune, the region's leading news source since 1868. Follow our journalists, too: http://j.mp/UTstaff

Diary of a recovery: One San Diego block begins to climb back from the pandemic

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