From SanDiegoVille / July 22, 2024
After nearly four decades serving diner staples in San Diego, Perry’s Cafe is set to close its doors this summer to make way for a new residential building.
Perry’s Cafe has been serving the community near the junction of Interstates 5 and 8 in San Diego’s Loma Portal/Old Town area since its inception in 1985. Founded by Greek immigrants Constantine “Costas” and Margaret Georgakopoulos, the cafe quickly established itself as a beloved destination for locals and tourists alike looking for classic American diner fare, generous portions, and friendly service. The cafe’s iconic retro decor, featuring leather booths, a diner counter bar and nostalgic memorabilia, creates an ambiance that harkens back to a bygone era.
Perry’s Cafe is expected to close its doors after end of service on Thursday, August 15, following a decision by the San Diego City Council to allow Viewpoint Company to develop the 1.74 acre property into a 224-unit, seven-story residential building. There was an appeal of the city’s decision that was recently upheld, paving the way to the restaurant’s closure and eventual demolition.
Plans for the new building include five stories of residential units, including 15% set aside as affordable housing, with a mezzanine level over a two-story podium, an above-grade parking area and one partial level of below-grade parking. A portion of Perry’s Café is expected to remain and will be repurposed as part of the project.
During the development of the new apartment tower, the property will have to be remediated due to soil containing low concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, metals, and organochlorine pesticides, according to an environmental site assessment. The property was first developed in the 1920s and was occupied by a gasoline station from at least 1950 through the mid 1980s. The site is also located in a heavily industrial area that has been used to support military operations since the 1930s.
Throughout its history, Perry’s Cafe has remained a family-owned and operated business, with the original owner’s children taking on roles within the establishment. This family-centric approach has contributed to the cafe’s reputation as a staple in the San Diego dining scene. Most recently, the restaurant is operated by Perry Eulmi and her son Patrick.
In 2010, a fire occurred at Perry’s Cafe, causing approximately $300,000 in damage. The diner was once featured as a set location in the TV show Veronica Mars and has served as a stage area for the annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. There was also once a second location sited in El Cajon, but that branch closed in 2022.
Perry’s Cafe is expected to continue operating under normal hours at 4620 Pacific Highway in San Diego’s Loma Portal/Old Town region until its final day in business on August 15. For more information, visit perryscafesd.com.
Sad to see. Used to go there all time. Unfortunately this was along time coming.
7 stories, right by the freeway, that should be healthy.
You mean 224 units across the street from the most interconnected trolley stop in the county. The people who are gonna move are never gonna need a car and given the cost of auto loans, insurance, and gas in the state, it’ll be worth it to them!
Their going to move all their household by trolley? Or get their groceries? Hauling their shelf organizer in from Home Depot?
I was referring to living next to noise and air pollution from the freeway. I forgot about all the trolley and train horns that go off. LOL
It is a typical YIMBY response, that everyone will cram in and live in public transit/ bike lane delirium and think this is somehow better, limiting your freedom to move about and believing government is always the solution in a free market country. You’ll probably sign onto the mindless 1% sales tax increase. It’s just a percent today, never mind the mismanagement from yesterday (smile).
chris schultz: Excuse me? I’m confused!
What ‘free market’ country are you talking about? Is there such an entity??
Certainly cannot be the wet dream right-wing fantasies of Reaganomics where the rich get richer while the rest get ‘trickled-down upon’ (read urinated on). 44 years later we are still living in his neoliberal toxic construct…
The economy is controlled by billionaires and their minions where corporations can easily bribe/own regulators that are supposed to keep track of their wrongdoings and enforce compliance to existing rules. When one lives under a monopoly or near-monopoly barely existing on survival wages…when the vast majority of the population is living from one low paycheck to the next low paycheck (in comparison to cost of living rises) and a huge percentage don’t have enough savings to afford a $1000 emergency bill; you know you live in a society that is doomed due to the hubris of the wealthy oligarchs that control you that created this awful paradigm.
As George Carlin said (paraphrased): You have to be asleep to believe in the American Dream. But I guess the ‘developers’ all do, eh?
I’m assuming you haven’t read Naomi Klein’s ‘Disaster Capitalism’ or her follow-up book in 2014 ‘This Changes Everything; Capitalism vs the Climate’ because you seem to obviously have bought into the very problematic concept of endless resources on a finite planet that, like every other collapsed major human civilization in the last 10,000 years (21 of them according to anthropologists), deal with never-ending population growth all vying for what’s left by ignoring the problems by packing more and more humans into ever-crowded living conditions. In San Diego it is into a freaking desert that absolutely depends on being supplied with those dwindling resources endlessly being transported from somewhere else far away.
As for those optimistic wealthy developers in San Diego, they are not anyone’s friend. Don’t ever be fooled that they have the public’s interest in mind, only their quarterly profits that they can directly benefit from. Put a high rise next to a freaking freeway? There isn’t enough soundproofing or air pollution controls that will ever be installed to make it worth living there. I know, I lived in Mt. Shasta for a decade a mile uphill in that narrow canyon holding the I-5 & railroad corridor, and one never got away from the never-ending rumble of traffic or the polluted air that was always trapped there…
The Wealthy Are Not Your Friends
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/18/2255526/-The-Wealthy-Are-Not-Your-Friends
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sealintheSelkirks
“I got just the place for low-cost housing, I have solved this problem. I know where we can build housing for the homeless- GOLF COURSES !”- George Carlin
“There was an appeal of the city’s decision that was recently upheld, paving the way to the restaurant’s closure and eventual demolition.” I believe this statement means that the PROJECT was upheld, and the APPEAL was denied.
Not to be too tit-picky, the statement is technically and legally correct: “the city’s decision … was … upheld,” not the appeal, but of course, you’re correct also.
The only downsides to this are:
1. We can’t reenact pulp fiction whenever we want and
2. It’s not 25 stories.
And the mayor and clowncil allowed this? What about an EIR, or CEQA, did they get to by-pass both of those again????? That’s a whole lot of toxin’s rolling into the air the occupants will breath, but who cares about the Climate Action Plan, so long as the developers get what they want and the city players get the campaign money they want. Stop voting for the clowns in this City. Vote for those newbees running to get a change in the way politics run in SD, they can’t be worse than the shady dealings going on now.
Good news! I have enjoyed Perry’s but it’s time for a new use for this land. It will be exciting to see how this project progresses. Hopefully, this housing will bring some renewal to this sad corner of San Diego!
I ate there once, with a friend who was newer.
It was over sugared junk. Terrible food. I’m fairly a pain & in the ass, Davy I’d think. But I literally said. This place is done 8 yrs ago. It’s ok. It was terrible food. America is. Kind of overweight.
Best of luck the long time workers.
The intersection of 5 and 8 and trolleys and Amtrack and pacific highway and old town roads and the noise ( quadruple gkaxzung in windows) and heavy sound insulation in the walls and multiple road intersections do not make up for the supposed benefits of trolley USD old town. It’s not a humane environment.
Well, we have people living in cardboard boxes, and cots in warehouses. Humane is all relative.
Then the City can rent them all for the homeless because nobody else will live there. Complete Community, right? Solves multiple problems.
I don’t understand the comments decrying putting housing next to transportation hubs and freeways. We’ve been doing this in CA for decades and the housing is usually built with noise abatements and nowadays even filter systems are available. I also do not understand the people who think this is an unhealthy location for a residential property but not a restaurant where people work and eat. So it’s ok to eat there and for low wage earners to work near the freeway but it’s not ok for some to live there? SMH
Damn good points, but some of us never stopped there to eat.
Yet those are probably the folks griping the loudest about tradition and history.
I ate there once in almost three decades. It wasn’t a happening spot ;-)
Personal preference. Not saying it’s a bad thing that housing is going in or that things change, but the very popularity of Perry’s was that it WAS so outdated. Retro vintage you could say, and that IS something popular even with your generation.
Perry’s was popular because they gave you a huge amount of very filling food. I ate there a few times and agree, it was not a healthy fare but it was cheap, filling, and quick. Sort of like the Cheesecake Factory only less expensive and lower quality. It’s a piece of history in more ways than one.
Not unlike many restaurants. It’s “entertainment”.
If one wants to eat better, cook at home.
That too of course.
Kind of the same thing with Adam’s Steak & Eggs.
Spending an hour to eat at the location occasionally is not different then living at it for 8 hours or more daily? Even second hand smoke was determined to be a health hazard, no? Decibel levels on the ground are different than those higher nearest the source, no? I read levels are 70-80 db at 15 meters from freeways. We are comparing a one story restaurant with a 7 story building.
Coming to Perry’s to eat would take, maybe an hour. A far cry from living right there. And, the restaurant is only open for six hours a day. The low wage earners are also inside working. To compare living there to working at Perry’s makes no sense.
Exactly. And forget about opening a window — oily soot would cover everything in minutes. Which is why I want to see every YIMBYot on here put in a rent application. But they won’t: they’re always only willing for others to actually have to live in the SimCity projects they shill.
The Sambo’s Restaurant chain was founded in 1957. The restaurant’s name came from an abbreviation of the owners names: Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett. However, the chain quickly became associated with the story of Little Black Sambo. The restaurants were decorated with scenes of the Indian boy and Tigers. By 1979, there were about 1,200 locations nationwide.
former Sambo’s
San Diego, CA This former Sambo’s has housed Perry’s Cafe since 1985. [map]
Read All About It Here
https://www.roadarch.com/eateries/sambos.html
More and more we are seeing and experiencing the disappearance of many iconic histbrical buildings and Archetecture That Once dotted the landscape of everytown USA. Perrys Cafe is one of those buildings. With That recognizable triangular Roof well known as the trade mark of The Sambos Resturaunt Chain Back In The 1950s To the 1980s
You can Read about the historical significance of the arechetecture Here
https://www.roadarch.com/eateries/sambos.html
The Sambo’s Restaurant chain was founded in 1957. The restaurant’s name came from an abbreviation of the owners names: Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett. However, the chain quickly became associated with the story of Little Black Sambo. The restaurants were decorated with scenes of the Indian boy and Tigers. By 1979, there were about 1,200 locations nationwide. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, lawsuits and political pressure led the company to change its image. However, the rebranding was unsuccessful. By 1982, there was only the original location in Santa Barbara, CA left. For more, see this website.
former Sambo’s
San Diego, CA This former Sambo’s has housed Perry’s Cafe since 1985. [map]
See Article For Photo
Perhaps The Family Owners Od Perrys Cafe Have An Historical Monument in their hands that was not previously considered.