Denny Knox Embodies the Spirit of Ocean Beach — A Chat with the CEO of the OB Mainstreet Association

By Jillian Butler

Ocean Beach has always been more than just a San Diego neighborhood. It’s a community with history, charm, and a deep sense of independence.

Few people embody that spirit more than Denny Knox, the longtime CEO of the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association (OBMA). From helping her in-laws run the beloved Cabrillo Art Center on Newport Avenue to overseeing one of the city’s most active business districts, Knox’s life has been intertwined with Ocean Beach for decades.

In this conversation, she reflects on her early years, the evolution of OB’s business community, and the challenges and triumphs of keeping a small coastal district thriving in an increasingly digital world.

Q:  Please tell me a bit about your personal history–the high school that you went to, siblings, and what your parents did for a living. I am told that you helped your parents run a business in OB and I would love to hear about that.

A: Actually, I was born in New York, lived in Old Greenwich, Connecticut until I turned 13 years old. My folks decided to leave the New York madhouse and moved the family to Scottsdale, Arizona where I attended high school. After high school, I fled the heat and ended up going to Cal Western University [ed: today Point Loma Nazarene University] in 1966 as an English Major.

I absolutely loved the weather and the coastal access and Ocean Beach was my favorite place to go. I met Roberta and Gene Knox in 1968 who owned Cabrillo Art Center on Newport Ave. I dabbled in art so I bought my supplies there and enjoyed having coffee with them from time to time.  Roberta kept saying she wanted me to meet her son Mike who was moving from Northern California to San Diego. As the story goes, we hit it off and ended up getting married in 1974.

Mike was helping his parents with the store and eventually became a partner. I was a graphic artist for American Publishers at that time after graduating from Cal Western. His parents retired in 1978 and Mike and I ran the store. In 1983, we had our son, AJ. In 1984, Mike decided to get a “real” job as we called it. I said I could manage the store by myself not realizing that I was pregnant with our daughter, Amy.

It was a whirlwind of a life for many years, but we loved it. I ran the store for 25 years and in 1998 we decided to close the business. Mike had a really good job and I wanted to be home while the kids were in junior high and high school.

Q: How did you get involved in the OB Mainstreet Association? 

A: The OB Merchant’s Association was loosely established in 1978 by a group of concerned business owners who really wanted to clean up Newport Avenue and the surrounding streets. In those days, many shoppers were afraid to come down to OB so they stayed away. Also, the Mission Valley and Fashion Valley stores were doing really well and we lost a lot of business to regional shopping centers.

So the Association was born and a mighty group of volunteers worked to put up holiday decorations, make a brochure of businesses, get businesses to sweep their sidewalks daily and so on.

After a few years we formed the Revitalization Committee. We applied for a grant in the early 80’s and got $100,000 to do a study of what OB needed. We had lots of community meetings and workshops. The result was a list of things that should help revitalize the area – the Tile Project, fixing up some of the broken sidewalks, starting a Farmers Market, putting up holiday decorations, and so on.

So we started going through the list – fixed the sidewalks in 1990 as well as started the tile project. Then in 1992 we started the Farmers Market and it is still one of the most popular farmers markets in San Diego. That’s just three of the many things we did to get the economy back on track.

Q: What are the biggest problems that you feel businesses face in the area?

A: Amazon, ordering online, and online banking have changed downtowns forever. People used to visit downtowns on almost a daily or at least a weekly basis. Now, people never have to leave their couch to do much of their business. Top that off with the loss of use of the OB Pier. Our most iconic landmark and we can’t set foot on it.  The pier was a magnet for OB and provided people with an awesome exercise routine and a great place to take a long walk. It’s a crying shame!

Q: What are your priorities for OB’s businesses and their district — the specific goals that the OB Main Street Association has?

A: Our organization runs on the four principles of the Main Street movement – economic vitality, promotions, design and organization. This is how we base our priorities. We have our four committees and they work to come up with priorities for the board to consider. The Main Street model is really a good structure for neighborhood organizations and helps with categorizing the needs of the community with an emphasis on our local businesses who we represent.

We put out a newsletter each month and put it up on our website. Towards the back of the newsletter is a page devoted to the activities of the committees and what our goals are.

Of course, one huge priority is the rebuilding of the pier.  We’ve probably lost 25% of our traffic due to the closure of the pier. Most of our goals are really mundane because this community needs constant repairs. It often goes unnoticed, but things need to be fixed and if the City can’t fix what’s broken, a lot of time we have to do it or the community looks run down.

Another goal of the Association is to provide an office with actual people answering the phones and answering questions from our walk ins. The general public is fed up with government and other businesses that rarely interact with actual people. Sometimes people just need to know that other people are interested in what they need or have to say. The OBMA office serves that purpose quite often.

Q: How did running a small business prepare you for running a business association?

A: Running a small business is much tougher today. It was easier (not easy) 30 years ago but a lot has changed in the past 20 or 30 years. If you can run a business successfully, that is great training for managing a business association, working for an association, volunteering and/or serving on a board. Since we are a business organization, we all (our members) have something in common right off the bat. It makes it easier to set priorities when people have a direct stake in the outcome.

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Through her decades of leadership, Denny Knox has seen Ocean Beach weather recessions, floods, redevelopment, and shifting consumer habits, yet the community’s character endures. Her story mirrors the neighborhood itself: resilient, adaptive, and fueled by connection. Whether rebuilding the pier, revitalizing Newport Avenue, or simply picking up the phone to help a neighbor, Knox’s work reminds us that the heart of OB isn’t its shoreline or shops – it’s the people who show up, invest their time, and keep the village spirit alive.