An Earth Day tale: Old Town tree saved by passerby
As we observe Earth Day today, it seems like an ideal time to tell the story of how a single pepper tree became the moving force behind the thriving Casa Guadalajara restaurant and the re-located Bazaar del Mundo in Old Town.
Through an unusual conf luence of coincidences, that’s exactly what happened in 1995 — like a page out of the popular children’s book, “The Giving Tree.”
Bazaar del Mundo founder Diane Powers was shocked one day to see tree trimmers beginning to cut down a large pepper tree in an unpaved parking lot in Old Town. She regularly drove by the tree en route to her office in the original Bazaar del Mundo complex in nearby Old Town State Historic Park.
Powers quickly stopped her car and questioned the work crew about the demise of this historic tree.
She learned that the owner of the adjacent Mexican restaurant, Romaine’s Guadalajara Grill, was seeking to increase the size of the parking lot. She pleaded with the crew to wait a few minutes while she went inside to talk to him.
Powers wasn’t intending to purchase Larry Barnes’ café that day, but he told her, “If you’re so interested in the tree, why don’t you just buy my restaurant?” So she asked him to call off the tree crew for a couple of hours, drove to her office, made some quick calls and calculations, then returned to make Barnes an offer.
As it turned out, the parking lot wasn’t part of the purchase. Barnes was leasing it from its N.Y. landowner. So Powers negotiated its purchase as well.
A couple weeks later, Barnes suggested that she also buy a small office complex he owned next door. As a businesswoman and designer, Powers could envision the adjacent property’s potential so, with the assistance of her real estate broker husband, Brent Gilman, she bought that lot, too.
This turned out to be fortuitous because her longtime lease of Old Town park concessions was due to expire and state officials were considering historic restoration of several Old
Town buildings and a change of operators.
When that came to pass, Powers simply moved her popular Bazaar del Mundo shops into the remodeled office complex next to her newly acquired Casa Guadalajara restaurant.
One of the first things she did was design a Casa Guadalajara dining patio, with fountains and festive f lowers, around the iconic pepper tree, which is now more than four stories tall and 29 feet in circumference.
In a way, just as Powers saved the tree, the tree saved her business from having to relocate far away from its Old Town roots.
When Malte Niebelschuetz moved from the tiny, landlocked town of Kassel, Germany, to San Diego in 2010, he thought he was coming to a region celebrated for its environmental activism.
So he was shocked when he spotted discarded water bottles and trash littering our city’s beaches. “Here in California, everyone was concerned about the environment,” he says, “but they were so casual about plastic.”
Niebelschuetz was troubled by what he saw, but it wasn’t until he read an
article about Patagonia, which has been making sportswear from recycled plastic for years, that a lightbulb went off.
“I thought, ‘Holy cow, that’s genius.’ I wonder what else you can make from recycled plastics.”
An IT guy by profession but an entrepreneur in spirit, he devised a triplepronged plan to recycle plastic, help teach young people about the environment and financially support efforts to save marine life.
That marked the birth of
Shore Buddies — plush marine mammals and birds that each bear a name and an environmental story.
• Finn, the dolphin, is worried about the 500 million plastic straws used every day in the United States.
• Emma, the whale, encounters microplastics f loating throughout the ocean, endangering sea life.
• Sammy, the seal, swims by discarded plastic bags which can take 1,000 years to decompose.
• Stephen Seagull is only too happy to pick up beach trash.
It takes six recycled water bottles to make each stuffed animal. The plastic bottles are shredded into pellets that are melted, then turned into plastic thread that is woven to create a soft fabric. Other plastic is spun into cotton candy-like consistency to use as stuffing.
Each toy makes an authentic animal sound and bears a bottle-shaped tag that tells its pollution story.
Niebelschuetz since has added mini marine animals on key chains, reusable straws and has published a “Shore Buddies” children’s book in which his creations talk about ocean pollution and recycling. He says $1 from each sale is pledged to marine protection groups.
He also has teamed up with the San Diego Unified School District and environmental organizations, such as San Diego Coastkeeper, to sponsor giveaways and deliver his message to kids.
The San Diegan recently has expanded sales to retailers in 10 European and Scandanavian countries. This year Shore Buddies hit the big time. It was named a plush category finalist for the Toy Association’s Toy of the Year, considered the Oscars of the U.S. toy industry.
Alas, Niebelschuetz was beat out by Mattel’s child character from the “Star Wars” miniseries “The Mandalorian.”
“The winner was baby Yoda,” Niebelschuetz says good-naturedly. “You can’t beat a Jedi.”