San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Strange quiet at Fisherman’s Wharf
Francisco Travel Association. Hotel rooms at this time of year are usually nearly full. But now the June occupancy rate hovers at a meager 29%, according to data from SF Travel spokeswoman Laurie Armstrong Gossy — and that’s not even including ordinary tourists, because San Francisco hotels can currently host only essential workers or travelers, homeless people and people in quarantine.
Of the wharf ’s 363 businesses, about 200 have reopened, according to Randall Scott, the executive director of the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District. Roughly 140 shops and 20 hotels still have not reopened or permanently closed, Scott said. Some shops have decided to remain closed for the year and hope tourists return next summer — though no one knows what the commercial area along the wharf will look like then.
About 80% of rents on the port side of Fisherman’s Wharf went uncollected in April, according to a recent staff report to the Port Commission. (The city owns San Francisco’s piers.) Making matters worse, a huge fire on Pier 45 in late May destroyed a facility that housed crab traps and other fishing equipment — a major blow to the industry that gave Fisherman’s Wharf its name.
Tourist spots are trying to struggle on. At Carmel Pizza Co., business has dropped 90%, according to owner A. J. Sanchez. Keeping the place alive “is eating up all my savings,” he said, adding that the downturn could eventually “put me in insolvency.” He wonders what the future will bring. “It’s not getting better,” he said, staring at the empty tables.
As if a pandemic weren’t enough, construction and fences along Jefferson Street may be keeping people away, said Jay Sewell, manager of California Smiles, which sells Tshirts and other knickknacks for tourists.
“The foot traffic is probably 5 to 10% of what it should be,” Sewell said.
There are a few bright spots. While tourists from Europe, China and the East Coast are nowhere to be found, Californians have been making day trips. Monica Muñoz drove up with her children from Los Angeles and reveled in the emptiness of the pier. “It’s different, but in a way it doesn’t feel bad,” she said, watching her children run about, masks pulled down around their necks, yelping with glee and unhampered by crowds.
Ronnie Darden, who busks as a robot covered in silver paint just outside Pier 39, makes nowhere near prepandemic levels, but he can earn over $100 on the weekend — not as little as he originally feared. “Usually this time of year, it’s packed,” he said. “But if they weren’t open (at all), I’d be making nothing.”
Certain locally beloved spots like Scoma’s and the Buena Vista Cafe, renowned for its
Irish coffee, have remained alive, thanks to support from San Franciscans. The Buena Vista has started offering togo Irish coffee that includes a small bottle of whiskey to draw in locals, who now account for the vast majority of customers.
At Scoma’s, “We’ll be lucky if we do 20% of the business we were doing last year,” Bernier said. Unlike most Fisherman’s Wharf restaurants, Scoma’s — which now offers outdoor dining — remained open for togo orders during the pandemic. “Maybe it didn’t make a whole lot of sense businesswise, but we wanted to show the community that we’re not just going to stop and go away,” Bernier said.
Managers at both establishments said they had been able to ensure medical benefits for all employees, and while they had furloughed some workers, none had been laid off.
San Francisco’s plan for reopening has been thrown into doubt by the recent spike in cases across the region and statewide. Indoor attractions like the Aquarium of the Bay were set to reopen last month, but San Francisco postponed that part of its plan. According to a timeline city officials set out this spring, movie theaters — Pier 39 has a 20seat venue — and indoor dining could also return this summer, and most Fisherman’s Wharf hotels would again be allowed to host visitors beginning in midor late August. If the business owners can hang on until then, Scott hopes that reopened hotels will draw visitors from Northern California, Oregon and other nearby states to revive the wharf.
But it won’t be easy. One fixture of Fisherman’s Wharf, the cruise boats of the Red and White fleet, remains moored at the edge of Pier 39. The July Fourth weekend is usually one of the company’s busiest, but the boats will remain empty this time.
“We feel really frustrated by the reopening process,” said Tyler Foster, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of the familyowned company. The company, which also lost offices and storage facilities in the Pier 45 fire last month, is classified as a nonessential transportation business and must wait until a later phase of reopening.
Fewer than 10 people are currently employed at the company, compared with more than 100 this time of year normally, Foster said.
“This pandemic is almost perfectly designed to destroy tourism,” Foster said, adding: “You can’t come up with something that’s worse, really.”
Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anna_c_kramer