Businesses serving ravaged Coffey Park struggle to survive
When a neighborhood is decimated overnight, what happens to the neighborhood businesses?
Coffey Park was an early casualty of the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed about 1,500 homes in the neighborhood during the early morning hours of Oct. 9. Less than a quarter-mile away is a diminutive shopping center near the intersection of Piner Road and Coffey Lane, populated by a handful of food businesses: A’s Donuts, Thai Cuisine, Phyllis’ Giant Burgers and Pizza Guys.
Over the years, the strip was a commonality among residents of the upper middle class neighborhood. A’s Donuts served as the go-to place for those seeking a caffeine or sugar fix, while Thai Cuisine played host to family gatherings and Pizza Guys delivered early and often to houses less than a mile away. The center was routinely a hive of activity.
Lately, the strip mall looks more like a ghost town. “We’re Open” signs still hang in restaurant windows, but the regular stream of customers has run dry since fires burned down hundreds of homes in a neighborhood that the strip depended on for business.
While the entire region
continues its recovery from the deadly wildfires, a common refrain has been for people to visit the local wineries and resorts in Napa and Sonoma, high-profile places that have reopened and are in need of business.
Less frequently included in such campaigns are the minichains and mom-and-pop shops like those near Coffey Park.
“We’ve basically lost all of our customers,” said Danit Lean, who runs A’s Donuts with his parents. The shop, which has been open for over two decades, is more empty than usual these days; in fact, sales have dipped by about 45 percent, Lean said, a huge amount in the restaurant industry, where businesses normally operate on slim margins.
“You’d never think something like this would happen. It’s a tough situation, especially for my family because this is what my parents have. We all pour so much into this place,” he said.
Hooman Horbakht, the franchisee of the Pizza Guys outpost a few steps from A’s Donuts, said he reopened his restaurant roughly 10 days after the fire.
“We’re still here. We’re trying to make it,” Horbakht said. “We’re adjusting. It’s hard.”
In the days after the fire, Tyler Williams, a shift manager at Acre Coffee a few miles away on Fourth Street, said Coffey Park residents were still showing up at the shop, searching for single pours and baked goods, but more than anything, he says, they were searching for a sense of normalcy.
“Even if they lost things they could never replace, there was something about trying to still do their morning routine that seemed important,” Williams said.
When the fires were burning, Pizza Guys fed evacuees and first responders, giving away more than 1,000 slices to the public. When it was time to reopen, though, Horbakht had to clean the ashen remnants of the homes of former customers off the outside of the building. The interior needed work as well: Floors needed to be cleaned, ovens scrubbed, spoiled food had to be thrown out.
“It took two solid days just to get the ash and debris that had blown from the neighborhood off the building,” he said. “It was a process.”
Horbakht estimates he lost about 2,000 customers because of the fires, the people who would stop in on their way home from a soccer game or an after-school play.
At night, the regular crowds next door at Thai Cuisine are almost nonexistent, said Lean. Over the last few weeks, Lean and his family have had to adjust to slower days, sometimes donating most of their daily supply of doughnuts to nearby food centers.
“Everyone is dealing with the same situation, but you just keep trying to make things work,” he said. “The hope is it will get better.”
Horbakht and Lean both said their nerves are calmed a bit by seeing the Coffey Park area moving forward, even if it is hard to watch. Burned-out lots are hitting the market for about $160,000 to $300,000, about a third of the cost were homes still on the properties.
Before they can be sold, the lots have to be cleaned. This means a stream of construction vehicles driving up and down Coffey Lane with loads of rubble. These workers have provided a temporary customer base, which in trying times is a boon for the business owners.
“We’re serving pizzas to the people doing the work in the neighborhoods, which helps,” Horbakht said. “But that won’t last forever.”