DOWNTOWN NATURAL CAFÉ TO CLOSE

Posted on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 by The Restaurant Guy

The original Natural Café, located at 508 State Street, will close at the end of March 2023. Nick Welsh at the Santa Barbara Independent reports that owner Kelly Brown, owner of the Natural Café, says the issue of homeless people has veered from being merely difficult to one of “straight up criminality” and that the problem of rats nests under parklets has become intolerable. The other locations will be open for business as usual.

This entry was posted in Restaurant News. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to DOWNTOWN NATURAL CAFÉ TO CLOSE

  1. JJ says:
    Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    Really, that’s all to report? The letter written by Kelly spoke to those two topics, however the main reason for closure was the inequity and damage created by the parklets, not just the rats that they are housing. After 30 years of wonderful committed service to our community, you all avoid the real cause of the decision to close up? Put the whole story out there, not just the snippets that serve the continued false narrative of how the promenade is a savior to the world. The promenade is great, you just need to fix the inequity created by the over saturation of rent free patio space…if it is such a glowing success, why is the council once again delaying rent until after the slow season? Because that over growth is not sustainable in its current state. You CAN have a successful promenade loved by all without oversized parklets. Width of the storefront, no roof’s, on the sidewalk…then the promenade could flow into downtown, not siphon off the flow from businesses not afforded the free extra revenue share handed to them by the Council Ad Hoc Committee and City Staff