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Dining Choices Abound but are they Enough? |
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Written by Gary Moffat
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The new South Pine Café, a third location for this venerable tofu eatery founded in Nevada City and aimed at the tie-dyed set, opened with virtually no fanfare last Friday in south Auburn’s Skyridge Courtyard shopping center. I enjoyed breakfast there with a friend Saturday morning, occupying one of only two active tables in the main dining room, though a half dozen patio tables were filled with al fresco café-goers.
With just Starbucks, Subway and Roundtable Pizza franchises as choices, residents packed along the southern border of town will rejoice once they learn this new option is available, though this has proven to be a tough place for restaurants to make a go of it. An espresso café and Steve’s Place are two notable examples of joints that went belly up in the Maidu neighborhood.
But that got me to thinking again about how many restaurants are enough in our modest community of less than 13,500 souls. For years, many Auburn residents insisted you couldn’t get a decent meal here and resorted to leaving the city limits in search of savory dining delights down the hill. The consequence has been that many quality restaurants here either struggled mightily before strangling or suffered an even worse fate: they were cursed to limp along marginally, making just enough to survive but never thrive.
Even the most critical of local foodies would be forced to acknowledge that the dining scene here has improved markedly in recent years, with many new restaurants opening in the greater Auburn area, offering inventive menus and delightful cuisines. Want curry. . .no problemo. How about Caribbean. . .done. Hand-crafted beer is a chilling reality, as is sushi, pasta and hot and spicy Mexican or Chinese. We have it all and much more.
And the beautiful thing is—in Old Town and Downtown at least—the vast majority of restaurants are independently owned, original one-offs you won’t find anywhere else on the planet. For the most part, we have been spared the palate-numbing blandness forced down our collective throats by corporate chains that shrink-wrap taste and pile on the sodium and processed foods.
We’ve reached a point of diminishing returns in Auburn, however, as more and more restaurants hang out their shingles. While competition is generally viewed as a good thing for consumers, our community is large enough to sustain only a finite number of businesses of any ilk, and as far as dining goes, we’ve maxed out.
The inescapable economic reality is there is a limited amount of dollars available for dining out in Auburn, and the pool of hungry Auburnites isn’t growing. So what we end up with is a market share game, where more and more restaurants chase the same dollars.
Downtown Auburn is home to 22 establishments that serve food. Lincoln Way in Upper Town boasts two Italian restaurants for bookends, and there are two sushi joints from which to choose. Deli choices abound Downtown, and the business district is literally choking on cafes.
Old Town is home to an even dozen restaurants now that the Beach Hut Deli has been shuttered, but more choices are on the way—no doubt—with Tsuda’s Grocery and the Mercantile Building rumored to be destined for food service. And there is talk that a new sports bar will be constructed on a vacant postage-stamp lot, and a storefront serving desserts could be in the offing.
That totals 35 food service options in the two business districts, not counting the Moose Club, the Tahoe Club, the Elks Lodge and the VFW Post. And just to round things out, let’s not forget the California Club, the 160 Club and Pistol Pete’s.
So, as the owner of a joint myself, I get really nervous when I hear our City Fathers waxing eloquently about grand plans for a Streetscape program and all of the new restaurants and outdoor dining that it will attract. While I appreciate the value of the City of Auburn committing to a capital investment designed to beautify our community, I think our peeps in City Hall need to get realistic about turning this burg into some sort of Carmel in the foothills.
What would be truly useful at this precise moment is for the Council to put our Economic Development Commission back to work on promoting Auburn as a day-tripping destination. Our EDC has been idle of late, even though a major part of its charter is to create programs to encourage visitors to come up the hill to Auburn. Too bad little has ever materialized because this community can, oddly enough, benefit from fuel prices accelerating through $4 per gallon.
Do an asset inventory and Auburn is uniquely positioned to benefit from its 1,300-foot elevation. We’re above the fog and we’ve got the river canyon and the history and the charming village mystique that the flat-landers will flock to if they know they can do a Sacramento roundtrip for less than a half-tank of petrol.
And at the same time, our hometown folks need to understand and appreciate what exists here. Thanks to the new “Think Auburn First” initiative now in development and led by Councilman Kevin Hanley, a bright light will soon illuminate the attributes of Auburn that too many of us take for granted.
All of this talk makes me hungry, so I think I’ll hit the Auburn Alehouse tonight for a beer and a burger.
Gary Moffat is a journalist and he owns Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. He can be reached at
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