At the last Brentwood Community Council meeting, a representative of a restaurant called Bottlefish spoke about his company’s plans to build a nice fish restaurant at Brentwood Gardens, in the same location where the Daily Grill used to be (up on the second level, on the right side as you face the building from San Vicente).
It sounded from the description like Bottlefish will be very nice, but not too fancy. There will be a full array of fish dishes and a bar. It sounded like a place to hang out, relax and enjoy. The same people who did California Pizza Kitchen (with a location on the other side of the same building) are behind Bottlefish.
Brentwood has needed something like this for a very long time. Things have become way too “chi-chi” in recent years.
What was really interesting was to watch how welcoming the members of the BCC were toward the proposal. Often when someone wants to build out something like this – especially if there’s alcohol involved – there is a huge amount of scrutiny, vocal opposition and threats of lawsuits, even. Then it gets ugly, turning neighbor against neighbor.
But something different is going on, it seems, and I, for one, appreciate it. The “anti” forces like to argue that if we have nice restaurants in Brentwood, people will drive here to visit them, driving up traffic. But the same is true in reverse: If there aren’t enough affordable casual/friendly places to go here in Brentwood, then we have to drive OUT of the neighborhood – and then back again, later – to find enough good choices.
But there’s more at play here than who is for or against what. Reality dictates that rising property values in the area make it harder and harder for the smaller restaurant owners to survive. Here’s an example. A little while back, Rick Caruso’s company, Caruso Affiliated, bought the building that houses Early World, Vicenti Restaurant and Brentwood Cut Salon.
As a result of the purchase, property taxes were reassessed, and the building’s manager, Brentwood West, is passing along the tax increases to the current tenants. Nazmi Qutami, who has been keeping Early World alive for years, saw his tax bill go from $6,000 a year to $30,000 a year – an increase of 500 percent.
This is one of the reasons everything is going upscale in Brentwood; the smaller, more affordable restaurants simply can’t afford the rent, the taxes and the overhead.
I hope the new owners of the property, who presumably have more money than Nazmi, can figure out a way to keep Early World as part of the Brentwood scene (Nazmi has been involved since 1972 and bought the place in 1986). I think Early World adds to community life; it’s a great place for breakfast or lunch and many important meetings take place there all the time.
I’m actually hoping Rick Caruso can figure out a way to buy Charlie Munger’s Green Hollow Square property, across the street from Early World. In addition to a nice bookstore, maybe he could include Early World in his plans. Nobody knows what the plan is for the space Vicenti, the Cut Salon and Early World currently occupy, but if a coffee shop isn’t meant to be in that location, maybe a space could be found across the street.
Some years ago I proposed that Charlie Munger build a retirement village at the Green Hollow Square location. There is no other retirement village in Brentwood and a retirement village wouldn’t increase traffic in the area. Those who are retired would pretty much stay put, with occasional visitors and maybe a few small buses going in an out, taking residents out for activities.
I got quite a favorable response to that column. People still ask me about it, years later. People who are getting older really do want to stay in Brentwood, they told me, but it’s not clear they can. So they end up moving to some place in Orange County, Ventura County or Florida – where they know nobody.
If a retirement village did go into the Green Hollow Square location, a bookstore and a neighborhood coffee shop would fit in nicely – and these establishments would have a built-in audience among those living in the new retirement village. Older people still read books and they like to go to coffee shops. I’ll bet this idea would pencil out. Rick Caruso is a Brentwood resident; maybe he’ll read this.
If we are now entering a new, more open-minded phase – as evidenced by the reception given to Bottlefish – then it’s time to put on our creative thinking caps. Instead of trying to define Brentwood by what people don’t want, let’s start asking again: What DO the people of Brentwood want?
We’re about to get a fish restaurant, that’s great. I’m with Josh Stephens, who says we need a local pub. I’d like to see Early World turn itself into a Mexican restaurant at night.
Got ideas of your own? Of course you do. Send them to jeffhall@brentwoodnewsonline.com and we’ll talk about them in future issues of the Brentwood News.
