The City of Martinez has created a Downtown Martinez Temporary Outdoor Restaurant Seating/Retail Display Program, which is designed to provide downtown merchants an opportunity to use portions of the sidewalks and streets near their businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The City and Main Street Martinez determined the ideal start date for this program will be Thursday, June 18.
Any planned street closures to accommodate the outdoor dining and retail activity (Main Street from Alhambra Avenue to Court Street, and Estudillo from Marina Vista to Main Street) would not start until that time.
Glad to see the city jumping in to help out small business!
Goodie! The homeless are going to enjoy that!
Somewhat reminds me of what Portland, Oregon did years ago with their downtown as other cities have too. I just wonder if they understand that like Portland you need to allow delivery trucks through on the closed streets. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t think of that. They should keep it this way beyond the pandemic.
Martinez has always seemed to be struggling with what to do about the downtown. Business there struggle due to lack of parking which could be solved with a juror’s garage that the county won’t build. Otherwise parking downtown should be free which would help.
Businesses struggle on Main Street because people don’t go to Main Street. People don’t go to Main Street because there’s not a lot of diversity in types of businesses and because the businesses that are there are too expensive to make up for the fact that they don’t get enough customers. The bars and restaurants on Main Street are more expensive than comparable restaurants and bars in Berkeley, Oakland, and SF. There are a lot of “vintage” stores that just sell old stuff that nobody really wants, and they aren’t very well curated. The home decor/gift shops charge top dollars for items that were trendy a few years ago. Off Main Street, there’s a plant store that sells the kind of plants you can get for a fraction of the price at Trader Joe’s and a leatherworks store that is really pricey and sells trinkets. If Main Street got maybe some sort of specialty store for yarn, fabric, and crafting it might draw people there, or a toy store, book store, clothing store, or health food store/cafe…
Martinez is going nowhere until they address parking. The parking situation is crap and it’s been that way for 40+ years. Recently, some trendy little eateries and coffee joints have opened, probably because it’s the only city around with reasonable lease rates. But many charge Walnut Creek prices and I’m not paying Walnut Creek prices to have to drive in circles for 30 minutes to find parking. And in many cases, I can get better deals in Walnut Creek. Like @Captain Bebops said, with so many doing jury duty there you would think they would have a parking garage. Nope! No garage for you! Martinez is the Soup Nazi of parking.
I like eating outside when the weather is nice. Good for people watching and pretending we are eating at a Paris cafe.
Great nice to see people who care in action.
I wonder if there would be enough parking outside the area. And while they are at it, it would be cool if they could add some shade canopies along the street.
Biggest obstacle to shopping downtown is the lack of parking. All the business owners take up the spots in front of their stores. Next they did all the outside eating areas. Come winter time they fill the city parking lot with an ice rink. The whole thing is too inconvenient.
This will be nice. Yes, parking could be a hassle, but I tend to park farther out anyway. Grab a coffee from State and spend about 3 hours walk up & down a few street to check out shops. It’s my once a month decompress time 🙂
You should have seen Danville tonight…Primo’s Pizzeria & Pub 298 Hartz Ave,
Packed outside like sardines, hugging, shaking hands and carelessly avoiding all health protocalls for dining outside.. Danville’s numbers are about to rise because of a bunch of clueless dummies, including the restaurant owners and staff. don’t set us back fools!
I agree. Losing one’s decorum will attract unwanted attention, and spread germs. When we SIP’d, we also lessened immunity from other contact illness. On the bright side, I didn’t hear any of the usual sniffling and coughing this winter.
Maybe retailers can set up shops in the backs of trucks and travel to your homes. Kinda like a food truck, but with sides that flip to display their goods. Call the business when you just can’t buy it online. There. Problem solved. Adios amigos.