The developer who’s driving downtown Santa Ana’s makeover is doubling down on dining.
That’s no small feat in a 45-block area where a new restaurant has opened every other month for nearly two years.
Coming months will bring eight new restaurants all at once, with the eateries gathered under the banner of the 4th Street Market. Another 10 spots will be set aside for food incubators available for short-term rentals.
Also in the lineup at the intersection of 4th and Bush streets—a spot formerly known as Fiesta Marketplace—is a wine bar, a butcher shop and a grocery store.
The restaurants and incubators will be relatively small, ranging from 270 to 328 square feet. That puts the place firmly in line with a trend that’s taken hold at traditional malls and new-fangled food halls, such as the recently opened Packing House in Anaheim (see related story, above).
It’s an evolving concept, according to industry observers, with each location getting tweaks based on the latest trends.
The 4th Street Market aims to fit into the “edgier” landscape of downtown Santa Ana, which is staking a claim as a dining and entertainment destination “for people who appreciate independence,” said Michaele Musel.
Musel runs 4th Street Market with Sheila Anderzunas and Michael Puglisi for Santa Ana-based East End Partners, owner of the development. It’s part of a 145,000-square-foot portfolio of properties in the immediate area around 4th Street Market. East End Partners is an affiliate of S & A Management LLC, which has another 90,000 square feet under management in the downtown area.
Longtime property owner Irving Chase runs East End Partners and S & A Management, and the two companies have put about $5 million behind the ongoing push for a makeover in downtown Santa Ana.
Additions
Fourth Street Market will add about 27,000 square feet to the effort, including:
• eight 328-square-foot spaces for small restaurants;
• ten 270-square-foot food incubators, including ones for gluten-free food and a candy maker;
• a 2,100-square-foot store selling small-batch jams, jellies, sauces, candy, produce and other products;
• and a butcher shop and a wine bar.
East End Partners expects to open in November and get about $3,200 a month for the restaurant spaces, while incubator kitchens will rent in four-hour blocks for $25 to $30 an hour. The monthly lease rates are about five times the average in the area, according to sources, but tenants won’t be saddled with startup costs, and they’ll all get the benefit of a liquor license that covers the entire building.
The market plans cooking classes and to offer incubator tenants access to the Chapman University food science program and a Los Angeles-based food business accelerator Food Centricity, a spokesperson said.
A number of tenants will be familiar with the scene.
Musel will add to her duties of managing the property when she opens the grocery store. Her colleague Puglisi will run the butcher shop. Three of the restaurant spots will be taken by Dan and Jason Quinn, father-and-son owners of The Playground restaurant nearby.
Transformers
Down the street at Boldo Bowl, co-owner Paul Chamberlin serves rice and vegetable bowls with chicken or fish. He uses ingredients from suppliers within 50 miles of the restaurant, including the Alegria Fresh farm at the Great Park in Irvine, and fresh fish from the Dory Fleet out of Newport Beach.
Local ties are part of the program.
“The area has culture and history and great infrastructure, and now we’re getting so many cool places,” said Jeff Hall, president of the Santa Ana Restaurant Association.
Hall has co-owned restaurant Chapter One, a few blocks away from the 4th Street Market, for three years with Jeff Jensen and Jason Montelibano.
Deli, Alehouse, Mexican
Last August they added C4 Deli a block from Chapter One. Hall said the area could use a sushi/teppan restaurant and a cevicheria, a Latino-American take on a fish house.
An alehouse opened in August, and an artisan sausage restaurant called Wurst Haus is planned.
The Art of Mexican Food will bring Oaxacan cuisine to a space vacated by Memphis at the Santoro—both a reminder that hip restaurants aren’t guaranteed to succeed and a sign that the area continues to try.
The restaurants represent the sort of organic and “farm-to-fork” approach that’s part and parcel of the trend toward food halls.
Work began on the 4th Street Market when the building was gutted in December.
A recent walk-through found the place still sporting exposed pipes, insulation and stacked drywall—a building in transition, like the downtown area itself.
It’s a process that has caused some hard feelings among a long-standing base of Latino-American merchants and customers that defined downtown Santa Ana for years. But opposition to the change seems to be easing, and fallout from the recent death of a young woman outside a downtown nightclub appears to be subsiding.
New Ideas
New ideas are cropping up as the situation settles down.
The city recently installed 500 new parking meters to replace antiquated ones. It plans to add an app for visitors to find, monitor and pay for meters.
City officials also envision a next act to downtown’s development with an “eArena” venue for online gaming tournaments and a hotel added to the area, said Leigh Eisen, downtown development liaison for the city. Those efforts remain in early stages, like a trolley through the area as part of a 4-mile-long project with Garden Grove.
