The fate of former Zucky’s restaurant remains in limbo
By MICHAEL TITTINGER Daily Press Staff Writer
It’s famed brown and burnt orange sign still stands tall with the Wilshire Boulevard palms, proudly extending into the Santa Monica sky, but the Zucky’s Deli sign belies the property’s current fate — a shell of a structure enmeshed in development limbo.
Life and commerce have changed dramatically in nearly the decade since Zucky’s closed its doors for good. While the eatery Polly’s Pies directly across Fifth Street is set to transform soon into a Pinero Bread bakery, according to the city’s Planning Commission, Zucky’s remains stagnant, stuck in a bygone era when the likes of now-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was roaming the streets for a pre-workout breakfast.
“We call it the ruins of Santa Monica,” joked City Councilman Herb Katz. “It seems like it’s been sitting there since year one.”
“We call it the ruins of Santa Monica. It seems like it’s been sitting there since year one.” — — HERB KATZ Santa Monica City Councilman
According to City Hall spokeswoman Judy Rambeau, the question of what to do with the former Zucky’s site “isn’t even on anyone’s radar.”
By all accounts the issue with the 5,000-square-foot building is parking, or rather, a lack thereof.
“Lots and lots of friends ask me what’s going on there,” said City Councilman Ken Genser. “But it’s going to be hard to develop a business without any parking available to it.”
Evidently, the site never had parking, even when it was a thriving restaurant-delicatessan under the stewardship of founders Zucky and Hy Altman. A parking lot north of the building on Fifth Street had apparently been “grandfathered in,” according to Katz, but the proprietors never owned it. That tract has since given way to an apartment complex.
Coupled with the lofty rent such a desirable downtown location commands, City Hall and developers alike are at a loss. Vince Muselli, owner of Muselli Commercial Realtors in Santa Monica, suggests a lower rent might be necessary in order to release the decaying building from its proverbial shackles.
“Logic tells me that the rent is too high,” said Muselli, whose firm listed the building about five years ago. Muselli estimates that the building’s rent is going for about $5,000 a month once taxes, insurance and maintenance is factored in. “That’s a lot of money. A business would have to generate between $1 million and $2 million in order to justify a rent like that.
“It’s not out of line for the area it’s in — just a little bit out of downtown,” he added. “But most people want parking.”
The property is listed for lease by Lee & Associates. Representatives from the company didn’t return repeated phone calls seeking comment for this story.
According to Muselli, proposals have come and gone over the years, but nothing has materialized. It seems destined to become a retail business of one form or another now, as it is no longer deemed fit to serve as a restaurant given the parking pitfalls.
Genser explained that tenants would have had to take over the building within one year of its shutdown to keep it a restaurant, but once that window closed, any merchant would have to meet the least parking demands of the city’s planning commission.
“When they closed shop, the license expired,” Katz said. “I think we’ll eventually come up with something that’s not overly invasive, but I don’t know how to resolve the situation, and no one else does either.”
Katz explained that whatever business does eventually move in will not be able to make use of city garages — again punished for its location — due to its being situated on the north side of Wilshire Boulevard.
“It’s on the wrong side of the tracks, in the wrong way,” Katz said.
Few of the renters living in the apartment complex on Fifth Street north of Zucky’s — on the site of the deli’s former parking lot — even recall the one-time Santa Monica institution.
One 27-year city resident out walking her dog recently lamented the deli’s demise.
“It was a great deli. I miss it,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “But any building left that long eventually becomes an eyesore.”
“It was a great deli. I miss it. But any building left that long eventually becomes an eyesore.” — — SANTA MONICA RESIDENT
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 3, 2004. Read the original PDF.