Smaller Stories
Small businesses in San Diego
By Owen Swift
By Owen Swift
On a sunny day in Clairemont Square, a handful of people waited in the resident Starbucks for a late morning coffee. I, however, was at the square for something else. On that particular Sunday, I was not getting lunch, looking to find some new clothes, or thinking of catching a matinee; rather, I was squeezing between the Vons and CVS, searching for small businesses in the nooks and crannies.
In a large city such as San Diego, it can be hard to make definitive conclusions about culture simply by examining individuals; so I examined small businesses, looking at what types of small businesses are in San Diego. While in Clairemont square, I noticed an interesting trend in the resident small businesses. Although there were a few small outlets like a dentists office, a gym, and a spa, the majority of small businesses were restaurants. Upon examining the shopping centers of La Jolla Village square and Westfield UTC, I found similar trends. In fact, these locations harbored very few small businesses to begin with, which perhaps says something about the larger areas of San Diego. Still, there was more to learn about the small businesses and culture of San Diego. To learn more, I took a look at the website of the US census bureau, which held some interesting facts about the raw numbers of the businesses of San Diego. One of the more striking pieces of data I found was that although roughly 33% of the population is listed as Hispanic or Latino, only about 15% of the establishments in San Diego are categorized as Hispanic or Latino owned. Meanwhile, San Diego has an Asian population of around 12%, and 10% of establishments in San Diego are Asian owned, an unusual contrast between the two populations. The data also highlights a fact that you may have already deduced from the figures earlier: only about 30% of businesses in general in San Diego are minority owned, and only 20% of businesses are owned by women. So, there clearly is some diversity among business owners, although not a lot. But in the end, these are just bits of data. They can tell us what kinds of people own businesses in San Diego, but they can really tell us nothing of San Diego’s culture or the experiences of small business owners. To learn this, I spoke with Teri Surratt, the owner of Fin’s Mexican Eatery. Teri has a very distinct opinion on the culture of her neighborhood: “It’s very health and quality conscious. The neighborhood enjoys lard free, high quality ingredients, so a “Taco Shop” like that can work here.” She also considers the neighborhoods proximity to the beach to be a major factor, creating a ”theme of surfing”. She also had a few comments about what it is like to deal with larger, rival chain restaurants: “we have to compete with restaurants with more capital and resources...But, individual family run restaurants like us enjoy aspects that are often lost in bigger players.” She raises some good points: small businesses create stronger relationships between the owner, employees, and customers. Furthermore, They have more freedom to change or alter their menus or services to reflect the demands of the community, and are not beholden to a larger company. It’s easy to see large companies as the bane of small businesses, siphoning away valuable customers and stealing the spotlight, and this is indeed a prevalent message in the media. But this is not always the case: “It doesn’t affect me at all,” said Dr. Hema Srinivasan, the owner of a small dental office in Clairemont. Her office is a few scant blocks away from a Western Dental, a large dental company based in the west coast, but she says that this proximity does not hurt her. “In fact, it’s better for me, because I get more people who come from there to my office…Because the way they practice business is very different from how I do it.” She also described the culture surrounding her business quite differently. “It’s a very established community,” she said, “a lot of the people who live in this neighborhood have lived here for years.” Looking at the square, it is easy to see what she means: Though there are signs that the center has changed over the years, with differences in architecture and the arrangement of buildings hinting at the stages that the center has gone through, it is static now. There is no more room left to expand and grow, the square itself being completely surrounded by houses and a few stores that lie on its outskirts. Though there may be minor changes in the future, businesses coming and going as the square adapts to subtle shifts within the local culture, for the most part the square itself will most likely remain the same. Perhaps there is a metaphor for San Diego here, if we look at it the right way. |