Downtown San Luis Obispo is emptying out. And over the past several weeks, the exodus of businesses, years in the making, has only accelerated.
For generations, the downtown has played multiple roles: a tourist destination, college town hangout and the place where locals go to shop, dine and be entertained. Today, it’s littered with empty storefronts marked by darkened windows and for lease signs.
Unlike many other places on the Central Coast that are destinations that depended on tourists, SLO’s downtown was vibrant because of the locals and students who live here full-time. But like many California downtowns, it has seen tariffs, recent rent spikes, and a decrease in foot traffic after the pandemic. Higher cost of living expenses, especially housing, have also throttled the disposable income needed for jaunts to the city’s urban core. Coupled with missteps from the city on parking, merchants now say that it’s a perfect storm that has led to the decline.
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‘What the heck happened?’
Gaia’s Gallery had the perfect location, the perfect space, in the perfect building.
Located on the 700 block of Higuera Street, next to a crosswalk that bisected the downtown main drag’s busiest block, it was a “dream come true” when gallery owner Christine Branco was able to open her art, crystal and jewelry shop here in the spring of 2022, she told SFGATE.
Large storefronts on Higuera Street, downtown SLO’s main drag, have sat empty for months or longer. Pictured here on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
Charles Shoes, a midcentury staple in downtown SLO, has sat vacant for years. Pictured here on Sept. 30, 2025, it is just one of the major storefronts in downtown SLO that sits empty.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
The space is as idyllic as she made it seem: a shotgun-style gallery, with an exposed brick accent wall running along the southern end of a historic building. Natural light beams in from the plate glass windows at the storefront.
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In those three short years, Branco said the business — which she originally took over at a different location in 2017 — was always susceptible to ups and downs of doing business in a place that was dependent on disposable income and whether college kids were around. She explained that this time there were “lots of factors” in play that eventually drove her to the brink, and then to the decision to close her doors for good.
She spent Sept. 30, the last day of the store’s lease, clearing out the rest of her inventory and cleaning up the space. The decision became obvious, she said, when the year began with a slowdown in business, and then an increase in wholesale costs for her wares. A rent increase took her rent to more than $8,000 a month.
“2025 was like, ‘What the heck happened?’” she said. She noted that downtown’s slowdown has impacted everyone, but particularly, in her opinion, higher-end galleries and retail stores like the one she ran: “There’s just not that much discretionary income with everything rising.”
Christine Braco and Steven Wick, both downtown SLO merchants, pose in front of Gaia Gallery, Branco’s business, on its final day on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
A farewell note at Gaia’s Gallery in downtown SLO. Pictured on Sept. 25, 2025, the gallery is just one of a slew of recent locally owned businesses that have shut down here.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
To stem her own costs and to see if she could make it through the upcoming holidays, Branco said she was still selling inventory from last year’s holiday season. But when she started looking at replenishing stock, she realized those costs would be so prohibitive that she was left with no choice.
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“For me, I just felt it was the right time to leave,” she said, using the crystals she imports from Brazil as just one small example. “If I was to replenish, the cost would be double if not triple. It’s not just tariffs that go up, it’s the labor, other import fees, brokers — it wouldn’t make any sense for me to then pass that to the customer. It would price itself out.”
Toward the end, she received “a ton of emails” from vendors from places like Indonesia and Thailand, all reporting the same thing about massive price increases as a result of the tariffs.
“And who does that hit? It hits the small business owners that are just trying to keep their doors open for wonderful customers,” she said.
‘They’re anti-business — their actions tell us that everyday’
Steven Wick owns a pair of businesses in downtown SLO, Hemp Shak and Euphoria, which offer bohemian clothing and accessories, including jewelry made by local designers, artists and artisans. He was on hand on Sept. 30 to help friend and fellow merchant Branc0 clean out her storefront.
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Watching friends go under is a phenomenon Wick said has become all too familiar. September alone saw Branco’s gallery, a hat shop called Brixton, Antigua Brewing Company, Starbucks, and women’s boutique Avanti all close.
Avanti, a boutique that had been a staple of San Luis Obispo for more than three decades, prepares to go out of business with a final sale on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
He said that the cost of doing business has skyrocketed on every level. Tariffs have impacted an item that originally cost about $100, including shipping, to get to his store. When the new fees were tacked on, the item was $200. “We just have to say, ‘send it back,’” he explained, noting that in the end the customer is unhappy and the retailer misses out on the sale.
Even though the rising cost of doing business with importers is a huge factor, Wick said he doesn’t feel the local conditions for downtown merchants and restaurateurs are exempt from blame.
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“Our city only cares about their image,” he said. “They will not admit they’re wrong. They’re anti-business — their actions tell us that everyday.”
He believes that the SLO City Council has made it tougher on business owners here in recent years. Wick said that he’s emailed city leaders and appeared in front of the city council “numerous times” to report on the conditions downtown. He has concerns with how traffic, both car and pedestrian, flows down main drags like Higuera Street. The city has also gone back and forth on whether visitors should pay for parking, and how much.
A prominent restaurant spot that was most recently home to the Creeky Tiki Bar and Grill in downtown San Luis Obispo sits empty on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
“We’re dealing with everything that’s closing right now, they’re blaming it on the economy,” Wick told SFGATE. “If you go to Bozeman, if you go to Boulder, if you go to Carmel — if you go to these cities, they’re packed. If you go to Carmel, if you go to the stores, there’s a line out [of] them — they’re so crowded.”
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The city of SLO has admitted to some gaffes in the recent past, namely with its parking. After deciding to significantly increase downtown parking rates in 2023, the city saw backlash from residents and merchants. Then it rolled the hikes back in the spring of 2024, and even apologized.
“I really think it’s important — as somebody in the audience earlier said — to say, ‘We’re sorry,’” Councilmember Emily Francis said during a May 2024 city council meeting. “We hear the pain and the frustration, and I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that and also say that we’re ready to make some changes here tonight.”
But charging slightly less for parking — parking structure hourly rates went down to $2 from $3 and daily rates went down to $8 from $12 — to help pay for a new $41 million parking structure, is not enough in an emergency moment, one that Wick said features those who most control the narrative being avoidant.
For lease signs throughout downtown SLO are common as businesses continue to shutter, pictured Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
“All the city of SLO cares about is their image,” he said. “They do not want to take the blame for rising parking to pay for their structure.”
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Both Branco and Wick said they felt that even neighboring communities like Atascadero and Paso Robles, both of which offer free parking options, and, according to Branco, have more robust regional advertising, are also drawing some business away from SLO.
“They have really stepped up their game with their downtown,” Branco said. She pointed out that the only advertising she hears for downtown SLO is for the Thursday night farmers market.
‘Every business closure is a challenge and heartbreaking’
Those who work most closely with downtown merchants and restaurateurs acknowledge the tough times, but also say that when the big picture is examined, things might not be as bad as they seem.
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“The trends in downtown San Luis Obispo are consistent with what most downtowns are experiencing today,” LeBren Harris, CEO of Downtown SLO, a nonprofit that seeks to promote the downtown mainly through events and marketing, wrote SFGATE on Wednesday. “While the constant shifts in the business landscape and business closures are most certainly difficult for business owners and the community, it does not tell the full story.”
The building that once housed Ross Dress for Less in downtown SLO sits empty. Long-term vacancies in the popular downtown are becoming increasingly common. Pictured here on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
Signs for final sales can be frequently spotted in downtown SLO. Pictured here, a business on Chorro Street on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
Harris pointed out that the percentage of “store-level commercial spaces” that are unoccupied in SLO’s downtown is just over 8%, “well below the national average of ~20%.”
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She also said that while it is “heartbreaking” to hear about closures, “it’s unfortunate that the narrative is focused more on the business closures than giving coverage to the new businesses which chose to plant their roots in downtown San Luis Obispo,” she wrote. “Every business closure is a challenge and heartbreaking. But it also represents a chance for a new business to thrive and contribute to the ongoing vitality of Downtown San Luis Obispo.”
However, there have also been other notable, and in many cases, bigger closures over the past several years that have left long-term and very visible vacancies.
Those include Ross Dress for Less, which closed its downtown location in early 2022 and has yet to be filled. Across the street, Charles Shoes, an independent shoe shop that was a family-run business for more than a half century, shut its doors in 2019. Six years later, that space is still empty. BarrelHouse Brewing Co. shut its downtown SLO brewery late last year, and that space has yet to find a steady occupant. And last October, the F. McLintocks Saloon, also a Higuera Street mainstay, shut its doors for good.
The BarrelHouse Brewing SLO taproom closed in late 2024. The building still sits vacant on Sept. 30, 2025.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
“I agree that the larger, more visible storefronts that have been vacant for years can create the perception of a larger ratio,” Harris wrote. “I can assure you, in conversations I have had with many property owners over the last few months, there are ongoing efforts to get tenants in their spaces. Some agreements can take several months of negotiations. Others can be instant. In the end, it is the property owner’s decision as to who and when their empty storefront is filled.”
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In the end, helping SLO dig its way out of where it is is a work in progress with a long road ahead: “We acknowledge some challenges are bigger than one organization alone can solve,” Downtown SLO’s Harris wrote. “But we are committed to listening to our business community and working collaboratively with stakeholders and supporters to maintain downtown as the cultural and economic heart of the region.”
‘I’m just going to move forward’
On a recent weekday morning, a quartet of Cal Poly students were taking a break from campus and discovering Kreuzberg California, a mainstay coffee shop, restaurant and performance space that takes up the heart of the 600 block of Higuera Street. They said they don’t venture out much to downtown, but when they discover places like the popular meet-up spot, it resonates.
“I’ve never been here,” said Meghan Murphy, a Cal Poly student originally from Oakland who said she’s definitely looking forward to coming back to downtown and Kreuzberg.
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“It’s a great spot,” chimed in Murphy’s study companion, Austin Hartman, who grew up in Washington state. Hartman said he definitely noticed some vacancies downtown but overall appreciates the city more than where he grew up: “SLO doesn’t have a mall. That’s why downtown is even alive. There are a few empty stores, but maybe that’s what it’ll take to grow.”
Out in front of Linnea’s Cafe, enjoying a cup of coffee, were snowbirds Brian Varvell and his partner Linnea Sabelli. Varvell, who just turned 90, said that he discovered the Central Coast and SLO specifically a little more than a decade ago. The couple decamps for the cooler climate here during the summers in Arizona, where they live out the rest of the year.
The historic buildings of the downtown core in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Dec. 3, 2021.
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He said that he thought the downtown had made a bit of a comeback in recent years following the height of the early COVID-19 shutdowns. “I was hopeful that the tide had turned,” he said, noting that things seem to have regressed back to leaner times.
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“It’s a topic for conversation because you live here and you want to see it succeed and there are all sorts of signals that show it’s moving in the right direction,” he said. “… Then again, the prices to run a shop are probably horribly high because too many fail.”
As the couple was finishing their coffee, Gaia’s Gallery owner Branco stepped out of her almost-empty storefront and examined, perhaps for the last time, the dream she was leaving behind.
“At all levels, small businesses are just being squeezed out,” she concluded. “And I felt that pressure, so I had enough foresight to say, ‘You know what, let me get out while I can now.’ And I’m just going to move forward with ease and grace.”
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