Restaurant District Is Key Ingredient in Revitalization of Once-Blighted Area

PLACENTIA — The Sandovals, all 32 of them, live within walking distance of the restaurant that the family patriarch and matriarch, Gereon and Adela Sandoval, founded in 1974.

Called El Farolito--Spanish for “the little street light”--the restaurant is in the heart of Placentia’s historic downtown and is managed by the founders’ youngest son, Arturo Sandoval, with help from six of his seven siblings, their spouses and many of their children.

“Never in his dreams did my father think of ever owning a restaurant,” said Sandoval, 32, as he described how his father labored in citrus groves and a local food processing plant to save enough money for a house.

Gereon Sandoval bought the small building at the corner of Bradford Avenue and Center Street as a place for his family to live, only to discover that it was in an area zoned for commercial use. So he decided to open a restaurant instead.

That business, offering a menu based on family recipes, is now one of half a dozen thriving Mexican restaurants in Placita Santa Fe--a three-block area along Santa Fe Avenue and two blocks on Bradford Avenue.

The restaurant district is a success story in a largely Latino area that, like the Sandoval family, has seen its share of ups and downs, and it is a cornerstone of a campaign to revitalize Placentia’s aging downtown.

Incorporated 70 years ago, Placentia was a rural town of 800 residents where orange groves and oil wells were abundant.

The city grew rapidly with the rest of Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s, but the new housing tracts and shopping centers, built on former orange groves, drew merchants and residents away from the core downtown.

By the mid-1970s, downtown consisted mainly of blighted 50-year-old buildings, with overcrowded rental units in some and notorious bars in others.

“People would come here and drink and kill each other,” said Jose Zepeda, owner of Fiesta Imperial Meat Market at Bradford and Santa Fe.

“We used to come to collect rent in this building with an armed bodyguard,” said Zepeda, 50, who rents apartments above his market and has spent about $2 million to renovate the building and the former Santa Fe Hotel down the street. “Ten years ago, nobody came here.”

Longtime Santa Fe resident Joe Huffine also recalled that downtown used to be dilapidated and dangerous area of taverns and flophouses.

“In the ‘70s, it was a little on the rough side,” said Huffine, 73, as he relaxed on the porch of the house where he moved with his parents in December 1928. “There was all the bars and all the drinking and fighting.”

Though the city proposed a Santa Fe renewal effort in the early 1980s, owners of residential and commercial properties united to defeat it, fearing that it was a scheme to bulldoze their buildings and drive them out.

But in June 1990, a citywide redevelopment project area was expanded to include Santa Fe. City officials convinced property owners that restoring buildings, not razing them, was the goal, and they quietly encouraged landowners and merchants to take the initiative.

Using low-interest city loans, property owners have brought their buildings up to current city codes and earthquake standards. The flophouses and bars have been replaced by modest apartments above shops where family-owned businesses flourish.

Streets now sport colorful banners, brick-like paving at intersections, and new lighting and landscaping. Storefronts boast awnings, new signs and paint, and decorative wrought iron.

Lifelong residents such as Margarita Duncan, 63, applaud the improvements but say cosmetic changes will not solve all of the city’s problems. A large number of businesses still sell alcoholic beverages, Duncan said, and that encourages loitering and public drunkenness.

“The loitering is what keeps [the area] down,” Duncan said. “People don’t have much to do . . . but stand around.”

Duncan said she would like to see a stronger police presence downtown and in adjacent neighborhoods with crime and gang problems. “Police need to go in there more forcefully,” she said.

To raise police visibility downtown, officers have begun dropping by the Cathy Torres Learning Center on Santa Fe Avenue to chat with residents and use the facility to complete paperwork.

Business people and community activists are counting on economic growth, however, as the main force to revitalize the area.

The Placita Santa Fe Merchants Assn. was founded a decade ago “to enhance the whole area and make it a viable commerce source,” said Rosalina Davis, 43, who with her husband, Raul Davis Jr., owns Tlaquepaque Restaurant and Placentia Bakery.

“We have established a nice partnership with the city,” said Rosalina Davis, whose restaurant features live mariachi music on weekends and has become a popular night spot.

She describes the downtown today as “a hidden little treasure.” To walk through the Placita--Spanish for “the little plaza”--is like visiting a prosperous Mexican village. Among the bustling restaurants are neighborhood markets with specialty butcher shops, Mexican produce and a wide assortment of imported Mexican goods, such as religious candles.

Gabriel B. Zavala of Anaheim, who lived in Placentia’s La Jolla neighborhood after he emigrated from Mexico in 1965, is a frequent Santa Fe patron.

A mariachi violinist, Zavala, 52, often stops at Tlaquepaque for pan dulce--Mexican sweet bread--and at El Cantarito Restaurant for menudo.

“When I came here, it was the first time I felt at home in the United States,” Zavala said. “When you find your music and your food, you feel like you belong.”

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Placentia Revives ‘Hidden Treasure’

After a period of decline, Placentia has undertaken an urban renewal effort that has allowed businesses to flourish in a safe environment.

Placentia Profile

Established: 1926

Motto: “The People Are the City”

Population: 45,350

Median household income: $50,945

Ethnicity: 65% white, 25% Latino, 8% Asian, 2% black

Major employer: Placentia Linda Hospital, 300 employees

Landmarks: Placita Santa Fe, Bradford House, Civic Center bell tower, Wagner House

POINTER: Placita Santa Fe highlights renewal effort

Sources: City administrator’s office, U.S. census