Downtown Oakland business owner tries to stay positive amid post-pandemic recovery
OAKLAND-- City Hall in Oakland hosted an event Wednesday to kick-off the reactivation of downtown as more people return to work in person.
Businesses are still recovering from the pandemic shutdowns, with some owners trying to stay optimistic as they see more activity downtown.
It's been a challenging couple of years for Noemi Perez, owner of Juice Joint Mexican Deli. It sits right in the heart of downtown Oakland.
"We're waiting for everything to go back to normal; or the normal we had before the pandemic," Perez said.
Her restaurant has been a fixture of the downtown area for the past 15 years. Like many other businesses, they were hit hard by the pandemic. She says she lost 50 percent of her clients when the lockdown began.
"It's tough to see you don't make money for yourself. You just make enough money to pay the rent and all the bills," Perez explained.
But things are starting to get better. She says the restaurant finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, especially since some City Hall Employees have returned to the office.
"We have a lot of customers from City Hall, the city of Oakland, the Fire Department. And now they started coming back once or twice a week," Perez added.
Like Sonia Lara, a loyal customer who is a city employee for Oakland and comes the deli for lunch every time she's in the office.
"A lot of people lost a lot of clients, and some of the businesses are actually closed. Noemi kept on getting herself open, which was great. And I've seen that we're using her for some of our testings, but it's been very slow because people don't wanna come back," Lara said.
Perez said she's optimistic about the restaurant's future. Even though she has been working more than ten hours a day, seven days a week, she used to have five employees, but now she only has one.
"Everybody needs business, but we pay rent and all the taxes because we are in the downtown area. I pay employees, electricity, and all that, so it's getting expensive," Perez said.
Especially since she had to adjust her hours. Right now, her place is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"We need clients. We need business," Perez emphasized.
That wish that could become a reality once more employees return to the area over the next few months.
