Eateries with the handle “Azul” have recently closed in Seattle, San Francisco, Albuquerque and San Antonio; and now San Diego has added an entry to the list with the Sept. 2 closure of The Steakhouse at Azul La Jolla. The acclaimed Donovan’s Prime Steakhouse purchased the eatery from owner The Brigantine, Inc. and will assume the space sometime late this year or early next after 15 years at its La Jolla Village Drive location across from Westfield UTC.
Donovan’s will probably fit in well at 1250 Prospect St., a tony little enclave that’s recently seen some big-city commerce close up. Restaurateur George Hauer, owner of the ever-popular George’s at the Cove, recently won approval to expand his Ocean Terrace outdoor dining locale there, and a few nearby venues have scurried in and out in the last several years (the opening of the fine The Hake restaurant and The Morrison Hotel Gallery’s sad passing are notable examples). But 1250 Prospect St. alone does not a neighborhood make. Even during the Great Recession, well-heeled La Jolla managed to add 4,000 residents; that brings its population to about 48,000, up 6,000 from the turn of the century. With numbers like that and amid its topographic sprawl, the area seems more like a small city (it’s twice the size of Lemon Grove and has only 7,000 fewer residents than Santee), and, for better or worse, attendant changes to its village character are taking place on the same scale.
One recent news item involves the sale of the building at 7545 Girard Ave., somewhat south of the Prospect locale. The transaction is notable in that Harry’s Coffee Shop, a La Jolla fixture since 1960 and a serious repository of the regulars’ memories good and bad, is one of the tenants. Harry Rudolph, the shop’s founder, was a Brooklyn Dodgers batboy; his love of baseball fueled his affection for his customers, and the bond between host and guest was unshakeable. Rudolph died in 2009 at age 79, his absence underscoring neighborhood loyalties five years on.
Jonathan’s Market, a trendy food store staple that used to have a lobster tank out front, is a shadow of its former 7611 Fay Avenue self. The market closed June 1 in a deal to make way for Boffo Cinemas’ new movieplex as the owners try to capitalize on a multi-screen market that’s been around nationally since the 1970s.
Across the street, the La Jolla Music Society is currently building a $40 million performing arts center, complete with a 500-seat concert hall and a 150-seat cabaret stage. The project comes on the heels of the announcement that Sherwood Auditorium, the society’s de facto home, will undergo a $30 million renovation of its own on the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s La Jolla campus. La Jolla Boulevard is awash in new construction, with mixed-use facilities, single-family dwellings and luxury homes dotting the plans. The Holiday Inn Express is getting up to 20 new suites; Bella Bridesmaids has rented space; and the remodel of a private home near Carla Way has traffic moving at a slower pace. The boulevard’s sprawl absorbs a lot of the activity, but tell that to the contractors who negotiated the projects and the laborers who built them.
The idea that La Jolla will one day become its own city (a notion floated in many quarters for some time) is probably a way off. Permit-happy San Diego would have to approve the move, and even getting it to hear the arguments in favor (assuming La Jollans vote pro-cityhood in the first place) is a full-time job. There’s a good deal of expense involved in any event – permits and petitions are not cheap, and cash-strapped San Diego would surely welcome the chance to skim off the top in what surely would become a deeply protracted discussion.
But in the abstract, La Jolla is already an entity unto itself. The current flurry of commerce-friendly activity assures that, as the once-revered Jonathan’s is consigned to history and as terminated leases affect livelihoods and the Village’s character. Even as Azul makes way for a most worthy successor, the indefinable sense of progress – warts and all – envelops a neighborhood whose lofty esteem may face a dramatic shift in its public stock.
