Croce’s Downtown to sing its last song

Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown Editor

Forty years ago this past September, Jim and Ingrid Croce moved west to San Diego with their infant son, Adrian James. Just two weeks later while on tour, Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash, cutting short both his career and his life.

Five days before her husband died, Ingrid said she walked through the Gaslamp Quarter with him looking for a place to enjoy some live music. At the corner of Fifth Avenue and F Street, they stopped and looked around.

“Looks like we’re gonna have to build us a place if we want to hear music in this town,” Jim has been quoted as saying. He imagined a place like the ones back home near Philadelphia, where he and his friends—James Taylor, Arlo Guthrie and others—could sit around and play together for those who gathered.

Twelve years later Ingrid, an avid cook who had started a small a restaurant in Hillcrest, was shown a street level space in the Keating Building, the exact location where she and Jim had stopped years before.

“It was an omen,” she has said.

Although she only made $18 – $20 per day in those early days because it took two years to get her ABC liquor license, Croce’s Restaurant and Jazz Bar has now been in operation at that very same corner for nearly 30 years.

However, as a famous family friend would say, “the times, they are a changing,” because as of December 31, 2013—due to a collapse in contact negotiations with the Keating Building’s landlords earlier this year—the historic venue will sing it’s last song.

Thankfully, it’s not the last song for Ingrid Croce. Later this month she and her husband of 25 years, Jimmy Rock, will be launching an invitation-only soft opening for their new venture—Croce’s Park West—just two miles up Fifth Avenue in Bankers Hill.

It is a bittersweet time for the famed restaurateur.

“I dream about it every night, but last night especially,” she said. “I guess having only 30 days left is really coming to a finale for me.”

“The denial is over,” Rock chimed in.

“We’re excited about the ending of Croce’s – because I think we’ve done a great job Downtown,” she added. “I think that we’ve really helped to build Downtown and we’re really excited about helping to build and inspire by bringing [Croce’s] spark up to Bankers Hill.

Already, previous employees have been stopping by, Croce fans from across the miles have been dropping in to mark the visit off of their bucket list, and musicians have been playing their last gigs.

Over the years, adjoining spaces along Fifth Avenue have hosted other Croce endeavors, including the Top Hat Bar and Grill and Ingrid’s Cantina, but it was the original restaurant and jazz bar that has continued to thrive for three decades.

“Croce’s Downtown is truly a magical place,“ Rock said. “It has that energy of Jim and Ingrid walking across that intersection many, many years ago … so it has that charm to it and that spirit to it and we really hope we can take that spirit of Jim north with us to Park West. He is our guiding light and our guiding spirit and we’re hoping we can pull that forward.”

The original intention, the couple explained, was to open a second location and keep the “flagship” location Downtown. They have considered opening additional Croce’s restaurants in different locations around the county for several years, but said the idea of opening one in their own Bankers Hill neighborhood happened purely by accident.

“Three years ago Jim and I went up to Avenue 5 during the black-out,” Croce said. “It was so charming to have all of our neighbors there in the candlelight. You couldn’t really get much food because it was so dark in the kitchen, but we sat down and Jim said to me, ‘You know Ing, wouldn’t it be a fabulous neighborhood location for us to build a restaurant?’”

The very next day while on a run through Balboa Park, Croce said she called Colin MacLaggan, Avenue 5’s Chef and owner, to ask if he was interested in selling the restaurant. She said he was and negotiations started immediately.

Rock said the ongoing development of Downtown in recent years has changed the dynamic for the original location.

“When Ingrid started Downtown her whole thing was to build community, and it worked for a long time but then it just became something else,” Rock said. “It really got to be about conventions and tourism and locals really don’t like going Downtown because of the parking and the crowds.

“So now that we are losing one Downtown we’re excited about the fact that we’re doing something that’s community oriented,” he said.

Rock and Croce have decades of memories from the location, including the memory of the day they met, the days when the surrounding streets were rife with drugs and prostitution, and the rattlesnake and eggs breakfast at Ingrid’s Cantina.

“A.J. [Croce, Ingrid’s son who is now an award-winning musician in his own ritht] began his career there,” Rock said. “When he was just 15 years old he worked on his act and before we were allowed to have a microphone he would just shout over the music. Arlo Guthrie used to come support us in the early days, too.”

Croce said she hopes everyone who ever wanted to come see the restaurant—world-renown not only for its fine food and music but also as a moving tribute to her late husband—makes their way to its 802 Fifth Avenue location in this last month of operation. Those who have gift cards are encouraged to redeem them as well.

“This month is really going to be poignant; a lot of tears, a lot of hugs and a lot of saying goodbye to the location,” she said. “Once it’s closed, there will never be another Croce’s like this one.”

Reservations for dinner packages on New Year’s Eve at Croce’s are a must. For more information, visit croces.com.