Businesses Sprouting in Bucolic Meiners Oaks
A strange sight appeared in the languorous Ojai Valley hamlet of Meiners Oaks earlier this summer. In a community that is too small to have its own post office, the main road was suddenly decorated with a handful of “Grand Opening” signs.
The biggest business in town, Meiners Oaks Hardware, has expanded into a new, 10,000-foot space. A Latino food market and a thrift store have new owners. A new meat and barbecue shop is flourishing, as is the new organic grocery and cafe. And a chicly decorated fusion cuisine restaurant serves dishes ranging from barbecued eggplant to New Orleans-style beignets.
For tiny Meiners Oaks, which has long enjoyed not being hip or even newfangled compared with nearby Ojai, the new businesses mark something of a new era.
“It’s a lot of movement for Meiners Oaks,” said Tony Leckie, owner of the Butcher Shop.
In many ways, the town hasn’t changed much since the 1920s and ‘30s. That is when film industry workers built vacation cottages on what had been farmland, said Russ Baggerly, who represents Meiners Oaks on the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council.
It remains “very sleepy,” with an old-fashioned feel, he said. Between 1990 and 2000, census figures show, the town grew by barely 400, to 3,750.
“Don’t tell anyone about Meiners Oaks,” joked Matt Littini, the hardware store manager, who has lived in town since childhood. “We like it just the way it is.”
It’s a place where traffic is so light that a car can sit at a stop sign for five minutes while the driver chats with a friend on foot, a place where two enthusiastic grade-school children leap and cheer to attract drivers to their lemonade stand: 25 cents a cup.
Over the decades, many of the original cottages have been renovated and expanded into homes that, increasingly, are purchased by young families seeking reasonable values in the Ojai Valley.
“I see this as one of the last footholds of the valley,” said Frank Miller, a longtime area chef who owns the trendy new Pisacali restaurant. “Rents and houses are still inexpensive” compared with Ojai, which is three miles east.
Though the figures fluctuate, Meiners Oaks properties currently are offered for sale at prices 15% to 20% lower than the neighboring city’s, said Barry Betlock, a real estate agent in Ojai. Among homes currently listed with his office, the median price for Ojai listings is $679,000; for Meiners Oaks it’s $319,000, and that is skewed high by one $2.5-million property.
Meiners Oaks is a real estate “land of opportunity,” said Baggerly--a sentiment echoed by Miller and the other new business owners.
“Even if this were the same rent as in downtown Ojai, I’d still stay here,” Miller said, noting that his restaurant has minimal competition in Meiners Oaks, aside from the well-known Ranch House restaurant.
Since opening in early June, the 35-seat Pisacali has become such a popular dinner spot that there can be up to an hour’s wait for a table, he said.
Other new business owners report similar optimism and steady customers, but some admit that the town’s quiet, rustic image had made them hesitate to open shop there.
Comparing Meiners Oaks and Ojai, said Betty Rhodes, longtime resident and co-owner of the local hardware store, is “kind of like champagne versus beer. . . . We’re down-home and hard-working.”
Steve Sprinkel, who co-owns the Farmer and the Cook organic cafe with Olivia Chase, grows most of the produce for the store himself--and he admits the town’s reputation couldn’t be more different from that of upscale Ojai.
“At first people said, ‘Eeewww, Meiners Oaks!’ The reputation is guys with Harley-Davidsons and a meth lab in the back and subletting to some illegal aliens,” said Sprinkel, a new resident. “That’s what I thought too. . . . But it’s really been a surprise to us.”
In fact, Sprinkel said, his cafe has drawn all types of customers, including artists and young professionals.
Down El Roblar Street, Meiners Oaks’ main drag, business also has been swift at the Butcher Shop and Q Time--as in barbecue. Leckie, who once owned a grocery store in town, and Aaron Johnson, who owns Q Time and sells barbecue every afternoon, said business has been brisk since they opened a month ago.
“It’s getting back to basics,” Leckie said. “[People] like good customer service and specialized markets.”
That sentiment has drawn customers to Meiners Oaks Hardware for more than 26 years, said Rhodes, who, with her husband and sons, runs the business that is this month completing its move.
“There’s really a nice group of businesses here in town now,” Rhodes said. “We’re talking about having a block party.”
