Far from Pining for the “Good Old Days,” Linda Piña and Kristi Hawthorne Like the New Downtown Oceanside

Linda Piña, co-founder of Carla and Linda’s Walking Food Tours, and Hawthorne, director of the Oceanside Historical Society, were the guest speakers at Tuesday’s Monthly Morning Meeting of MainStreet Oceanside. Both said they sometimes hear from folks who say they liked Oceanside better when it was smaller, more “quaint” perhaps. However, Hawthorne remembered when her husband, then in the Marines, was stationed at Camp Pendleton in the early 1980s, she was told that no matter what, they shouldn’t live in Oceanside.
But, Hawthorne said, they were assigned housing in Oceanside – the long-gone Sterling Homes at Canyon Drive and Mission Avenue. But after all these years, she has come to love the city and embrace its changes.

Piña said the walking food tours (established with co-founder Carla Werts) just celebrated its sixth anniversary, and she showed a video of satisfied customers sampling the wares of the restaurants on each tour. The program started with one downtown location, Piña said, expanded to the harbor, South Oceanside and Vista, and is being asked to consider a farm-area tour as well. Customers pay $59 to be taken to four restaurants, which often prepare a special menu.

Linda Piña, co-founder of Carla and Linda’s Walking Food Tours. In answer to a question from the audience, Piña said, especially during COVID, each tour is limited to about 12 persons, although she has handled as many as 20 and would like to have a minimum of four people, but will honor the obligation if only two sign up. The tours are from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays, and she said special diets are accommodated. “I don’t like bell peppers, either,” she joked. And, she said, she’ll schedule restaurants closer together, if mobility is an issue.

Piña gave out three raffle prizes – a cap, t-shirt, and gift certificate – and said their Website – shoesandchews.com – is designed by a Vista firm, Designed Images, and the “swag” merchandise also is made a local organization. Whitlock Hawthorne, along with the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce and a planner of many of its special events, has been president of the historical society for many years. But, she said, due to some fund-raising she’s now able to work as its director.

When she came here in 1983 with her husband, in the Marines, the recruiter told them “whatever you do, do not live in Oceanside” and told them stories of robberies and murders. But, when her husband told her the “good news, bad news.” it was good that they had housing, bad that it was in Oceanside. “I cried,” as they came out from Kansas, Hawthorne said.

She became interested in the city’s history, she said, when she worked as a secretary for John Daley, born and raised in Oceanside and also a historian. In conjunction with the city’s centennial in 1988, Daley sent her to the library, then in an old Safeway grocery-store building where the Civic Center now is located, to research the city’s piers, beginning with the first one at the end of what is now Wisconsin Street. Hawthorne said she learned that “this is not a military town where people come and go. It’s where people are born and raised – a hometown.” “I do not ever make excuses, apologies, for Oceanside,” Hawthorne said, although she “came here when Oceanside was its seediest” and old hotels were being torn down. The old railroad switching yards were full of graffiti. As a young woman, she could not walk downtown, she said, without being taken for a prostitute.

The town once had department stores and all the new car dealerships and four movie theaters – the Margo (now the Sunshine Brooks), the Star, the Crest, and the Palomar (gone to the Civic Center construction). But then the new mall in Carlsbad attracted the stores, and Car Country Carlsbad lured the car dealerships. Multiplexes elsewhere stole the first-run movies. When she came here, Hawthorne said, the Margo was the Towne Theatre, and she was horrified when she and her husband went to see a film and saw a cockroach at their seat.

She’s just fine with all the new hotels and restaurants and upgraded theaters. “From 1983 to 2022, the changes we have made have been phenomenal,” Hawthorne said, and MainStreet Oceanside has had such a major role.” “MainStreet Oceanside has made it happen” – people are coming downtown, she said. The changes are fulfilling, Hawthorne said, the dream of Oceanside founder Andrew Jackson Myers for a new resort city – he thought it would rival San Diego or San Francisco. Some say Oceanside was better the way it used to be, Hawthorne said. “Really?”, she responded. “Andrew Jackson Myers would be amazed,” she concluded.

Mary Ann Thiem, MainStreet board member, said two friends were talking about the changes and realized that when they identified with the “old” Oceanside, it wasn’t the town that they missed, but rather their own youth.

Jan Borson, a founding board member of MainStreet, said she came to town in 1989, and she objects to people who use the term “gentrification” to describe what has been happening downtown. She prefers “revitalization.”

Cathy Nykiel, MainStreet director of events and Sunset Market manager, asked how the society is funded, and Hawthorne replied that it’s primarily through memberships. It is headquartered on city-owned property at 305 N. Nevada St. There’s information on the society’s website OceansideHistoricalSociety.org.

For the past 20 years, Hawthorne and Daley have traded off conducting free two-hour historical walking tours of downtown on the second Saturday of the month from April through September, starting in front of the library.

In the absence of Rick Wright, Chief Executive Officer, (under the weather) and Gumaro Escarcega, Chief Operations Officer (occupied with his new baby girl), Nykiel, conducted the meeting, attended by about two dozen people. “I’m ecstatic” Nykiel said, that the Independence Parade is back after a three-year delay due to the pandemic. It will be held June 25, and about 100 volunteers are needed for everything from being street marshals to handing out programs and small flags to the onlookers on the street. Information is available at oceanside parade.com. Nykiel said Kim Heim, Director of Special Projects, has been super busy with the beach services program used by visitors and residents alike since 2006.

Nykiel said the Farmers Market, in its 27th year, “is doing very well” and the Sunset Market “was really full last Thursday.” She said it sponsored a great Public Safety Night. Mary Ann Thiem, MainStreet Board member said, the stained glass mural across the street will be unveiled in May.

From the audience, Steve Burrell announced that the annual Pride event, also previously curtailed by COVID, will take place June 11.

Resident Brenda Batali asked what is happening with the closed restaurant, most recently a Ruby’s, at the end of the pier. Nykiel said the Fisherman’s Restaurant that once occupied the site probably was ahead of its time. With all the new hotels in the area, she said, there probably would be a clientele for a steakhouse now. Also from the audience, the showing of a film, “Whose Children Are They” on March 14 was announced and fliers distributed. Information on the theater and ticketing may be obtained at WhoseChildrenAreThey.com