The Matheson

On 2/12, our Planning Commission will review the design of Dustin Valette's new restaurant at 106 Matheson St. Many feel it's too large.

There may be a market to support a new, large restaurant, but does Healdsburg really need one? If we get a new restaurant, what would the community get out of it?

Valette has a well-deserved good reputation for generosity in town and certainly has a right to build this restaurant. Who doesn’t want success for a business owner who gives back? This project has been touted as "a gift to the community". He aims to offer family friendly and affordable dining (some specifics would be nice on this count).

One benifit that’s routinely mentioned as a gift to the community when new businesses are discussed are good paying jobs. This may or may not be part of the vision here. But if the only way to deliver this, or to succeed at all, is to build something which is potentially out of scale with the surrounding (which will create congestion, push parking to the max -among other impacts) then I think something is amiss economically. 

Some have suggested that if Valette were forced to scale down he would have to veer into a model that only sold high-end dinners in order to survive. If the only way for a business to succeed is to cater to a tiny minority (the wealthy) then it's hard to imagine it being welcomed by the majority of residents.

I hope that we can have the best of both worlds -a viable business that does not seem out of scale with, or ride against the flavor, of our historic plaza, that provides a welcome product (family friendly and dining to a majority of Healdsburg’s working class) while at the same time giving workers a wage that could potentially lift them into a position where they could afford to live in the town that they work in.

Too much to ask?