In business news this week, Outdoor Davis moves to a bigger downtown location, Black Bear Diner takes over the old location of Baker’s Square, and Verizon Wireless opens new retail locations.
Black Bear Diner
255 2nd St.
Davis welcomes Black Bear Diner and its lodge-themed atmosphere as it replaces Baker’s Square on Second Street.
Baker’s Square recently shut down all of its restaurants. As soon as Baker’s Square announced on Mar. 26 that its Davis building would have a vacancy, the owners of Black Bear Diner submitted their offer.
After a little more than a month’s preparation, the diner opened its doors last Friday.
“We have been really busy over Memorial Day weekend,” said Valerie Coffey, store manager.
The diner menu features a variety of old-fashioned comfort foods, meats, pasta, sandwiches, soups, salads and breakfast foods.
Coffey also said that the diner offers a very warm, family-oriented atmosphere. The meals are homemade and the service is friendly. Coffey encourages students to eat there and contribute to the atmosphere.
“I am really happy to work here and to serve all of the lovely people here,” Coffey said. “This opening is very special for Davis and special for us.”
Co-owner Bruce Dean said he was very excited to claim this spot in Davis because he has a long history with the city. Dean said this building in particular is very meaningful to him because he attended UC Davis when he was an undergraduate while working in the city. His daughter also followed his footsteps by attending UC Davis as well as waitressing at Baker’s Square.
Outdoor Davis
623 2nd St.
Outdoor Davis made a very quick transition from its old location to a bigger, more visible one.
The outdoor sports shop, which sells clothing and gear for outdoor activities for all seasons, moved into the former location of Samira’s, a women’s clothing store on the corner of Second and F Streets.
Samira’s owners retired in February, leaving the building empty. After waiting a while for the building to undergo several renovations, the store finally moved in.
“We planned on moving last fall,” said Leia Matern, store manager. “Once we got the logistics, we just waited for renovations to be done.”
The move was challenging on workers because they had to transfer everything from their old store to their new store overnight. Outdoor Davis opened its new doors the following morning.
Outdoor Davis’ old location at 232 E St. was also downtown, but not in the management’s ideal place.
“We were tucked in a corner that didn’t have a lot of walking traffic,” Matern said. “We are now very visible and on a corner.”
The city of Davis decided to install paid parking at the old building, which really hurt business, Matern said.
Another big reason for the move was to increase the size of the store.
The new store will offer a larger inventory and broader range of vendors. The store is even taking requests from customers on certain items to supply to fill up their extra space.
Outdoor Davis has not fully settled into the new location yet, Matern said. Though they are still bringing in more products, organizing the store’s display and putting more products onto their walls, the store is open to the public.
Verizon Wireless
1520 Covell Blvd.
Premium Retailers just moved to Davis and opened up a Verizon Wireless store in Oak Tree Plaza. The store has been open for about a month now, opening on Apr. 22.
The store filled the spot left by Curves.
There is one other store located in Davis that also sells Verizon phones and service. However, the two businesses are owned by different companies.
Premium Retailers owns up to 20 different locations in Northern California.
The company offers Verizon phones and services, but does not offer a warranty department.
This store is perfectly placed right by Nugget Market and has plenty of traffic, said Amanda Snider, sales lead. Nugget attracts a lot of people who will walk in the plaza and then into the store.
“At first it was slow, but we’re picking up a lot now that people know we are here,” Snider said. “Every day just gets a little better.”
Verizon has fully settled in and has all of their merchandise up and running.
ERIC SCHMIDT can be reached at city@theaggie.org.
