Lost jobs. Empty bars. What a disruption to the Sacramento Kings’ season means for downtown

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Golden 1 Center has been a catalyst for downtown Sacramento since opening in 2016, particularly spurring restaurant development in the surrounding blocks. With its darkening Wednesday, those businesses have a tough road ahead.

The remainder of the NBA season, including the Kings’ home game versus the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday, was suspended after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus, or COVID-19. Fans at Golden 1 Center booed when it was announced inside the arena that the game had been canceled.

The decision will likely have a significant impact on downtown Sacramento, an urban core that has gone through a period of growth and revitalization since Golden 1 Center opened. The arena contributes tens of millions of dollars into the downtown economy each year. The blocks around the facility have come to life since 2016; once vacant lots now have condo buildings, trendy restaurants and boutiques.

Downtown Sacramento has some of the city’s highest retail rents, and many businesses rely on Kings games and other Golden 1 Center events to keep afloat. Many central city restaurants have already closed this year – and that was before the global coronavirus outbreak.

“We’re really worried about this,“ said Barry Broome, head of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. “It’s going to be a tough hit on restaurants in smaller businesses.”

It also harms the community as a whole, he said, because the Kings bring people together as a community.

“It’s going to mean a loss of civic engagement,” Broome said.

Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, said the NBA’s announcement, while understandable, is going to be devastating for Sacramento’s revitalized downtown and “will have repercussions that will live beyond this season.”

“They come into the restaurants. They come into the bars. They come early. They stay late,” he said of Kings fans. “We absolutely would say this is more than a basketball experience. The Kings are huge. We love the impact they present. They do so much more to the downtown core as it relates to supporting the businesses.”

Ault’s group estimates that in a single season, Golden 1 Center attendees spent $71 million in downtown Sacramento.

Restaurant jobs might be lost

At Downtown Commons’ Polanco Cantina, restaurant manager Giovanni Joris was fretting about the effects on business minutes after the Kings’ game was abruptly called off.

“We’re highly dependent on events that take place at Golden 1 Center,” he said. “It’s sad to see.

“It’s definitely going to be a hit on business for us and the neighboring businesses,” Joris said. “It’s going to affect Sacramento on a much larger scale.”

He said he hopes to avoid laying off any of the cantina’s 70 employees but said “there’s going to be some reductions in hours” depending on how long the arena stays dark.

The problem isn’t unique to Polanco, or even downtown Sacramento. Well-regarded restaurants have closed permanently and temporarily in Seattle, where Emerald City Comic-Con was canceled over virus fears, in the last couple days. Chinese restaurants have been particularly hard; Tealicious, a cafe at 5101 Freeport Blvd., told The Sacramento Bee in late February that business had dropped 50 to 70 percent since coronavirus fears became widespread.

Few restaurants, if any, have been immune. Camden Spit + Larder chef/owner Oliver Ridgeway said his British-inspired brasserie at 555 Capitol Mall had seen a 30 percent downturn in business over the last few weeks. While white-collar workers have lunch traffic relatively steady, many reservations for Camden’s private dining room have been canceled, including three on Wednesday alone for April.

“We’ve definitely seen a slip in business ... and I’m hearing the same thing across town,” Ridgeway said. “It kind of sucks, really, because the sentiment I feel is that it’s this flu, right? It’s not really the plague.”

Those problems aren’t likely to go away soon, said Sharokina Shams, the California Restaurant Association’s vice president of public affairs.

“Restaurants in California and all over the country are reporting significant declines in customer traffic because of fears of the coronavirus,” Shams wrote in an email. “Candidly, we expect that workers may see their hours reduced and that some may even experience layoffs if businesses have to close (temporarily).”

March Madness also in Sacramento

“Obviously the cancellation of the (Kings) games and the cancellation of the NCAA is going to cost us some business,” said Matt Sin, manager at Foundation Restaurant and Bar, about a block west of the arena. “There are a couple of big concerts coming up.”

The NCAA on Thursday canceled all sporting events through the end of the school year, including the men’s basketball tournament, which was to have first- and second-round action at Golden 1 Center on March 20 and 22. Not having March Madness in Sacramento deprives downtown of an estimated 7,600 out-of-town fans and thousands of locals.

Sin said Foundation gets about 70 percent of its business from arena events and he’s worried about whether he can keep all 40 of his workers employed. “I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen in the next couple of weeks.”

Amitai Cohen, co-manager of Bailarin Cellars, a wine bar on K Street east of the arena, said he’s worried about downtown business in general drying up — not just the cancellation of events at Golden 1.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen in general,” Cohen said. “Is there still going to be the same amount of traffic during the day?”

For one last night, though, business around the arena were flooded as fans swept out of Golden 1 Center at around 7 p.m. Camden Spit + Larder was “getting rammed” until 10 p.m., Ridgeway said.

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.