Angelo Peloni has owned La Bruschetta, an upscale Italian restaurant in Westwood, for the past 13 years. In July, the city began construction on the street outside his business, creating traffic snarls and obstructing La Bruschetta’s street visibility. The repairs were initially scheduled to last 100 days, but that projection increasingly looks optimistic, Peloni said.
La Bruschetta’s dinner business has dropped by about 35 percent since the road repairs began, Peloni said. He talks about the difficulties of operating a business while road construction obstructs supplier deliveries and deters customers. He was interviewed by Joyzelle Davis.
Our customers come in and tell me that it took them 20 minutes to go three blocks. They say, “I like La Bruschetta, but I just can’t put up with this.” They just don’t want to deal with the traffic when they want a relaxing meal.
If this keeps going, I’ll lose customers because people are such creatures of habit. People will stop patronizing the stores on Westwood Boulevard because they’ve found other places (during the construction). That will be 13 years down the drain, with no compensation from the city for the loss of business and goodwill.
We need some incentives (from the city). We can’t advertise on our own because we don’t have the budget. When your business falls, the first thing to go is the money you allocate for advertising.
If you can’t fight it, you … well, you have to negotiate it. Beyond that, there’s nothing you can do. You apologize to the customers. You tell your landlord that you’ll be late with the rent. You hope your suppliers will give you some slack. Don’t buy a lot. This (construction) has really hurt, and I think I can say that for all the merchants here.
I try to look at the positive side, like the reviving of Westwood to the standards of the late ’70s and early ’80s. This street is a corridor to Westwood. We’ve been a big part of the boulevard, from the highest to lowest points, and I’d like to see it return.
I hope that once all this construction is done, people will give us another chance and rediscover Westwood. Hopefully, we won’t have to rebuild 35 percent of our business all over again. But for the first time in many years, I’m really concerned.
The construction started great; they were really going. But somewhere along the line (the project) hit a snag with the city, and now all the construction is at a standstill. It doesn’t look like they’ll make their deadline.
Mayor Riordan was here for dinner a while ago, and I took the liberty of hitting him on the chin to see what he could do. He said he’d look into it, but I haven’t heard back yet. But I don’t think there’s anything that he can really do about it, other than give advice.
