Pacifica business owners turn negative rating into a positive initiative
After WalletHub ranked Pacifica as the worst small city nationwide to start a business, community members and entrepreneurs are turning this into something positive.
"We came up with what we call ourselves, we're ranked 1,334. We'll call ourselves Project 1334," Ed Ochi, the co-founder of the initiative, told CBS News Bay Area. "We got handed lemons, let's make lemonade out of this."
The study compared 1,334 cities nationwide with a population between 25,000 and 100,000 residents. Officials said the best small city to start a business is St. George, Utah, and they had come to this conclusion based on business environment, access to resources and business costs.
"Convincing the world and the public that our town is not a lemon, so. We kind of came up the idea to go with that quite literally and we're now making a Shandy and a mocktail using local citrus," Alex Englund, the co-owner of Sharp Park Taproom, told CBS News Bay Area.
He opened his business a few months ago.
"Helping spread the image of the message of the campaign, and literally using lemons from our town to do so," Englund said.
With this campaign, businesses are promoting local.
"One of the local pizza places is having a $13.34 pizza special on their pizzas. The bread bakers are doing a $13.34 combo. So, there's just been a really creative combination they're doing for 1334. Art studio across the studio is offering a bracelet-making project for $13.34," Ochi said.
Neighbors like Paul Zabin said there's more to Pacifica than a ranking.
"The surfing community, the galleries, there's awesome food on the coast, awesome hiking trails. Tons of hiking trails," he said.
"We're working together as a group to try to change the story about what Pacifica's about. The businesses that started here work together and they work collectively," Ochi said.
And entrepreneurs like Englund said he, too, is pushing for a positive narrative.
"I'm just hoping we can get to a world where we have more shops that it's easier for them to live, survive in this neighborhood, this community. And we can continue to grow that image in the greater Wallethub community and beyond because it's pretty awesome little town," he said.
