Bay Area restaurant owner forced into retirement after city razed his business |
This Sunday, tens of thousands of people will pass a mysterious burned sign on their way to Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 60. A few NFL fans will likely strain their eyes to read the charred words “David’s - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner,” but few, if any, will know the heartache that sign represents.
The sign is for David’s Restaurant, a beloved local eatery and event space that once hosted thousand-person events and even a presidential candidate. Although the party ended in 2020 when the restaurant’s connected banquet hall closed for good after a bitter fight with the city, the old sign continues to haunt former restaurant owner David Ebrahimi.
“Everybody tells me my sign is still there,” Ebrahimi, 79, told SFGATE. “It reminds me of everything we did for 35 years. … There isn’t a night that I’m not dreaming about my banquet hall. What the city did to me put me through a lifetime of misery.”
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Six years ago, the city of Santa Clara evicted Ebrahimi and the building was demolished to develop a 240-acre multi-use development. It was the culmination of a yearslong legal dispute over the property that left the city paying out over a million dollars in damages to Ebrahimi. The planned development still hasn’t broken ground, but it has ensured that this beloved local institution couldn’t take advantage of this year’s Super Bowl.
“I wish I could be there,” Ebrahimi said. “I miss it so badly that I am the most depressed nowadays.” He added: “What did we do wrong that they had to get rid of us? … What was the urgency?”
David Ebrahimi, owner of David’s Restaurant, is pictured inside his establishment in this undated photo.
Ebrahimi’s business opened in 1986, predating Levi’s Stadium, which opened in 2014. The area was a former landfill before Ebrahimi opened David’s Restaurant at 5151 Stars and Stripes Drive. It had a spacious dining room with enough seating for 500 guests to socialize and eat beneath an open beam ceiling, alongside tropical plants and a large fireplace. David’s was known for its continental menu and buffet that included pasta, grilled steak, fresh seafood and rack of lamb.
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When Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club opened next door one year later, locals flocked to the restaurant to enjoy panoramic views of lush greenery. David’s was also the only........