Retail behemoth Amazon.com became the latest business to find a home in Isla Vista’s “downtown” zone last month when it took over a spot on the 6500 block of Trigo Road previously occupied, on a couple brief occasions, by a Halloween store. Not too far down Embarcadero del Norte from Chase Bank and nearly next door to the still-new 7-Eleven, Amazon@IslaVista joins the seemingly swelling ranks of corporate establishments in I.V. Despite the student populace’s now relatively tempered anti-corporate inclinations, they elicit a grumble from some for purportedly eroding the town’s traditionally local, community-oriented business scene.
Year in and year out, over the course now of a few generations, a wide variety of businesses — particularly restaurants and eateries — have sought to establish themselves in I.V. In a dense, demographically anomalous community with particular tastes and limited spending power, the result has been a continually evolving business scene that hardly resembles that of the previous generation's.
The University General Store (now Isla Vista Market) became I.V.’s first business when it was established in the early ’50s. Nebi’s Coffee Shop, which existed from 1959-1971 at 6547 Trigo, was the town’s first restaurant. In 1987, Clippers (a haircut place), Shibuki Gardens Spa and Sauna, I.V. Tropical Fish, Pizza Express, and El Nuevo Norteño Restaurant called home the same block of Trigo where Amazon and 7-Eleven now stand. Ask any current student if they’re familiar with these establishments — or Grandma Gertie’s, Moo Shi Factory, Emerald Video, or Borsodi’s Coffeehouse for that matter — and you’ll likely draw a blank stare. Before it became UCSB’s Embarcadero Hall, the razed Bank of America was a nightclub, and the very first Kinko’s stood where South Coast Deli now is.
