Popular Monterey wharf gift shop shuts its doors

A popular gift shop, Balesteri’s Wharf Front, has shut its doors after almost 60 years on the Monterey wharf. This, after a long battle with the city over its lease.

Inside the store, Chad Balesteri took time to look back.

“The very spot I’m standing is where my mother and father first met in the mid 60s,” he said. But the love story at the Balesteri’s Wharf Front almost didn’t happen.

“So the story goes, my mother asked for a job. But the manager wanted to hire her and my father said we don’t need anyone right now. But he went ahead and hired her behind my father’s back,” Balesteri said.

It’s memories like that one, that is making it so hard for the Balesteri family to leave.

“I saw my mother, she was tearful moments ago. She was here. You know, I feel it’s definitely the closing of a chapter,” Balesteri said.

It’s a chapter that lasted for more than 50 years and is ending with an eviction after a failed lease negotiation with the city over a major rent hike on the wharf.

And as the city looks for new tenants, former employees are looking for new jobs.

“I want to cry. This is my family. I’ve worked here for 30 years, so this is another family. It’s sad. History is going away,” Gloria Wiles said.

And along with it, a visitor’s favorite.

“Every time we come down here, it’s like this is the No.1 place to come before, or stop en route to anything else. And then on the way out, this is the last place you stop also,” said Mark Portillo.

The Balesteri family says they’re looking at the bright side.

“I think my dad and myself have taken everything in stride. Trying to deal with it day by day. We still have lives, we still have friends, people that support us,” Ben Balesteri said.

The family filed a lawsuit against the city, seeking $1.7 million for improvements they’ve made to the property. That case is expected to go to trial on Jan. 10, 2017.