Traverso’s, the great deli for gourmet foods, wines and liquors, is in Santa Rosa. But the patriarchs and matriarchs of Traverso’s are entombed in a small private mausoleum in a Sebastopol cemetery. These include the founder, Pietro Carlo (“Charlie”) Traverso and his wife, Frances; son Louis and his wife, Alma; and son Enrico and his wife, Adelina. Why Sebastopol? I noticed that the Traverso mausoleum is part of an Italian colony there that includes names such as Sanchietti, Bondi, Albini, Pelascini, Del Curto, Dotti, Barcaglia and Matteri. And I’m told that Charlie Traverso was a Mason and that the Catholic cemetery in Santa Rosa didn’t welcome Masons when Charlie died in 1954.
The final resting places of these family members may be in Sebastopol, but make no mistake: the Traverso family loves and appreciates Santa Rosa. What isn’t clear is whether the civic government of Santa Rosa knows how to demonstrate appreciation for businesses such as Traverso’s. This is a cautionary tale of how one business that anchored downtown Santa Rosa for more than 75 years ended up moving far from downtown.
Traverso’s began in downtown Santa Rosa as Traverso & Arrigoni Market in 1932, with partners Charlie Traverso, Frank Arrigoni and James Arrigoni. The partnership lasted five years, after which Charlie Traverso struck out on his own and moved the grocery into a former Safeway store, also downtown. Many other family members were eventually involved with the business in one capacity or another, and today everything is in the capable hands of Enrico’s son, George, and George’s son, Michael, the third and fourth generations. The family purchased property at Third and B Streets and built their iconic store, into which they moved in 1973. As drivers came off Highway 101, heading downtown on Third Street, Traverso’s was the welcoming first business, framed by the massive AT&T building behind it.
For 12 years following that move to Third and B Streets, business life was uncomplicated for the Traverso family. But then the city of Santa Rosa decided to move its “transit mall” from Old Courthouse Square to Second Street, between Santa Rosa Avenue and B Street. Traverso’s was the only retail business right on the transit mall. George Traverso remembers the irony of the mall opening on April Fools Day, 1985. But the joke was definitely on Traverso’s.
The transit mall brought buses and bus passengers to B Street. Over the years, the number of transit agencies using the mall expanded to include Golden Gate Transit, Mendocino Transit Authority, Napa VINE, Santa Rosa CityBus and Sonoma County Transit. The number of separate bus routes served by the mall expanded to 41, including 17 for Santa Rosa CityBus and 14 for Sonoma County Transit. The number of buses using the mall increased to 500 per day, and the number of passengers using those buses expanded to 12,000 to 15,000 per day (more than 5 million each year). The mall is now considered among the busiest in the Bay Area.
The list of challenges faced by Traverso’s expanded just as dramatically as the number of buses and passengers using the mall. In a conversation with Michael Traverso, I learned about loitering, shoplifting, garbage, people sleeping in the store’s doorway, drug dealing, drug-affected passengers and people waiting for passengers, fights, graffiti, bathrooms on the mall not in working order, people wanting to use Traverso’s bathroom, urination on the property, people using the parking lot as a taxi stand, problems with change machines on the mall, people wanting change for the buses, damage to landscaping, security problems and lighting problems on the mall.
“It was as if our store was both the police officer and the psychologist for people on the transit mall,” says Michael.
Over the ensuing years, various family members spoke with various people in city government about the problems, and about the possibility of Traverso’s moving elsewhere downtown. Results were basically nil. Michael spoke to one person at City Hall who didn’t have any answers to his concerns but instead said, “We thank you for your tax revenue.”
“What we encountered,” says Michael, “was deaf ears, lack of direction, no plan and no answers. There seems to be no vision for the downtown, nothing to address daily problems. No one stepped up to say, ‘This is what we want and this is how to proceed.’ The city had grown and the number of people using the transit mall had grown tremendously, but the infrastructure wasn’t improved to handle the crowds and the associated problems. The city needs more people with business backgrounds, and people who can develop some vision based on what other cities like Petaluma, San Jose and Berkeley have done downtown. We didn’t see the downtown going the right way. We didn’t see the energy or synergy downtown.”
Traverso family members spoke to the city about moving to a lot owned by the city on Third Street in Railroad Square. But the city wouldn’t quote a price for the land prior to Traverso’s spending big money to develop architectural plans. And the family realized, with great concern, that the city might decide to move the transit mall to Railroad Square if the SMART train came to town. End of discussion.
In 2009, Traverso’s moved to the Fountaingrove area, miles from downtown. “With Traverso’s move, another piece of downtown is gone,” wrote local historian Gaye LeBaron. “For 36 years, I’ve purchased the things that make life beautiful here in Sonoma County.” Those things can still be purchased at Traverso’s, but arguably there should have been a way to preserve this piece of the fabric of Santa Rosa—downtown.
[Editor’s note: At press time (early October), it was announced that Traverso’s had been sold and would soon close its doors. An important piece of Santa Rosa’s history will be greatly missed.]
