160-year-old SLO County store reopens after years of renovations. What has changed?

After four years of extensive renovations, including two moves and a new foundation, a historic San Luis Obispo County store has reopened its doors.

The circa 1860s Sebastian’s General Store in Old San Simeon Village held a soft opening on Friday.

The store, owned by Hearst Corp. since 2009, is currently leased to Jim Saunders and his wife, Debi.

Jim Saunders is Stephen “Steve” Hearst’s partner in Hearst Ranch Winery, which started selling its award-winning wines in the Sebastian’s building in 2010. The Saunders family also owns Saunders Vineyard and Saunders Vineyard Villa in Paso Robles.

Tracy Labastida, owner of Field to Table Catering in Nipomo, is running Seaside Foods deli and cafe inside Sebastian’s.

“I love what Hearst Corp. has done to preserve Sebastian’s,” said Labastida, a Cal Poly graduate who serves as the restaurant’s chef.“ I like the direction we’re going in here, super simple, with the picnic tables. We can bring back that nostalgia with a little twist.”

Historic SLO County store closed for renovations

Built in 1852 on San Simeon Point by Capt. Joseph Clark, the general store originally provided goods and services to whalers, fishermen, miners and ranchers, according to the Hearst Ranch Wine website.

George Hearst, father of media mogul and Hearst Castle builder William Randolph Hearst, eventually moved the store to its present location at 442 SLO San Simeon Road, the website said. It was purchased by the Sebastian brothers in 1914.

San Simeon native Pete Sebastian spent 36 years working at, and then running, the family’s store. He also was the town’s postmaster, notary public and registrar of voters.

Sebastian’s has had several owners or lessees over the decades, including the Buddell family and Sheri and Glenn Baldwin. People who have operated the cafe include Brian and Abbey Lucas, and Ian McPhee.

“I actually loved Sebastian’s as a general store,” Steve Hearst, vice president and general manager of Hearst’s Western Properties and a grandson of William Randolph Hearst, told The Tribune in 2019. “You’d walk up to the butcher shop and buy steaks from Pete Sebastian. You could get any kind of souvenir there, and anything from a galvanized bucket and push broom to dried food items, tackle and suntan lotion.”

Sebastian’s General Store, which also housed a U.S. Postal Service branch for decades, had to close for renovations in August 2019 because an engineering study determined that the state historical landmark wasn’t safe anymore.

Steve Hearst, his family and Hearst Corp. wanted to preserve as much of the original aura as possible, from the bumpy old floor to the aroma accumulated from more than a century of use.

Saunders said they reused as many of the old floor boards as possible in the redo, but some weren’t salvageable.

The starter budget for the project was $100,000, which “barely sustained us through design, all the various studies which needed to be completed, and permitting,” Ben Higgins, director of Hearst Corp. agricultural operations, wrote via email. “We then spent this same amount just to comply with the historic preservation standards. These requirements, for whatever benefits they may have, aren’t exactly met on the cheap.”

The remodeling project ended up costing “just south of $2 million,” Steve Hearst wrote Saturday via email. “It was the right thing to do.“

“While permitting for complete rehabilitation was always going to be a lengthy process, the (coronavirus) pandemic did us no favors in terms of dealing with the agencies,” Higgins said. “We received our permits in late 2021 ... and started construction immediately thereafter.”

Historic San Simeon building moved to new foundation

In October 2021, Scott Heavy Movers’ crew carefully raised the Sebastian’s building off its elderly pier supports and relocated the structure to the other side of the property.

After crews from Covelop Collaborative Development created a new foundation, the movers gingerly put the old wooden building onto its secure, up-to-code footing in January 2022.

Reconstruction work wasn’t supposed to take as long as it did, but COVID-19, heavy winter storms and other interruptions tossed a monkey wrench into construction schedules.

Supply-chain issues affected everything from electrical panels to restaurant equipment as recently as late May, Jim Saunders said.

“It’s been a challenge the whole way,” Higgins said, “but all of us at Hearst are thrilled to be back open to the public.”

What has changed at Sebastian’s General Store?

So, what has changed at the newly reopened Sebastian’s General Store?

For starters, the store is missing two of its former occupants.

A few days after the building closed in August 2019, the Hearst Ranch Winery tasting facility relocated to a seaside Hearst warehouse in Old San Simeon Village. Winery tasting rooms manager Kim Mres plans to launch a wine-tasting area at Sebastian’s soon.

That August, the 140-year-old post office branch in the rear of the Sebastian’s building abruptly closed due to concerns about public safety related to the structure’s age.

“The postal service’s space requirements have changed since Sebastian’s closed,” Jim Saunders said, which means the branch won’t be reopening. “The amount of space they’d need now would have taken up most of the new building.”

However, the old post office window and some of the original mailboxes now have a place of honor in the store.

Jim and Debi Saunders also are having the old neon post office sign redone so they can display it.

There is a mail drop-off box at the side of Sebastian’s, Saunders said, and the store will sell stamps.

Sebastian’s side deck is larger now, with more outdoor seating. The parking area is better defined and the inside sparkles with more light than before, as it streams through lots of windows.

The menu at Seaside Foods features sandwiches, salads and sides, with popular options including The Rancher, a spicy sandwich made with Hearst beef, as well as a kimchi pork sandwich and burrata Caprese salad.

According to Saunders and Labastida, the restaurant can’t serve burgers or fries because of the historic nature of the building. “We can’t have a hood or fire-suppression system here,” Labastida explained explained.

The cafe wraps its sandwiches in newspaper-printed deli paper. “That’s part of our homage to William Randolph Hearst’s media background,” Saunders said.

On the store side, Sebastian’s is featuring a lot of locally produced products — starting with Hearst Ranch wines and grass-fed beef., according to manager Taylor Hurley.

Other local brands for sale at the store include Negranti Creamery ice cream, Leo Leo Gelato frozen treats, Alle-Pia Fine Cured Meats sausages and tapenades and Olivas de Oro olive oil.

Sebastian’s also carries All Good Body Care sunscreen and local wines including vintages from Anonimo Wine and Arbuckle Ridge Winery. The latter wines are produced by Scotty and Natalie Saunders, Jim Saunders’ son and daughter-in-law.

Sebastian’s is about a month out from getting new signs as well as merchandise bearing the store’s new logo, Debi Saunders said.

She and her husband are curating a vast collection of Old San Simeon memorabilia that used to line the walls at the store, with plans of displaying some of them again.

“I want to put up some old pictures of Sebastian’s,” Debi Saunders said.

The couple also wants to bring back an old meat hangar and scale and maybe some old whaling equipment, she said.

“I really love the old Coke cooler, too,” Saunders added, looking hopefully at her husband.

No grand opening is on the calendar yet for Sebastian’s, Jim Saunders said.

For now, Sebastian’s General Store is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Seaside Foods closes an hour earlier each day.