Ponce’s Parking Lot Café: Reinventing Public Space to Serve Communities

Ponce’s Mexican Restaurant was founded by Ponce Meza Sr, in 1969. Ownership was later passed down to his children, Ponce Meza Jr. and Rocio Meza who redesigned the restaurant, incorporating a bar and adding modern amenities. In addition to its Kensington location, Ponce’s has two restaurant locations in North County and a location in Portland, OR called Rocio’s. While Ponce’s is continuing to grow and expand, it still remains what Mikey Knab calls a very “community-oriented” restaurant. 

Mikey Knab is the Director of Operations for Ponce’s Mexican Restaurant, located in the Kensington neighborhood of San Diego. He is one of the founders of Business for Good San Diego, and is the National Strategy Director for RAISE High Road Restaurants. Mikey is highly active in the business community, and advocates for sustainable and equitable employment standards for workers. He joined Ponce’s Mexican restaurant in 2006.

Following the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ponce’s Kensington location has been able to use 6 parking spaces in its West parking lot and utilize it for outdoor seating. Mikey says that “through our parking lot café, Ponce’s was able bring back a sense of normalcy for our community throughout the pandemic when it was in such low supply”. The outdoor dining setup seats 28-30 people, and is enclosed using two K-Rails. Ponce’s commissioned local artist Chikle to paint the K-Rails to provide a “plaza feel’, making it a vibrant place for folks to gather. 

Should customer concerns around parking availability arise, Mikey mentions that he has used creative ways to address an undersupply of parking in the past when he owned a restaurant in Chula Vista. To address the undersupply of parking when an adjacent banquet hall hosted Quinceñeras over the weekend, the restaurant incentivized customers to use alternate means of transportation on weekends by providing 10% off their meal if they showed a bike helmet or bus ticket.

Ultimately, Mikey emphasizes that “we need to think about how to design and reinvent public space in ways serve the whole community.” More specifically, he tells us that “if we keep building cities worshipping at the alter of the car, we won’t be on this planet for very long”. He taps into important conversations around placemaking, environmentally sustainable development, and the importance of community-centered planning. Ponce’s parking lot café, in many ways, is a glimpse into what the future of our cities can look like when we thoughtfully innovate public space to serve communities, rather than cars.