{"id":79077,"date":"2025-07-20T22:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T22:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/79077\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T22:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T22:24:11","slug":"three-takes-on-comic-cons-impact-on-local-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/79077\/","title":{"rendered":"Three takes on Comic Con’s impact on local businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Oscar Chou inside Shisan Fan Sushi and Chinese Restaurant. (Photo by James Miller\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Two businessmen in the Gaslamp District said they are economically impacted by Comic-Con<\/a> \u2014 which begins Thursday and is sold out \u2014 but in very different ways.<\/p>\n

Before last year\u2019s Comic-Con, the city of San Diego estimated<\/a> that around 135,000 attendees would spend $96.5 million over the weekend \u2014 with a broader economic impact of $160 million across the San Diego region.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how a couple of local businesses experience the Con \u2013 and how a native tries to help by introducing Comic-Con fans to more than just downtown.<\/p>\n

The g<\/strong>ood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oscar Chou manages his family\u2019s restaurant two blocks from the San Diego Convention Center, Shisan Fan, which serves sushi and Chinese food.<\/p>\n

Chou said Shisan Fan opened a month before Comic-Con last year, and that during the convention they saw an uptick in customers.<\/p>\n

During the event, the restaurant was full all day, with some patrons wearing costumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time someone walks by or comes in and dines in and is wearing a comic favorite, like Superman or the Joker \u2014 with makeup and all \u2014 it\u2019s so, so cool,\u201d Chou said.<\/p>\n

According to Chou, his family worked extra long hours that week, and bought more fish for sushi than usual.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Oscar Chou inside Shisan Fan Sushi and Chinese Restaurant. (James Miller\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

The bad<\/p>\n

Omar Farah, who owns two novelty stores in the Gaslamp District and another in Seaport Village, said he receives steady business from tourists throughout the summer \u2014 except for Comic-Con and the two weeks beforehand, when he said fewer tourists are in town.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t benefit at all out of it,\u201d Farah said.<\/p>\n

Farah said that he sees sales slow before and during Comic-Con because his visitors tend not to be tourists. And Comic-Con patrons don\u2019t, in his experience, spend their money at local shops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey purchase stuff inside the convention center \u2014 it\u2019s not good for the retailers outside [in] San Diego,\u201d Farah said. \u201cThe only people making money are hotels, restaurants and Uber, Lyft and cab drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farah said he wishes that Comic-Con was scheduled in late fall or winter \u2014 as a 2021 special edition was during the COVID-19 pandemic. It took place in November.<\/p>\n

According to Farah, there would be fewer local sightseers being replaced by convention attendees if Comic-Con was held during the off-season for tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep the summer for the tourists,\u201d Farah said.<\/p>\n

The dedicated<\/p>\n

Alonso Nu\u00f1ez, the executive director of Little Fish Comic Book Studio \u2014 which hosts comic book classes, camps and events at public libraries \u2014 is one of the judges of this year\u2019s Comic Con Hall of Fame <\/a>class. He said he has attended Comic-Con for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

He thinks that everyone needs to step away from the convention center during the event, which lasts four-and-a-half days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my days as a young nerd, I was just in the convention center, on the floor of the exhibit hall all day, digging through quarter bins<\/a> for cheap comics and maybe going to some panels with artists or writers that I knew,\u201d Nunez said, adding that he now takes breaks when he\u2019s not hosting events or participating in panels.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez said that he likes taking friends in town for Comic-Con to eat in nearby neighborhoods like Little Italy and Barrio Logan. He takes it as a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people come into town for San Diego Comic-Con \u2014 that I know at least \u2014 and think San Diego is just the airport, San Diego Comic-Con and then some un-walkable areas around the city. And I feel like it\u2019s my duty as someone born and raised [in San Diego] to disprove them of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Chou inside Shisan Fan Sushi and Chinese Restaurant. (Photo by James Miller\/Times of San Diego) Two businessmen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":79078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[54504,5229,54505,1582,276,15661,7408,3549,7302,14421,7264,54506,9207,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-79077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-2025-comic-con-restaurants","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-business-impact-san-diego-comic-con","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-comic-con","14":"tag-economic-impact","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-comic-con","17":"tag-san-diego-convention-center","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-sdcc-economic-impact","20":"tag-small-business","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114887908611362847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}