Sedona AZ (August 14, 2010) – On Highway 89A in West Sedona was vegan restaurant D’Lish. It appears to be another Sedona Arizona recession casualty.
The phone is disconnected and the sign on the door affirms that the restaurant is closed and the locked doors may not reopen. Four years ago, D’Lish began to offer Sedona locals and tourists alternative healthy foods and now, as a book offered for sale on their web site prophetically suggests, “It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
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heard about it but couldn’t find anything about it in the news except now thx!!
not another one! things are bad out there
So sad to see this happen. D’lish was THE place to eat in Sedona. I introduced D’lish to many of my meat eating friends and family. It was a mandatory stop on our trips to Sedona from the Phoenix area. Today we stopped in with family from England to find out the news. I do hope they find a way to reopen…Tempe would be a great place!
Yes, D’Lish is closed. Signs on the door confirm.
Mistakes the business made:
1) logo and signage not designed for optimal visibility. Stronger font, not italics, would have improved branding and therefore loyalty. One had to be pretty close to discern the sign indicated eats.
2) Crabby, penny-pinching management who didn’t want to give me a different paper menu – without FOOD on it – because he’d just had them printed. Sorry: I don’t want a dirty menu.
3) My first meal there – after getting past the unfriendly owner/manager – was a lentil soup in which the lentils were still crunchy. An unpleasant and non-nurturing experience. (For some: Is there enough bean-o in the world to support eating raw, unsprouted legumes?)
Unfortunately, the above personal experience kept me away several years. I went back a few months ago and had a delightful Latin-inspired salad. Stopped in yesterday for another and they were closed.
I’ve talked with people who LOVED D’Lish. And with people whose experience paralleled mine: that the management was not friendly.
What was your experience with this – and other closed businesses?
Here’s what my experience is Ms. Ennis–thanks for the challenge. Thx too to this paper.
Sedona management and rents are outlandish in today’s market & determine how many will emerge from the recession…so listen up restaurant management….. arrogance will close your doors faster than the health department. (how about this paper printing local health dept reports..that will scare many restaurants in town out of complacency)
Remember it is the local market & not tourists who keep you afloat during off seasons…most owners are known to we locals…we talk about you behind your backs.. so count on us to determine your income!
Sedona needs a shake-out of businesses–the good survive, the not so good need to go (how many incense & sage, art & pottery, tee shirt & jewelry shops does this town need?).
By comparison…every single person buys groceries–Sedona has 2 major stores (Bashas/Safeway), 2 health food stores (Ranzai & New Frontiers) and IGA in Village which is a perfect balance for this town!! More groceries would be a downfall…nice but unnecessary…. Bashas’ is restructuring as it is.
Look around…how many retail stores offer the same merchandise with no difference except price in Sedona? DOZENS!! DOZENS!! much of it cheaper at WallyWorld & same quality. Sad. My pet peeve–many shops need dust cloths. cleanliness standards in Sedona are awful….
Lower the retail prices! Lower dinner prices—-it’s a new day & owners act like the Sedona “name’ means instant cache & 5x mark-ups…might have worked in the past…but now dollars are scarcer & to recycle WAllyWorld on your shelves & your food plates doesn’t cut it…pay attention galleries…the same goes for you…mid range artists being offered at high end canvas dollars? What happens when hundreds of Chinese artists are discovered & a new collecting paradigm begins? What price will your American artists be worth when “America” looses its cachet?
Antiques roadshow goes to Beijing? It’s gonna happen. The Wild West is no more; most under 25s don’t even know what that term means.
Scottsdale is an example of moving away from western branding. China will have many gorgeous sites to offer. Sedona only has rocks and starry skies to offer & we don’t even protect those assets. Enuf said. Thx for listening.
hot damn that ennis and then fair hit it on the nailhead about bad management and inflated prices that buys mediocre quality liking this paper more each day
short and sweet folks…how’s that Hope and Change working out for ya ??
Woo woo, say the powers that be! All that’s missing in West Sedona is the combined close to one million bucks from the City of Sedona that they just doled out to the Chamber of Commerce and the “Main Street” group uptown. Just wait until SR 89A becomes another “city” street. Oops . . . not so fast. Will it, in fact, vie for the label “New & Unimproved Sedona Main Street”? Then watch the fur fly between the merchants uptown and those presently being financially neglected on the other side of the tracks. Oh, let the games begin, or continue as the case may be. Might not the Wild West Shoot Outs be the next dish to be served up in this mismanaged mishmash of ongoing confusion?
Well… maybe CHEERS will buy it in their obviously goal of total Sedona domination. “Cheers” the Wal-Mart of Sedona. –Maybe those uptown businesses would do a little better if as a whole they offered more variety? Why would you let one company run all the stores? and hey DOUBLEDIP.. it was YOUR guy that got us into this. I think you need some medication as you must have the early onset of Alzheimers if you can’t recall recent history.
Wow, Fair Day was and still is perfect right. Comments that rang true then still do today.
Pretty amazing this is. A news release from Aug. 14, 2010 . . . fast forward to Aug. 04, 2013 . . . and what has changed? Maybe more vacant retail locations but other than that it’s the same old, same old.
Not so fast.
With the recent disclosure of Chamber of Commerce members being located outside Sedona City Limits, and the vast funding (still that one million dollar annual figure) from Sedona “City” public money for destination tourist marketing for C of C members, any smart Sedona “City” business could drop their memberships to both the C of C and Sedona City leases, move to one of the vacant locations in the Village of Oak Creek, re-establish with the motto “Shop here and avoid paying Sedona City Sales tax” and, in the case of the lodging proprietors, they can include “No Sedona Sales OR Bed Taxes.”
Here a commercial establishment might realize not only an immediate cost saving of C of C membership dues but also the potential obvious unintended consequential kickback from Chamber’s extreme costly advertising campaign which will, as in the past, not be required to offer a shred of accountability to the City of Sedona for the dollars spent.
Those alterations alone might eliminate grumpy business owners because they would be out of the clutches of both the Chamber of Commerce and their stepchild, the City of Sedona.
Really, a no-brainer if you stop to think about it.
Didn’t the true “no-brainer” test rest it’s case with the council’s decision to increase the bed tax and give all the revenue to the Chamber of Commerce to advertise, exactly what they asked for, based on the fact that except for Donna Joy not one other person was at the council meeting to oppose the demands of the Chamber and their side-kick, the Lodging Council.
The true “stepchildren” are the residents of Sedona who continue to accept being treated like second-class citizens instead of rightfully making their own demands and standing up for them.
So prepare yourselves, city residents, for an influx of increased sales tax and implementation of open ended property taxes. Your silence will continue to imply consent.