Things got messy for Crema, Pacific Grove’s top brunch spot; its owner rises above.

This pandemic year is brutal for the restaurant business – just this week Monterey has seen Cafe Lumiere and Epsilon Fine Greek Restaurant announce they’ll be closing for good. Pacific Grove lost one of its top brunch spots, Crema, in September.

Yet in an act that seems to defy gravity itself, former owner Tamie Aceves is leaving the restaurant in the past and opening two more eateries before 2020 ends.

Aceves, owner of catering company La Créme Hospitality, already launched Lucy’s on Lighthouse with Joleen Green in July – it’s a hot dog and ice cream shack with a large outdoor patio. By the end of this month, La Créme takes over the Point Pinos Grill at the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, where some favorite Crema brunch dishes will join an expanded menu alongside lunch items and grab-and-go food for golfers, Aceves says.

In addition, the company was awarded a two-year, $300,000 contract to provide food for events at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca by a 5-0 vote of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors on Oct. 20. It joins other preferred providers that may be called on to serve at races and events once crowds are allowed back.

Success does not come without a cost, and winning the lease with the city of P.G. for the grill is a case in point. The lease came during a spate of unrelated battles in P.G. over closing Lighthouse Avenue for pandemic-era outdoor dining (they switched to parklets) to the current battle royale over whether to approve retail cannabis sales (stay tuned). When the lease issue came before the P.G. City Council in October, food, politics and small-town gossip had combined for an unappetizing mix.

By the time Aceves announced in August that Crema was closing, there were already rumblings on social media by those who objected to a city staff decision to tap La Créme for the golf course restaurant lease over two competitors, including current operator Ardent Culinaire. Ardent’s owners – past employees of the prior operator, Aqua Terra Culinary, which left in January owing the city money in back rent – were not going out without a fight. They asked residents on Nextdoor to lobby the council to let them stay.

Some residents questioned La Créme’s financial status because of the Crema closure. (Aceves told council she was unable to negotiate a lower rent in the wake of fewer tables lost to Covid-19 guidelines.) Others sniped about the food at Lucy’s, complaining the hot dogs were overpriced and the food cold, although fans raved about the loaded tater tots and fried Brussels sprouts with balsamic reduction.

Local news media received tips about tax liens filed against La Créme since 2014 for failure to pay employment taxes to the Employment Development Department. “Have I had tax liens over the years? Yes I have,” Aceves says. She blames a “near-fatal” embezzlement in 2013 that choked her cash flow for years. Liens aren’t uncommon in the restaurant business, due to thin operating margins; she says losses from Covid-19 forced her into a payment plan with the EDD earlier this year. (That plan did not stop local media, including The Monterey Herald and Edible Monterey Bay, from reporting on the past liens.)

Three city council members – Mayor Bill Peake, Jenny McAdams and Robert Huitt – pushed to nullify the staff pick of La Créme in favor of letting Ardent stay on its month-to-month lease through the pandemic. They lost, however, in a 4-3 vote, with the majority arguing they should respect the process used to choose a new operator. The vote was confirmed on Oct. 21, but not without a last-gasp effort to swing the vote back toward Ardent.

Aceves says she expects to sign the lease this week. Ardent’s last day is Sunday, Nov. 22. Aceves plans on opening the grill soon after with at least coffee and a grab-and-go menu. Inside, she’ll begin renovations. La Créme committed to $103,000 in improvements that Aceves told the council will be financed in part by minority investors, according to city documents.

Don’t expect a Crema replica, though. The city wants her to keep the needs of golfers a top priority. Some brunch favorites will transfer over, but there will be no more bottomless mimosas, Aceves says, but there will be mimosa flights and Crema’s Bloody Mary’s.