"Richard Yoh said a lot of people thought he would fail shortly after he opened an upscale restaurant in a mostly industrial area of South Main Street, especially when a week after the restaurant's opening in May 2010, a road-narrowing project closed the street to through traffic for a yearTraffic has been flowing again on Main Street, and The Warehouse Restaurant and Lounge is a popular restaurant and live-music venue with a lot of repeat customers, Yoh said.
As a slice of downtown Gainesville, Main Street has not had quite the bustle of activity as the restaurants, bars and retailers in the southeast quadrant of downtown, between the Bo Diddley Community Plaza and the Hippodrome Theatre.
Since The Warehouse opened, however, about a half-dozen other new businesses, art galleries and a church have opened along Main Street from around Depot Avenue to the south and Eighth Avenue to the north.
Numerous buildings also have undergone renovations for both existing businesses and empty spaces preparing for new tenants.
Yoh said it was “a pretty scary situation” when the road closed after he turned his former auto parts building into a restaurant, but enough customers showed up to keep him in business.
The south end of Main Street is seeing more crowds and more foot traffic, he said, since the city turned Lynch Park into a fenced-in dog park in 2010 and the Citizens Co-op grocery store opened at 435 S. Main next to the Civic Media Center in July 2011.
He said the added crowds mean “other types of folks are not hanging around, so the security is getting better. Plus the city has a lot more patrolling in this area. We feel secure.”
He said he expects a further boost when the Cade Museum is built in Depot Park, further to the south."
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