Work is underway to bring a beloved San Luis Obispo sandwich shop back to life.
Anna & Nick Brannen are the new owners of Gus’s Deli at 1638 Osos St.
With the Brannen’s securing the lease for the building last fall, Anna Brannen says they’re currently waiting on building permits with hopes of opening the space by the summer to “bring happy back to that corner.”
She says they first talked about doing something with Gus’s before it closed.
“We saw the value of it before it had issues,” Anna said. “We saw how hard the former owner worked to try to keep it.”
After it closed a year ago, she said those discussions picked up, and they applied for a lease and are looking forward to celebrating their version of it.
Once open, familiar features like build-your-own sandwiches will return. There will also be gluten-free options, build-your-own salads and premade items available.
Living around the corner from the location, the couple is aware there is work to be done. “We’re not putting a Band-Aid on issues,” she said, adding that they plan to bring the building up to code and make it a clean, safe and fresh space.
“(We’re) excited to fix them and go into the next chapter of Gus’s with this beautiful clean slate of almost like a brand-new building feel and start our own chapter,” she said, adding that it won’t be a copy and paste of what once was.
“One of my honest concerns and fears is people expecting the exact same, and it’s not going to be. We’re different people. We’re putting our spin on it,” she said.
While doing what they can to match the vibes of the decades-old establishment, Anna says they’ll have different ingredients, many of them local, while choosing companies that match their family’s standards and allergen goals.
“(We’re) not trying to rebuild the sandwich game or mimic (it), but we are trying to meet it where it was, build from it and bring it into our family’s chapter on where we’re at,” Anna said, adding that they’re doing what they can now so that they’re ready to go once work is complete.
“We’re grinding really hard on the day-to-day stuff right now, so that way we’re not delaying the process once construction is done.”
She and her husband have discussed challenges with opening a business at a time when many others are closing, and food prices are soaring, but she says the community led them to do it.
“That space brings happiness to a lot of people and in these crazy, scary times when so much of what you read is negative, the ability for us to bring something positive to our neighborhood and to our community is what’s our driving force,” Anna said, adding that she and her husband first met while both were attending Cal Poly around 20 years ago and decided they wanted to stay in the area as long as they could.
Anna says at one point, the couple was working a combined seven jobs to make that happen, eventually having children, and now deeply-rooted in the community in various ways, including serving on volunteer boards.
“It is the idea of this community has given us so much and we’re able to try to give this back to them in a positive space,” she said.
While no opening date has been set, Anna says they’ll be announcing hiring information and next steps on the Gus’s Instagram page and at the site.
“We believe in this community, we love this community,” Brannan said, adding that they decided not to change the name of the business because “that building will always be Gus’s.”
"Having Gus’s in our story and in all of our lives has been big memories," she added.
