When combined with local traffic, conventioneers and tourists have proven golden for dinner business at Downtown restaurants. But lunch is a different story, with too many restaurants chasing too few guests. Nowhere is this more true than the Gaslamp Quarter.
    The conventioneers crucial to Gaslamp business often lunch on-site at the San Diego Convention Center, venturing out only in the evening. And while 75,000 people work Downtown each day, too few venture to the Gaslamp for noontime dining.
    Jack Berkman chairs the Gaslamp Quarter Association and also is a partner in one of Downtown’s most popular restaurants, Fio's, which more than a year ago stopped serving lunch. He has his own theories about why the Downtown workforce isn’t flocking to the Gaslamp for lunch. "They are exercising or eating at their desk," says Berkman. "Some don’t want to walk more than a block or two to eat, or they are concerned with moving their cars and dealing with parking."
    Well, toss out the "tough transportation" excuse. July 13 marks the debut of "Gettin' Around Downtown," a free service featuring four Cloud 9 shuttles that will get Downtown’s workers to and from the Gaslamp within a lunch hour's time.
    The shuttles run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., making stops at 10 stops in the central business district and the Gaslamp. Nearly 20 restaurants are participating in the 60-day trial program, offering "affordable" menus and quick service. For more information, call (619) 233-5227.

— Melissa Jacobs