Downtown resident Mike Ciampa is a heavy user of Downtown restaurants. Restaurant members of the Gaslamp Quarter Association say half their customers come from surrounding neighborhoods. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

If it weren’t for Downtown San Diego eateries, Mike Ciampa could starve.

“We don’t cook, so the neighborhood restaurants are huge for us,” says Ciampa, a Downtown resident and local Realtor.

Gaslamp Quarter Association Senior Marketing Manager Dan Flores says the Ciampas are not alone. The association’s restaurant membership reports that about half their customers come from the surrounding neighborhoods. Another large customer component consists of those in town for conferences at the San Diego Convention Center, says Flores.

Attracting local residents to restaurants in the Gaslamp Quarter is no easy feat, particularly with competition from eateries in Horton Plaza, Flores says. Promotional efforts have included prominent window signage, direct mail, the annual Taste of the Gaslamp and a Gaslamp-specific gift certificate program that began last year.

“Downtown residents are busy people,” Flores says. “There’s competition for their attention span. There’s no magic bullet.”

In conjunction with the Padres ballpark, the Gaslamp Quarter Association is putting together a marketing campaign that would give Compadres Rewards Club members coupons to area restaurants and retailers.

Casual, family-oriented restaurants so far have been able to lure locals on their way to a game, while upscale restaurants have had more difficulty. To that end the Gaslamp Quarter Association is devising restaurant advertising campaigns targeted to Padres fans sitting in corporate box seats.

The Downtown Communications Council, an ad hoc group of local public relations executives, meanwhile is working to create a “passport” program to promote local dining. “We’ll offer discounts to encourage people new to the area to explore,” says Derek Danziger, who chairs the group and is spokesman for the Centre City Development Corp. The concept is to allow residents to fill up their “passport” with stamps from participating Downtown restaurants.

The Downtown Residential Marketing Alliance is a joint promotional effort by 17 Downtown builders and partners, including CCDC and the Downtown San Diego Partnership. The alliance also has made efforts to encourage Downtown residents to sample local cuisine, says Chris Wahl of Southwest Strategies, which conducts research and marketing for the DRMA.

The alliance recently sponsored a free cooking class at Chive restaurant attended by about 75 local residents. “The idea was to show people you can get gourmet food from various places Downtown,” Wahl says.

— Jennifer McEntee