It’s a familiar sight in Isla Vista: a flurry of UC Santa Barbara students walking up and down streets, riding their bicycles and swerving on skateboards.
But once students move out of the neighborhood by June, Isla Vista becomes a ghost town. Restaurant owners said they have to fight to survive over the three-month long break.
“Even on Taco Tuesday it’s dead,” said Maria Mayo, the owner of Maria’s Tacos, located on the corner of Pardall Road.
So how do businesses in Isla Vista keep running over the summer?
Maria’s Tacos typically sees up to 200 customers on a normal day during the school year, said Mayo, who has run her taco shop for three years. However, she now averages 30 customers each day—about an 85% decline.
Previous operating hours ran from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., but Mayo said she had to change it to 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. this summer. The new schedule impacts the cash flow of the few employees working, most of whom only have one job, she said.
“In the meantime, they have to find another job in the mornings,” Mayo said.
Over the summer, boba restaurant Asia 101 makes about 40% of the sales it makes during the school year, said owner Boxi Wang. He said the shop, which has called Isla Vista home since 2018, typically saves money during the school year to prepare for the slow summer pace.
But the cancelation of unsanctioned street party Deltopia last spring—and its replacement with Soltopia—set local businesses up for a difficult summer, Wang said.
“It was a really good time to pack the bank account,” Wang said. “And that didn’t happen.”
Deltopia, held during the first weekend of UCSB’s spring quarter, drew a crowd of more than 20,000 people in 2025. The Isla Vista Community Services District replaced it with the alternative event after police issued 485 citations and arrested 84 people during the 2025 festival weekend, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
Soltopia saw around 6,000 people.
“Music also creates the student vibe, which is so critical,” said Viran Singh, the founder of Mesa Pizza on Trigo Road.
Local businesses want Isla Vista to maintain its eccentric environment, but so far, Singh said it looks bleak.
“As the laid-back atmosphere functioning of IV changes, they feel we are becoming more like Berkeley,” he said. “And they don’t want Berkeley. They want IV.”
Katherine Carmichael, the IVCSD board president, said the IVCSD wants to draw in more foot traffic for local businesses, but its limited budget and resources makes it difficult for them to do so.
Carmichael said the IVCSD replaced Deltopia with Soltopia to help out the nearly 70 businesses in the area, after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in January approved a 72-hour noise ordinance over the weekend of the party.
“If we just had the noise ordinance and we had no event to replace it, that could have been an absolutely disastrous weekend for the businesses,” she said.
The IVCSD has already started planning Soltopia for next year, Carmichael said, adding that she’s hoping to be more inclusive of local businesses in the process.
Still, Singh said Mesa Pizza had to make menu changes to stay in business.
For 30 years, Mesa Pizza served a variety of pizza crusts, calzones, salads, antipastos and raviolis. Singh said the restaurant, which also has a location in the Mesa, made their sauces and meatballs entirely from scratch.
But now, Mesa Pizza only serves pizza, buffalo wings and breadsticks in Isla Vista, he said. Singh said the restaurant eliminated the rest of the menu items to reduce spending on specialty chefs.
The World Cup is one of the only activities drawing traction to Mesa Pizza this summer, Singh said.
“When the World Cup is over next summer, we are in deep trouble,” he said. “As the years go by, it gets worse.”
While the summer allows Mayo to spend more time with her three daughters, she said she hopes that Summer Session B, where UCSB students take classes from August to September, brings more movement to Isla Vista.
Building designated parking for food delivery services such as GrubHub and UberEats can help local businesses satisfy the needs of residents in the wider Goleta area, Singh said.
“We mom and pop stores are in dire need for any kind of assistance to survive,” he said.
