The crowds are getting bigger at Logan diner Herm's Inn. That's good news for the owners, maybe not if you ask the neighbors. Restaurant customers end up parking in front of the neighbor's homes. Student reporter Eliza Welsh went to see if a bulldozer could help both sides get along.
Herm’s Inn on Canyon Road was a gas station until 1948. The now-busy restaurant was opened in 2012 by co-owner Ryan Bird.
“I don’t think that anyone on the city council or not even necessarily ourselves expected that we would be as busy as we can get on the weekend,” Bird said.
While business is good at Herm’s, neighbor Dixie Buist claims that the parking situation is not.
“They actually parked anywhere they could. There’s a parking lot down the road in front of the Rudy’s that says for Herm’s Inn overflow, but nobody wanted to walk,” Buist said.
“That was the real kind of issue I think with some of the neighbors that it was a quiet neighborhood and now it’s kind of a bustling little corner,” Bird said.
Renters like Julie Malmbourg worry about the property values of nearby homes.
“Our landlord, I mean she’s going to have a hard time ever selling this house because of the position that the house is in,” Malmbourg said.
The Logan City Council rejected the neighbor’s permit parking plan on two separate occasions.
“It’s not a matter of them needing the parking spots in front of their house. It’s just that they don’t want somebody parking in front of their home, which I get,” Bird said.
The restaurant recently purchased and demolished the home next door to provide extra parking for customers.
“The parking lot next door was definitely I think an inevitable growth for us. I think it will really change not only the experience for the customer in the future, but the neighbors and our place in this neighborhood,” Bird said.
“I don’t know how many cars that will hold. I bet it will hold maybe 50, 40 to 50 cars, and that gets them off of our area,” Buist said.
While Bird recognizes the neighbors’ concerns, he says he is hopeful that the new lot will solve the parking problems.
“We’re going to wait and see kind of how the parking lot develops and what happens over there. But really the end goal of the whole project will be to better serve the community,” Bird said.