community spotlight
You have possibly seen Matt Ramon at Urban Mo’s
or Baja Bettys at one time or another. He has been
working for the restaurants for the past 16 years and
is now one of the co-owners and general manager.
Originally Matt lived in Michigan but has now been
a San Diego native for the past 17 years. Flash back
to eight years ago when our first Hillcrest Mardi Gras
came to be. As Matt puts it, “Basically I wanted to do
a party for our business. At the time, LA had a huge
Mardi Gras party and they cancelled theirs. I came up
with the idea of having a party in the parking lot for
Mardi Gras. I told Chris (Shaw) about it. We decided
to get the charitable foundations and the Hillcrest
Foundation involved in backing it and we created
it. All the proceeds from the event go to support
community improvement through the Hillcrest
Association and the GSDBA Foundation.” When Chris
and Matt were thinking about doing the party, they
wanted to make it a non-profit event for the com-
munity and they felt both the Hillcrest Association
and the GSDBA Foundation would be a good fit to
provide much-needed funds.
The organizing committee made up of Matt and
seven to 10 other people usually begins planning
about three months prior to Fat Tuesday with about
two and a half months of meetings that occur weekly.
There is also an amount of pre-planning even before
that with the vendors and to work out pricing etc.
In the many years that Matt has been donating his
time to make this event happen, what does he con-
sider one fun memory that sticks out above the rest
over the past eight years? “Ahhh…(laughter) That
would have to be the year I got drunk and left early.
(laughter) I got carried home!” When asked what is
one of the more challenging aspects of putting this
event together, it was clear that Matt really enjoys vol-
unteering his time to create our Mardi Gras. “Basically
just making sure to devote time to it and organizing
my time with working with those two restaurants.
But there is really no other difficulty. For me, it’s re-
ally an easy event to put on.” For Matt, it’s the simple
satisfaction of creating the Hillcrest Mardi Gras each
year and as he puts it, “It’s just to see that everyone is
having a great time. The people are carefree and they
have a really good time on University Ave. I love the
idea of closing University Ave. off and having a party.
(laughter) All that debauchery and stuff!”
On that note, find your beads and mask for this MAT T
year’s Hillcrest Mardi Gras on February 24. Tickets
are available online at
www.GSDBAFoundation.org/
events or purchase them at Urban Mo’s, Baja Betty’s or
Obelisk Bookstore now. Make sure when you’re at the
RAMOn
party… thank him for coming up with a great idea!
Creating Our HillCrest Mardi gras
by bill biss
66 RAGE monthly | FEBRUARY 2009
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