Whaaaat the faauck with the mosquitos This year? Worst. Ever. We even had to release a crapton more mosquitos in attempt to calm down the bad mosquitoes and made national news for it.
This has been used liberally all Summer.
Have you ever noticed that you get bit more than your friends do or maybe you are the lucky one that rarely gets stung?
So now that’s out of the way, the City Of Fresno feels confident enough to announce a Grand Opening date for cruising Fulton Street. That date is October 21st!
You may be like me and have questions about this Fulton Street and its October (yeah, we’ll see) opening. Let’s go through a few:
Will there be asphalt? Yes.
Will there be room for two cars? Yes.
Will there be room for Clovis dually trucks? No.
Will the fountains work? Supposedly.
Will Parker get in some sort of zany wreck on Fulton Street? One can hope.
Will there be parking meters? Yes.
Will I have to learn how to parallel park? Yes. It seems that parallel will be the parking style of choice, down Fulton.
Will I be able to get drunk on the sidewalk? Hopefully. And if Fieldwork opens up a taproom on Fulton? For sure.
Will that old buffass dude with the boombox still be blasting on Fulton? Yes – he will find a way.
So I’ll see ya out there in October, I guess, fighting for a parking spot. Actually, I probably won’t even try and end up parking in front of Tioga like I always do.
*top pic stolen from City of Fresno’s Twitter feed.
I’ve been trolling Fieldwork Brewing’s Twitter account.
Occasionally when they announce a new beer being released at one of their taprooms, I re-tweet and add something like “And soon our Fresno Taproom”.
You see, California allows breweries to open up a certain amount of “remote” or satellite taprooms. Remote being a taproom not on the grounds of the brewery or in their home city. Fieldwork has one in Berkley (main brewery) and four remote taprooms: Napa, San Mateo, Sacramento and soon to be Monterey. State law allows five remote taprooms.
Fieldwork has only one left to give. I want it to be Fresno.
Berkeley’s Fieldwork Brewing is arguably the hottest brewery in the state. They make damn fine beer. It would be a real kickass thing to have them open up their taproom here. We are on the look out for coolass things for Fresno after all.
Hell, maybe a rooftop Fieldwork taproom in Downtown Fresno? Sounds pretty freaking sweet to me and you can add it to the Ale Trail, bro.
But don’t get excited, Fresnan. I may have been trying too hard and messed it all up – the story of my life.
— Fieldwork Brewing Co (@FieldworkBrewCo) July 9, 2017
“Wait until the fall”? That is basically “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” DAMMIT!
But as long as there is still a chance for the one remaining taproom to come to Fresno, I’ll keep trying. I don’t care how many beers I have to drink while waiting. I will not do it for me, I will do it for Fresno!
We have a problem here. A problem I bounce around in a post from time to time but never take on directly.
What will it take for Fresno to be considered a cool city?
If you’re thinking “Hey, but wait, I already think it’s cool!” I don’t disagree with you, but we both have to acknowledge that we are in the minority, chief.
How do we make Fresno appear cool to an outsider? This is what I’m talking about. To a Fresno State grad, we lost to brain drain? What can we do to win that person back? It’s a question that Fresno creatives have been wrestling with for many years.
First. The Immovable Object.
We are land locked, no getting around that. Except that we are not as landlocked as Denver, or Boise, or Dallas, or Every City Not On The Ocean. We can go to the beach for a morning surf session and be back in town for a late lunch.
So while this is tough, we have workarounds, it could be a lot worse.
The air sucks. It does. But, the past couple years, it feeeeels like it has gotten better? And if California can (continue?) to lead in clean air…stuff and things? Maybe I’m being naive but I feel like future technology and regulations will make the terrible air a thing of the past. But we definitely need to be a lead-city on clean air initiatives.
Booze May Be An Answer.
Here might be a cool city suggestion we can work on:
I'm totally with you on NE Fresno aka Clovis West. Rooftop Whiskey bars S of Fulton would liven up the place like they did in DT Denver
Rooftop whiskey bars, eh? I definitely like the idea of rooftop things – like the pic at the top of the post from a Phoenix rooftop bar. And adding a niche element like whiskey is the kind of thing that pushes something from being “Oh that, you can find that in every city.” To “Oh that is rad, I wish we had one of those in our city.”
That unique, “can’t put my finger on it why it’s cool but I just know it’s cool” thing is really what we need to get at here in Fresno.
Touting our agriculture backbone. Being sunny almost every damn day. Embracing our sports, like the soccer community that gets bigger every year:
We’re just spitballing here.
The Cool Roots Are Taking Hold.
We have things already going for us. Not many cities can boast that they are a “basecamp city” to three National Parks. One of which, Yosemite, is considered by many to hold the most beautiful place in the world, Yosemite Valley – and I am in complete agreement with that.
There are other signs of coolness brewing as well. Bitwise pushing Fresno into the tech and startup scene is a big one. The rising craft beer and coffee scene. Branding ourselves as the Capitol of Tacos. These are the kind of things to ride into the cool town sunset.
So let’s tally up some of the cool stuff we got and the stuff we can do more of:
Agriculture.
Craft Beer – even more breweries.
Bitwise and tech.
Tacos.
Sports – including soccer.
Diversity.
Leader In Clean Air.
Outdoor city – more trails, parks, and owning the Sierra Nevada closeness.
This is but a humble start of a list by a blogger that only went as far as Fresno City College – a great community college, btw. I know only bits and pieces of things. So I choose you to comment and help.
What are some of your suggestions? Leave a comment! On the August episode of Flowing With Famous, myself and Joshua Tehee will parse them out and talk about them on the podcast.