Fig Garden – The Fresnan

Fresno’s Christmas Tree Lane Brings Back Walk Nights!

November 28, 2023December 17, 2024 The Fresnan

I am not going to question it, I will just accept it.

The rumors are true. Organizers of Fresno’s Christmas Tree Lane have brought back ‘walk nights’. For you Fresno newbs, this is when they do not let cars go down Old Van Ness and they let people do something totally strange in Fresno… walk

Last year they implied Walk Nights would never come back, but here we are.

As per the tradition, there are two walk nights:

Saturday, December 2nd.
Tuesday, December 12th.

Christmas Tree Lane starts Saturday (Dec 2nd) and is open every night thru December 25th.

The Lane opens every night at 6 PM. Closes (lights off) at 10 Sunday-Thursday and 11 PM Friday and Saturday.

More info can be found here.

Where To Park On Christmas Tree Lane Walk Nights

You just park in the neighborhood. I assume people who live in Old Fig hate Walk Nights. But they get to throw parties on Walk Nights, so it’s kinda worth it.

Some people park in Fig Garden Village and take some sort of tram, or get a ride and are dropped off, or walk all the way down to Shields and then walk back.

Heads up: if you do park at Fig Garden Village, it is insane with cars and people. I went to pick up food one night not remembering it was a Walk Night, and got stuck in the Village for a while and didn’t even score food.

I just find a dumb house to park in front of somewhere near Dakota but not South of the railroad tracks.

Hopefully, the return of Walk Nights will relieve some of the pressure of regular car nights when the line to drive Christmas Tree Lane goes down Blackstone all the way to Shaw.

That is right. You basically get in line for Christmas Tree Lane at Shaw.

But hey, screw that, Walk Nights are back. I might hit up both nights, just because.

A nice video that Localish put together a few years ago:

Don’t forget to get some good hot Fresno coffee and I’ll see ya out there.

In Memoriam: Fosters Freeze at Palm & Bullard

August 29, 2023October 31, 2023 The Fresnan

In case you didn’t know, the “Bullard” Fosters Freeze on Palm (if you’re reading this after August 31st) is now closed. It’s being forced to make way for a Starbucks.

Thanks for all the food and memories since the 1980s (for me anyway).

I shall miss your fries. Corndogs. Milkshakes. But most of all, my evening runs with my daughter to get a Twister and a hot fudge sundae (no nuts), when we were a little bored.

Goodbye, old girl.

foster-freeze-inside-two-1024x768 In Memoriam: Fosters Freeze at Palm & Bullard

Where Is The Fig Garden Area Of Fresno?

December 21, 2021December 27, 2021 The Fresnan 3 Comments

I have been wanting to do a series of posts about the areas and districts of Fresno for probably 14 years now. It’s about time I get started.

I’ll start with my area: Fig Garden/Bullard/NW Fresno.

I live near Bullard High so I often refer to it (to those that ask) as the “Bullard Area.”

Am I in Fig Garden? Yes. Am I in NW Fresno? Yes. But within those two, I am in Bullard. Hey, Instagram recognizes it in their location option, so why not?

7648f4b6-d0a4-4c66-bc78-872467ba0c6b Where Is The Fig Garden Area Of Fresno?

But who the hell am I to say? So I put it out there to Fresno Twitter:

Imagine you lived North of Shaw in NW Fresno, the area of Bullard High/Fig Garden and gave a crap about such things, which is better to say you are in?:
— Mike Seay (@thefresnan) December 21, 2021

Obviously in NW Fresno. Maybe in Bullard. Definitely in (with Fresno Twitter’s backing) Fig Garden.

img_2867 Where Is The Fig Garden Area Of Fresno?

Me too. I never say Fig Garden either, as accurate as it may be.

Where Does Fig Garden End?

Well, to the East is easy: Blackstone. To the South: Shaw. To the North: the SJR. But where is the Western border?

Same. I guess Fig is technically NW, but NW to me is further north and further west than Fig Garden.
— Cee (@nowherecee) December 21, 2021

Ok so things start becoming just NW Fresno at some point. But the border is?

My first thought is Marks. But I have seen some maps that have Fig Garden centered at Bullard and Valentine. So we should pick something different.

The Loop. The FIG GARDEN loop. You live East of The Loop (Fig Garden Drive to Shaw), you are Fig Garden. West? You are another thing. Then use Brawley up to Locust as a border to the North.

There we are. Fig Garden broadly defined. Maybe I will start saying I live in Fig Garden now?

I still want to work on the little districts within NW Fresno and then build out the rest of Fresno. But we have a start here.

Don’t You People Have Homes To Go To?

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020 The Fresnan

I just came back from Fig Garden Village and there are a ton of freaking Fresnans out there!

Wassaaaabi’s? Packed. The patio was full and there were, like, eight people waiting for a table. THIS IS AT 2:45 on a Saturday!

Whole Foods? Packed. Long line to get in and very busy in the store. Like, so busy they might as well have not had a line to get in. It was near impossible to distance from people in there and I don’t think the line outside would have made it much worse. Fuck it, let all in.

I had not been inside Whole Foods since March and I was surprised to find it just as busy (if not more so) than Save Mart. At least Save Mart has more space to keep away from yahoos.

Jack’s Urban Eats? Busy too. wasn’t completely packed but busy and junk. Again, this is 2:45 in the afternoon.

To top it all off, it is smokey as hell. It wasn’t so bad in the morning, but the winds shifted or something and things got nasty.

BUT YOU ALL JUST PACKED OUT THE PARKING LOT PATIO AT OUT OF THE BARREL LIKE NOT A DAMN THING IS GOING ON!

Dude. All the tables at Out Of The Barrel were full. Mostly full of people that are not in a “bubble” together. You could not have fit more people out there. Since everyone is drinking, no masks.

I suppose that’s cool when it’s a handful of people, but this was too much for me brain to bare.

I was going to pick up some beer there but decided to skip it after seeing that.

Maybe a little part of me has respect for people saying, “Fuck it. I don’t care if it’s a Pandemic. I don’t care that the air is shit. I’m going to live my life and if I die, I die!”

But the rest of me? People. Is eating and drinking in a parking lot or smokey patio really all that?

We are never going to get out of this, are we?

Just go home, Fresno.

Fig Garden Post Office Is There… For NOW

August 10, 2020August 17, 2024 The Fresnan

You wouldn’t want this little tike to go away, would ya? Support the USPS, dookie head.

It’s surprising this little branch is still allowed to stay anyway, what with the out-of-towner ownership of Fig Garden Village.

I wonder if Fig Garden ownership can’t kick them out. Or maybe they charge the government as much as they would anybody else in that spot and the government pays its lease on time and stuff.

I imagine if we let post offices implode, this would be one of the first to shut down. I hate seeing little gems go.

Come on. It’s adorable.

inside-fig-garden-village-post-office Fig Garden Post Office Is There... For NOW — (Photo taken from here)

Maybe buy some merch. Tell the dumbass Post Master to take a hike. Support this public utility. Let’s not let all things die.

P.S. Did you see that Weztzel’s Pretzels is open in Fig Garden Village? Okay just checking.

Fresno’s Most Map Worthy Feature Is…

March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 The Fresnan

What would Fresno’s defining feature be? What would look cool enough and speaks to you enough to be illustrated? What jumps out at you when you look at a map of Fresno or think about Fresno in a map inspired way?

I recently came upon a website called barelymaps.com. On it are map inspired graphics (like the one above using Buffalo intersections) of a city feature, illustrated in a creative way.

There isn’t a Fresno one, as you might expect. I would love to see one though. I have some simple ideas as to what Fresno’s could be:

The Railroad Tracks (active and abandoned). That might look cool pulled off a map and featured. The Union Pacific and Santa Fe tracks (and maybe one day High-Speed Rail tracks) are very Fresno. Also, there is a track that spurs off into Southwest Fresno that I think still may be active, but I have never seen one pass through to confirm as I am only occasionally in that part of town.

Ponding Basins. I know every town has ponding basins but Fresno’s seem to be more defining. Might look cool pulled out as well.

Canals. Some of our more featured canals have been converted over into a pipe system and covered over but many remain. Enough to make a graphic with or you could include the ones covered over as if they still remain. Canals are a big reason Fresno became a city so that is defining for sure.

Swimming Pools. That would be a lot of swimming pools to feature, for sure. I have always been curious as to Fresno’s pool ratio. I would bet we have the highest pools-per-capita rate of any city outside of Phoenix, Tuscon and Las Vegas.

Freeways. We “only” have four. A well-designed poster of them could look rad.

The San Joaquin River. Our largely overlooked NW border would look sweet with everything within range of its Fresno side, featured.

Save Marts. Really, what is consistent throughout Fresno and is local? Actually, there is no Save Mart downtown or in the Edison High area or… in Southwest… well, unless you consider Sunnyside Southwest. You know what, screw those cowards.

The Grid. Nothing says Fresno more than a map grid. In fact, we could be the poster child of grids.

This one we actually can see an example of because I found a website that will let you search for a city and it will pull up a map of it the city you search for but it only features the streets, everything else is stripped away.

In fact, the website and the newsletter Snakes & Ladders is the inspiration behind this post. Check it out:

Fresno-grid-map Fresno's Most Map Worthy Feature Is...

If you use the website and your smartphone, it will let you zoom into specific areas of the map (I couldn’t get it to do it on my laptop but I could on my phone).

I’d love it if a Fresno graphic artist made something up inspired by Fresno and the Barely Maps. Please share it if you do.

While we’re here, a friend sent me this drawing of Fig Garden Village at a time when Rock Bottom Brewing was still there ALONG with the movie theater. I had recently been really wishing the movie theater was still there, so this made me pause:

Fig-Garden-Village-planning Fresno's Most Map Worthy Feature Is...

Stay safe out there mapping.

-Mikey