This guy has seen some things at Gazebo. Trust me.
Feeling thankful to have Gazebo Gardens around. It’s pretty damn unique and borders on something necessary for a city.
I am not talking about the nursery/plant aspect of it either. I am talking about the third space feature for friend and family groups.
In case you don’t know, Thursday – Saturday evenings Gazebo Gardens nursery turns into a beer garden & food truck court. Complete with seating and some shade.
There are very few places you can meet up with people without having to reserve or hawk a big table, or worry if “all of your party is here yet”.
Just show up around a time. Eat, don’t eat. Drink beer, don’t drink. Kids can wander around. You can wander around. It’s great.
Sure, I get tired of it too, like any place. I am here to appreciate the looseness of it all, and there isn’t much of that out there.
Related: As I sat on Shields yesterday waiting for a train to pass, I caught a little bit of the blues coming from Gazebo
Editor’s note: I will be doing more personal log style posts here on The Fresnan with expansions of some of the Fresno!Fresno! content. Hope you enjoy and check my website more often as a result.
I was one of 3 old dudes at Goldstein’s last night. I don’t know to think if this is pathetic or something to be proud of.
Probably a bit of both.
Pathetic: Why are you out in The Tower alone as a 50 something dude? Go home and pull weeds or do dishes or some shit.
Proud: Nobody else in my age group out here checking out local bands and enjoying a beer, walking miles home.
I got that video just as the Goldstein’s crowd gave up trying to start a little pit. That band was not playing pit appropriate music but, dammit, folks wanted to pit.
For the younger Fresno crowd, this has been a staple of every Fresno generation; Fresnans love even the tiniest excuse to start a pit. Bless our little hearts. Do we need to grow up? Maybe. But it makes us kind of adorable too.
I decided to check in on Livingstone’s (It has been a while for me) and have a General Sherman IPA from our own Tioga.
The bar had just enough people to give me a sense of enough going on that I wanted to stay. But soon enough, a large amount of people came in and it was too much for this guy, so I headed back over to Gold’s and caught some more Fresno talent:
As I wandered the streets home, contemplating life, I am pretty sure I saw Fresno Jesus wink at me as I walked by:
It’s a good location in a nice shopping center, good bar (although they could have done better with the beer selection), good neighborhood atmosphere and the history of it being once El Torro Tambien and still looking like it inside.
The decision to close was one of downsizing for the owners, not wanting the work of running two locations. But why keep the Cedar & Herndon and drop Bullard & West, because… no offense to Cedar but the Bullard one was kinda way better, IMO.
But whatevs, I assume the Cedar lease is cheaper and that’s the one they have had longer so, I get it.
Hopefully, another good local restaurant will get in that space and kill it.
Meanwhile, this is happening across the street:
This building will be having Wine Wednesdays every day, soon enough.
Related: Across the street, someone is making that odd white building into a wine bar. Yep, people will be bouncing between the Manhattan bar, the new wine bar, and Max’s across the street, it will be NW Fresno debauchery.
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.
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:
