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The chicken shawerma pita with rice pilaf and grilled vegetables is a mainstay at Hop PK. The bartender pairs the dish with an Excalibur Citron Dry Hop. Photo by Edward Smith

published on April 13, 2018 - 3:45 PM
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When Fulton Street reopened in October, many of the storefronts were still vacant after months of construction fencing lining the perimeter. Those spots are now slowly being filled, many of them by South Valley restaurants.

Both Visalia and Hanford have seen their downtowns come into their own and have market-tested restaurants ready for export.

“In the South Valley, they’ve seen revitalization and they know how it works,” said Craig Scharton, interim CEO of the Downtown Fresno Partnership and the first executive director of Main Street Hanford. Getting in early means locking in low leases and getting good locations.

“In three years, you’re going to be wishing you got in early,” Scharton said.
These are a few of the restaurants who either already got in or are on their way.

 

Hop PK and The Downtown Fresno Partnership

What started off as a deli and grocery store in Visalia two decades grew to be a staple of downtown cuisine. The classic shawerma and falafel that, until 2017, only Visalians had access to, found its way to downtown in combination with a local craft brewery.

HoP PK, known in Visalia as Pita Kabob, was the brainchild of owners Chafic Dada from Pita Kabob and Tommy Caprelian from House of Pendragon in Sanger.

“One day we were having a beer and having some food and we wanted to work together,” said Dada. They looked throughout the area — Clovis, north Fresno. In 2015 they submitted a proposal for a Downtown Fresno Partnership competition that offered a business prize money, marketing, consulting and a year of free rent for locating downtown. They won.

“It fell into our lap and it made sense,” Dada said.

It took two years to get the building at 820 Van Ness Avenue ready to open.

As with many businesses coming into downtown, modernizing the old building took a lot of work. Phone lines and internet at the location took coordinating with AT&T. Then there’s the problem of parking—a recent hike in parking means the restaurant is shelling out more for their employees to be able to park. There were even dreams of an outdoor patio, but when they found out they had to trench a drain, the expansion become unfeasible for the time.

Coming into Downtown Fresno meant having to work with a whole new set of rules.

“It’s a much bigger city than Visalia so there’s more to go through,” Dada said.

At the same time, the investment is paying off at each lunch and dinner service. They sell their staple Mediterranean lunches to the business crowd as well as to the nightlife.

“It’s not just for one crowd,” Dada said. During the daytime, it’s very business-oriented, but at night, patrons stop in from other events such as Art Hop or FresYes Fest. With half of their ownership in one of the Central Valley’s biggest breweries, the restaurant is primed to support that nightlife with a growing number of drink offerings. In the next few weeks, they’ll be featuring upwards of 16 new brews from House of Pendragon alone. They also carry beers from Tioga-Sequoia, Full Circle Brewing and Pine and Palm.

The downtown Fresno location of CHARburger at the Virginia Hotel on L Street provides ample foot traffic for lunch. Photo courtesy of Catherine Heaney.

 

CHARburger and a vibrant downtown

Another Visalia export is its burgers. Opened in 2016, CHARburger came to the Hotel Virginia on L Street with its hamburgers freshly ground from The Meat Market. Owner Catherine Heaney opened in downtown Visalia in 2012 and wanted to be at another location where people could wander around and eat.

“Our downtown has always had a great vibe and energy— a reason why I opened CHAR on Main Street,” Heaney said. Heaney liked being connected to the community in Downtown Fresno, where, like in Visalia, you can “park down the street, check out a few things and grab bite to eat; the whole experience,” Heaney said.

Like other restaurants though, it is still lunch reliant. Heaney tried opening for dinner, but it wasn’t enough to make it permanent.

“The crowd wasn’t large enough to sustain the dinner service and we had to pull it,” Heaney said. Heaney feels that some customers may feel uneasy about coming to downtown in the dark when people aren’t around.

The burgers at CHARburger are a custom beef blend freshly ground from The Meat Market in Fresno. Photo courtesy of Catherine Heaney.

 

Chicken Shack and proactive landlord

Coming out of Hanford is a fried chicken restaurant that—according to the Hanford Sentinel—wanted to be a part of downtown rejuvenation.

That rejuvenation, however, would take place in a building that once housed a Payless Shoe store that never needed a kitchen. According to Scharton, Bob Gurfield, owner of the building, took it on his own to install a kitchen to get new tenants.

“He’s really working that as an active property owner,” said Scharton. “Rather than just lease it as is, he’s willing to fix it up for a tenant.”

When Chicken Shack approached Gurfield about opening up on the corner of Fulton and Mariposa streets, Gurfield wanted to work with them. A unique restaurant is a way to begin turning an investment into a profit. Retail is struggling in Garfield’s eyes, but a restaurant with a little personality becomes a destination. “You can’t buy it online,” Gurfield said.

So, he began the work to install the kitchen and make the building ADA—Americans with Disabilities Act—compliant.

The other part of revitalizing downtown is in its nightlife, and in an article by the Hanford Sentinel, owner Damon Miller said he wanted to work with local breweries to bring in a variety of drink offerings.

Part of what the city has done to make that easier is waiving the conditional use permits, according to Scharton. They can easily run $3,000 for a beer and wine license.

Like Hop PK, there were plans to do outdoor seating. They, too, had a lot of difficulty getting their patio approved by the city, according to Gurfield.

“It should have been a no-brainer to get people to eat outside,” Gurfield said, but the project was eventually approved and when the restaurant opens in what looks to be either June or July, the patio will be in place.


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