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SLO County News BlogGolf, Wine, Real Estate, Business & Travel NewsA Summers Day at Dolphin BayThursday, June 15, 20062 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Outdoor-garden party includes entertainment by jazz ensembles and singers, live and silent auctions, hors d’oeuvres and wine. Presented by Pacific Repertory Opera. Dolphin Bay Hotel and Residences, 2727 Shell Beach Road, Shell Beach. $50. (805) 541-5369 or www.propera.org.Tags: San Luis Obispo Central Coast Generations of San Luis becomes The Club CarTuesday, June 13, 2006Randy and Pete Baudendistel have sold their restaurant, Generations of San Luis, to a restaurateur who recently relocated to the Central Coast from Martha's Vineyard, Mass. The deal will close, for an undisclosed sum, by June 30."I will absolutely miss this restaurant," said Randy Baudendistel, who bought the restaurant in San Luis Obispo’s historic railroad district two years ago. "But expenses, such as delivery charges, kept going up, and it was hard to keep competitive. It's time for someone else to pick up the baton." The new owner, Joe Hall, plans to rename the restaurant, at 1815 Osos St., The Club Car as an acknowledgement of the building's place in the county’s railroad history. The restaurant, near the San Luis Obispo Amtrak station, is in the old Park Hotel, also known as the Axtell Hotel, which served train passengers and railroad workers in the early 1920s. Hall says he does not intend to change too much about the restaurant but instead build on what already is in place. He plans, however, to enlarge the kitchen, repaint the interior and move furniture around to "make it a little more intimate." He’s also looking for a new chef. Hall had managed The Black Dog, a Martha's Vineyard restaurant, for 20 years until he moved to Arroyo Grande in 2004. Tags: San Luis Obispo Central Coast Restaurants Noor makes SLO a Jewelry DestinationTuesday, May 23, 2006The owner of Blazing Blenders Juice Bar has opened a jewelry store in its place at 1108 Broad St. across the street from Big Sky Cafe. The juice bar will reopen at a larger location on Higuera Street early next year.Noor Jewelry, which opened May 11, is the latest effort of Alexander Raissipour, owner of Blazing Blenders, and Adrian Bray, a local independent financial manager. While neither has a background in jewelry, Raissipour said they're turning their "layman’s interest" into a business. They plan to offer artistic and high-end jewelry at reasonable prices and do custom-design work. The store showcases work by local artist Ron Wilson of Morro Bay. Raissipour said that he's not concerned about the concentration of jewelry businesses in downtown San Luis Obispo, and instead sees it as a boon for all of the stores. "We hope to make downtown more of a jewelry destination. The more of us there are, the better for everybody." The partners selected the name Noor, which means light in Farsi, because of its connection to two of the world's largest diamonds. The Koh-i-noor, a 105-carat diamond, belongs to the English crown jewels collection, and the Darya-ye Noor, a pale pink 182-carat diamond, is part of the Iranian crown jewels. Tags: San Luis Obispo Central Coast Shopping Visit the Village!Saturday, May 06, 2006Needless to say, I enjoy a glass of wine on occasions while visiting friends or going out to dinner. I've visited many places and try to visit wine tasting rooms when time allows. Most wine connoisseurs and novices alike know of Napa Valley but now there is a second wine region that is rapidly becoming just as famous.The locals refer to it as the Central Coast and it is comprised of several wine regions including, Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez Valley, (where the movie 'Sideways' was filmed), Santa Maria Valley, Arroyo Grande, Edna Valley, and Paso Robles. Out of these, Arroyo Grande was my favorite to visit. Arroyo Grande has a unique Old Western Village that is quaint and charming with restaurants and shopping. Part of the old stage coach route from the 1800's Arroyo Grande hangs on to its rural roots. Some of my favorite places to eat were Klondike's Pizza, Gina's Italian, Taco Loco, F. McLintocks steak and saloon, and Village Café. You can see some of the attractions online at www.arroyograndevillage.org . One in particular event that gets a lot of attention is the annual Memorial Day weekend Strawberry Festival. There are many local and national vendors, rides, music, and of course, lots of strawberries to be eaten. Just outside of town are several wineries and tasting rooms, sporting some of the world's finest wines. For travelers coming from the south on the 101, there is a great place to find luggage and accessories called Luggage Base right off the freeway. They are normally an online retailer, but they do have a show room and you can get great deals on luggage. If you're traveling from the nouth on the 101, you've got to visit Simply Scrappin', the Central Coast's best selection of scrapbook albums and supplies! Lots of women visit the store while on vacation along the Central Coast and scrapbook while their husbands are out playing golf. Just to the west 3 miles of Arroyo Grande is Pismo Beach for you who enjoy the beach. And to the east 10 miles is Lopez Lake and campgrounds. Besides the great beauty, the weather is always great in this region, usually 60-75 F all year round. There are few places left that give you that small town western feeling, Arroyo Grande still has it. I do recommend a weekend visit and for longer stays you can venture 10 miles north to San Luis Obispo and Avila Beach. Talley Vineyards program assists Farm WorkersThursday, April 27, 2006The Talleys in 2004 embarked on a 10-year program to generate up to $1 million to assist farmworkers and their families. An exciting new wrinkle is the May 6 release of Mano Tinta, a wine in which 100 percent of the proceeds will go toward this cause. A Cinco de Mayo celebration is planned to honor this novel idea. Several hundred people are expected at the winery, with a mariachi band, abundant food and drink bolstered by a world of good sentiment. More than 500 cases of Mano Tinta have been produced, which could raise up to $50,000 for the cause.This is the latest effort for the Fund for Vineyard and Farmworkers, which provides grants to local non-profit organizations that assist those who work in the fields. Areas of greatest need include housing, health care and education. The Talleys established the fund, seeking a way to provide a legacy to the memory of their grandmother who had just passed away and to help the workers who are fundamental to their success. "Farmworkers really are the backbone of my family's business," Brian Talley said. "Since I've been working here going on 30 years, I have come to know and appreciate what these people do for us. I also thought it's a great way to bring together the agricultural community in San Luis Obispo County, to support this kind of an effort." Mano Tinta costs $18 a bottle and is a blend of three robust red varieties: syrah, petite syrah and tempranillo. The result is a big, rich wine that goes down smooth and offers something extra--a sip of social consciousness. "Agriculture in California could not exist without the important contribution that these folks make," Talley said. "Farmworkers are literally responsible for getting all kinds of food products out of the field and onto our table. It's often wrongly classified as unskilled labor. In fact, there is quite a bit of skill associated with the various jobs that we do here." Excerpts above from an article by Jim Morris at the California Farm Bureau Federation: Unique wine gives back to farmworkers SLO cafe caters to dogsTuesday, April 11, 2006Waggin' Tail Cafe and Barkery, a new boutique that caters to a dog's every need, has opened on Marsh Street in San Luis Obispo.The Barkery offers a range of dog luxuries, from all-natural dog muffins and other luxury bones and biscuit treats, dog spa products, canvas flying discs to collapsible water dishes, Ruffwear water-rescue life vests and day backpacks. Store owner Dawn Curnes started the business because she wanted to thank her dog Ruby, a black Lab mix that Curnes found at the pound, who saved Curnes when an intruder entered her home about a year and a half ago. "If it had not been for Ruby, I don't know what would have happened,"" she said. The store, at 722 Marsh St., is open daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays until 9 p.m. California Wine Sales set RecordThursday, April 06, 2006California wine sales in the United States hit another record in 2005, a rise experts attribute to a combination of factors from the Supreme Court weigh-in on wine shipment to the vino-centric movie, "Sideways."California wine shipments to U.S. markets amounted to 441 million gallons at a retail value of $16.5 billion, said Fredrikson, publisher of the Gomberg-Fredrikson Report. That was up 3 percent from the 2004 record-setting 428 million gallons, which had a retail value of about $15 billion. About two out of every three bottles of wine sold in the United States comes from California. Looking at sales of all wine, including other states and foreign producers, domestic sales grew by about 5 percent to 703 million gallons valued at $26 billion. Sales have been growing ever since 1991 when CBS' "60 Minutes" did a story on the perceived health benefits of wine. But the rate of growth picked up about four years, Fredrikson said, in part because of the introduction of "supervalues," such as Two Buck Chuck, the nickname of Charles Shaw wines that sell for $1.99 in California. The success of the wine road trip movie "Sideways," which opened in the fall of 2004, and last summer's Supreme Court shipping ruling -- forcing states to treat local and out-of-state wineries equally -- added to the momentum. Read More |
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