When I first passed through the city of Napa as a recently wed tourist nearly 20 summers ago, it struck me as a supremely boring agricultural town. Cementing the impression, an elderly canine snored peacefully in the middle of a sidewalk on Second Street, outside one of the few downtown businesses we found open that Sunday afternoon. The broad, sun-struck streets were spookily empty of people and cars, and we had a little trouble finding a place to eat lunch. Then, like so many other visitors, we hopped back into our air-conditioned rental car and headed up-valley for some “real” Napa experiences among the vines and wineries.
Two decades later, I have to laugh at the uninformed Easterner I used to be, who thought Napa Valley was only about viticulture, scenery and fine dining—forget the people, unless they were serving me something. Back then, I didn’t realize I was overlooking the most important part of the valley—its human culture and communities—exactly as most people do when they sum up my original home, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, as only about rich people, celebrities and beaches. You could call it “regional profiling,” this unfortunate tendency to view distant places as myopically as artist Saul Steinberg pretended to do in his famous “New Yorker’s View of the World.”
Or you might call it a failure of imagination, assisted by the electronic media’s relentless repetition of simple, emblematic images and phrases. Steinberg’s mock-map reduces the entire United States west of New Jersey to a featureless plain, dotted with the occasional mountain or butte; the average long-distance view of a “destination” like Napa—or Martha’s Vineyard—is similarly emblematic: vineyards (or beaches); mountains (or ocean views); wineries and restaurants (or clam shacks and restaurants); bigwigs from San Francisco, Washington and Hollywood (or bigwigs from New York, Washington and Hollywood). The rest is pretty much a blur; but inside that blur is everything that makes the difference between a spot on the map and a place that people and other living things call home: families, kids, jobs, schools, music and art, sports and games, pets and livestock, front porches and backyards, hard times and good ones…you know, real life.
Looking at Napa from Massachusetts, I was no different from any “off-islander” contemplating a trip to “the Vineyard.” I viewed the landscapes, weather and activities from a visitor’s standpoint and spared no thought for the year-round community. Only when my life took a wild hop and bounced me clear across the country into a Solano County housing development a dozen years ago did I realize that, as moribund as it had seemed on that first Sunday afternoon, the city of Napa was actually an oasis of vibrancy compared to the endless streets of Fairfield. I moved here as soon as I could and can honestly say I’ve seldom been bored in Napa.
Things are getting even more interesting now. The city has made some striking advances in its long, slow but determined transformation from a drab, post-industrial backwater, habitually bullied by winter floods, to a thriving river town with a brisk tourism business buoying its year-round economy. The downtown shopping district has been stretched west by new businesses on First Street; the Oxbow Public Market and its neighboring restaurants and wine shops are luring pedestrians east of the river and offering plenty of parking for those who’d rather drive straight there. South of First Street, there’s food, drink and music where once there was a decrepit mill building and warehouse; on the north side of downtown, a few new businesses are getting a toehold on drawing customers their way as well. And nearly all of these enterprises are owned and run by Napa people, employing other Napans year-round.
Now a proud resident of this bustling city, I stroll through downtown Napa on a Sunday and see people walking up and down First Street as far north as Seminary Street, blocks beyond the beaten path that for years had generally ended at Anette’s Chocolates. New restaurants—ranging from a humble Subway to the latest foodie landmarks, Norman Rose Tavern and Oenotri—along with an Aveda salon and the boutique Avia hotel, are attracting both tourists and locals to upper First Street. Throughout the downtown area, there’s no longer a problem finding a good meal any day of the week, whether your taste and budget are humble or expansive. (I should mention here that although I told you last month that the new Bistro Sabor, where menu items top out at around $10, would be operating on Sundays after its grand-opening weekend, owner Ariel Ceja is currently closing his First Street restaurant on Sundays and Mondays.)
While many downtown Napa storefronts remain untenanted, some locally owned stores have relocated and expanded: Shoes on First is now a few steps south of its longtime location, while Betty’s Girl Boutique has moved around the corner to Main Street between Annalien restaurant and the Bloom hair salon at Pearl Street. And though these three adjacent businesses are closed on Sundays, it’s not unusual to find the door to Bloom wide open and a crowd of young people inside, listening to local bands: Salon owners Paul and Leilani Slack regularly welcome local performers from the city’s emerging music and art scene.
On one Sunday evening in July, I heard live music playing from at least four downtown Napa establishments I happened to pass. I also paused to admire some of the 10 recently installed sculptures that comprise the Napa ARTwalk, a year-long display that invites viewers on a self-guided tour of works by Bay Area sculptors. The theme for this inaugural year is “Celebrating the Napa River”; my favorite piece, at the corner of School and First, features a giant beetle-shaped cutout and many small images of river creatures. The city council voted to spend $25,000 to start the ARTwalk; next summer, the 10 pieces will be sold and a new series installed. You can find out more about the self-guided tour at www.napaartwalk.org. And you can find out more about Napa by paying us a visit.
