La Vic's on Santa Clara Street is Now Open!

The remodeled and expanded La Vic's is now open on Santa Clara Street! This was pure serendipity. As my wife and I were driving by I noticed a decorated horse dancing on the sidewalk (literally). Of course we had to go check it out.

The remodel is surprisingly upscale. All counter tops are granite, there are crown moldings, and plenty of comfortable seating. This is a dramatic improvement over the old storefront. My favorite touch is the bright orange wall in honor of their famous sauce. The menu is exactly what you would expect... whatever your feelings for La Vics were before the remodel, expect them to stay more or less the same. I'm hoping for the same hours as their SJSU location, but they may need to file new permits to stay open that late (3am).

La Vic's, welcome back!

Downtown San Jose's First Dishcrawl!

A whopping 90 people came to Downtown's very first Discrawl! What a blast we all had. The night started out with empanada tasting over at The Mmoon featuring both savory and sweet empanadas. Then the group walked down Santa Clara Street to the WOW Silog Truck and enjoyed the premier of their latest creation... Filipino Silog Tacos (garlic rice, salsa, an egg, and your choice of protein including sweet sausages). The third stop was a gourmet pizza tasting over at Ruffled Feathers (with a side of their famous pita chips and hummus). Lastly, we capped off the night with a Psycho Donut buffet!

I really had no idea what to expect coming into this event. Despite my constant optimism, I was expecting maybe 12-15 people to show up. Instead we got a massive crowd including people of all ages from all over the Bay Area (even some from SF) and everyone was having a great time! I really got the feeling that the Downtown restaurant scene is starting to come of age and we're going to see much more of this in the future. 

Thankfully, you won't have to wait too long for the next Dishcrawl. The next one is on Feb 24th and is going to feature the exotic cuisines of Downtown San Jose. You can already sign up for it here!  Highly, highly recommended. In the meantime, you can check out some of the photos from the inaugural event down below:

Downtown San Jose Restaurant List Updates!

I've made even more upgrades to the Downtown San Jose Restaurant List. I'm fairly confident this is the best resource anywhere on the web to look at before heading out to eat Downtown! Here are the latest updates:

• Added Yelp Ratings and Price Categories for EVERY restaurant in the spreadsheet! These are also color coded so you can quickly identify the top rated places.
• Added Taqueria San Jose on Santa Clara and 6th.
• Added Red Brick Pizza to the Closed DTSJ Retaurants tab.
• Removed Post 152 since it hasn't opened yet and it looks like they forfeited their liquor license application.
• Remember to change the view to "List View" if you want to sort and filter based on location, genre, Yelp rating, or price.

If you haven't bookmarked it yet, here's the link to the spreadsheet! There is also a permanent link over to the right entitled Downtown San Jose Restaurants.

One More Plug for the Hyperlocal Vendor Faire Today

For Bay Area Die Hards

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 05:12PM

Mayberry Workshop is a full-Service design workshop--ranging from graphic design and branding, to apparel, and building and urban design. Over the past few months, the brothers, Adam and Ben, have been selling their sports apparel out of their pop-up shop at the vacant restaurant on the corner of Santa Clara St. and San Pedro in downtown San Jose. They are opening their doors to SJMade in their last weekend at this pop-up location. Thanks, Mayberry Workshop!

SJMADE One-Day Hyperlocal Retail Event!

San Jose Made
Saturday, January 29, 2011
1:00p - 7:00p

San Jose Made (SJMADE) is a one-day event comprised of local store-owners, makers, artists, and purveyors of Bay Area goods. From garage silk screeners, to twilight jewelry artists, to local brick-and-mortars, San Jose's homegrown scene is growing and flourishing. Meet creative minds from San Jose as well as other parts of the Bay Area.
The Usuals will be there! We've got a prime location on the second floor mezzanine.

SJMADE will be at the vacant restaurant (formerly Spiedo) on the corner of W. Santa Clara St. and San Pedro St. in San Jose. For a full line-up and descriptions of participating vendors, check-out the SJMADE website:www.sanjosemade.com

Questions? Send us an email at: info@shoptheusuals.com. See you there!

SJBound: Cukui Flagship Store in Japantown

Wednesday Wishlist: For a New High-rise to Break Ground

Any of them... I'm not picky at this point. San Jose is expected to have the largest increase in real estate values for 2011 (more on that another day), now's the time to put the shovels in the ground!

Enhancements Coming to St. James Park!!

Construction Happening In St. James Park

from The Bay Area Real Estate Blog by Jessie Woodyard

St. James Park, one of the many famous parks in Downtown San Jose, is marked by historic buildings that surround it in every direction.  In the past few weeks, there has been some changes to the park.  The old buildings that sat in the Eastern portion of it are no longer there.  Phase I of the Park’s newMaster Plan has commenced.
The buildings were once home for Senior Citizen activities.  Those activities have since been relocated to the Roosevelt Community Center which allowed for San Jose Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services to step in and begin construction of the Master Plan.

The St. James Park Master Plan was originally adopted in 2002 but couldn’t start due to funding limitations.  The entire park is intended to be remodeled but now, it will be remodeled in phases.
The first Phase is to demolish the existing buildings and replace them with turf.  The project was originally budgeted at $700,000 but since was scaled back to approximately $300,000.
What changed?

Well, as we’re all heard, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency is scraping for money (once a financial contributor to the project) and the City of San Jose is in the midst of a financial crisis (another contributor to the project).  St. James Park is affected as a result.  But really, there’s not much to complain.  The construction project will absolutely improve the park.

   











In an interview with Matt Cano from the San Jose Park Service he said, “I’m looking forward to more open space and better views.”  By eliminating the old buildings, the park will achieve this and more.  By the end of March the project will be completed.

When construction of future phases of the park’s Master Plan is still undetermined.  It all boils down to funding and where these funds come from is an unknown.

Cano commented about the possibility of getting grant funding but it’s stuff competition from not only other parks in the region but locally as well.  Another funding possibility is from park fees generated from new Downtown San Jose housing developments.  There are many planned or entitled residential units, all of which will be subject to parks fees, but again, this is uncertain for reasons we can all image.

For the time bring though, the San Jose construction in St. James Park is a nice change and one that can be appreciated by all.  Check it out next time you’re driving by on North 3^rd street.