South First Fridays tonight in SoFA

It is a little wet outside, but that should not stop you from enjoying great art in some of Downtown San Jose's most interesting venues. 20 destinations will be open late tonight and proudly display local artwork. South First Fridays is completely free and you can find a preview of what will be on display over here.

For an interactive walking map (sorry the one below is just a boring image), bookmark this link.

Zoom and Wrike are growing in San Jose

Two hot tech companies are choosing to grow their presence in Downtown San Jose. Zoom is a video and web conferencing solution founded in 2011. It currently has 180 employees with plans to add 20 more.

Wrike is a work management solution with 10,000 paid accounts. Their first office was in Downtown San Jose, but they moved to Mountain View in 2014 after getting their series A funding. Late last year they moved back to Downtown San Jose and now have 70 employees with plans to grow.

Both Zoom and Wrike are headquartered on Almaden Avenue--Zoom is on the 6th Floor of 55 Almaden and Wrike is on the 10th floor of 10 Almaden.

Source: SJ Economy News

The Pierce is honoring World Autism Awareness Day

Today is World Autism Awareness Day, and one of the coolest art projects in Downtown San Jose is doing something special for the occasion. Voxel Cloud--the LED light system on top of The Pierce--will be illuminated in blue from 7:30pm to midnight. To learn more about the "Light It Up Blue" campaign in support of people living with autism, please head over here.

Downtown San Jose Beerwalk - April 5th

Beerwalk is coming to Downtown for the first time ever next week. On Wednesday, April 5th, from 6pm-9pm you can stroll around sampling killer brews while checking out art galleries, boutique shops, and our long list of great restaurants.

The check-in area is Local Color at 27 S. 1st Street and tasting locations include 55 South, AFK, Blush, Firehouse, Five Points, O'Flaherty's, Sushi Confidential and more. You really will be walking since tasting locations stretch from the Historic District to San Pedro Square.

Participating Breweries

• 10 Barrel Brewing Company
• Almanac Brewing
• Altamont Beer Works
• Anchor Brewing
• Ballast Point Brewing Company
• Calicraft Brewing Company
• Discretion Brewing
• Elysian Brewing
• Firestone Brewing Co.
• Golden Road Brewing
• Golden State Brewery
• Goose Island
• Heretic Brewing Company
• Lagunitas Brewing Company
• Lost Coast Brewery
• Saint Archer Brewing Company
• Santa Clara Valley Brewing
• Sierra Nevada
• Strike Brewing Co.
• Uncommon Brewers

Tickets cost $30-$38 and benefit the Bay Area Brewers Guild (Designated Drivers are free of course).

Find out more and get your tickets over here.

Vintage Tower Apartments has two massive balconies

I was catching up on Nate DonatoWeinstein's twitter feed, and found this little fun fact. One of Downtown San Jose's first "tall" buildings has two substantial balconies. I have never seen the Vintage Tower building on Santa Clara Street from this angle and always thought those were maintenance areas. It turns out that whoever is on that top floor has a pretty amazing perk--a backyard in the sky.

Blue Bottle Coffee opening their first South Bay location in Downtown San Jose

Blue Bottle Coffee is a very popular "third-wave" coffee shop based out of Oakland. They are going to be the anchor retail tenant for 1 W. Santa Clara Street after the historic building's renovation is complete. This is a prime corner at the intersection of First Street and Santa Clara, which will only become more prominent a few years from now when the BART subway is built in Downtown San Jose.

Blue Bottle is also known for adding some extra vibrancy around their stores and have a reputation for seeking locations in up-and-coming areas. The 1,100 SQFT cafe will be the 12th Blue Bottle Coffee shop in California and the first in the area.

It will be interesting to see how 1 W. Santa Clara looks after the renovation is complete. Below is a before and after. It is difficult to make out many details from the picture-within-a-picture, but almost anything would be an improvement over the current aesthetics.

Source: SVBJ

Remote Chance: A Cinematic Escape

The newest escape game in San Jose is themed around the film industry and is called Remote Chance. This one is designed for teams up to 11 players and the challenge lasts 1.5 hours (including introduction and solution walkthrough). For those have have never done one of these, your team is locked in a room and has a certain amount of time to solve puzzles and escape. They are really fun to do with friends and coworkers.

Remote Chance is located at 701 N. 1st Street and games are available at the following times:

Friday 6:45pm, 8:45pm
Saturday 10:20am, 12:05pm, 2:50pm, 4:35pm, 6:50pm, 8:35pm
Sunday 10:20am, 12:05pm, 2:50pm, 4:35pm, 6:50pm

For more info and to get tickets, head over here.

Academic Coffee Pop-Up @ Five Points

One of my favorite bars in Downtown San Jose is now hosting a coffee pop-up shop run by Academic Coffee. They have nitro cold brews on tap, pour overs, espresso drinks, coconut lattes, and pastries from Firebrand Bakery.

The pop-up will be open Monday through Friday from 7am to 2pm, up until May. If you become a fan, don't worry they won't be going very far in a couple months. Academic Coffee is getting a permanent home in SoFA (499 S. 2nd Street).

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Academic Coffee Pop-Up
@Five Points, 169 W. Santa Clara Street
Monday-Friday from 7AM-2PM

You can learn more about Academic Coffee over here:
FB: @academiccoffee
IG: @academiccoffeesj