Sultana
Sultana, CA · LATEST NEWS
The Fresno Bee
Will Spokeasy come back? Two years after fire, what's the latest for the Tower bar?
In the two years since a fire closed Spokeasy Public House , Mike Adame has fielded the same question on an almost daily basis. Are they going to reopen the Van Ness Avenue beer bar? It’s to the point, where he almost wants to go with a bit of gaslighting, just to mess with people. “Like, we’ve been open the whole time. What are you talking about?” says Adame, one of Spokeasy’s three owners. The actual answer is, yes, Spokeasy will reopen. At some point. There are signs of progress. Last week, Mirror Coffee teased plans to move into the building on Van Ness Avenue, which sits in the Tower District along a strip colloquially known Van Ness Village (and includes Root Access Hackerspace, Sour Milk, Summer Fox Brewery and others). The pop-up coffee shop has operated inside Moto Delicatessen & Bodega, on weekends, for the last three years. It will take over the space at the south end of the building that had been Jazzy’s Jeans N Things. On Thursday, the doors were open at that spot, and at Spokeasy, and work was happening inside both. But even now, Adame doesn’t have a definitive timeline. “I can tell you,
The Fresno Bee
Coffee pop-up getting permanent home in Fresno's Tower District; part of a larger renovation
A new coffee shop is headed for the Tower District — and Tower regulars may already have tried its coffee. Mirror Coffee , a pop-up shop operated by Katie Friesen for three years inside Moto Delicatessen & Bodega , plans to open a full cafe in the same building as the former Spokeasy bar that burned two years ago. The coffee shop is taking over the space on the opposite end of the building on Van Ness Avenue, which was once occupied by Jazzy’s Jeans N Things. Mirror Coffee is expected to be open by the end of the year or early next year. Friesen is a fixture on the Tower coffee scene. She started in the business at the Starbucks on Olive Avenue, worked at Gazebo Gardens’ coffee shop, and used to be part owner of the Revue before it became Component Coffee . She’s also the roaster for Alchemist Coffee Lab . The Spokeasy building The building in Van Ness Village, between Olive and McKinley avenues, is perhaps best known for the popular bar Spokeasy. The building had a fire two years ago and the bar has been slowly but steadily working toward reopening . It’s a similar