San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Downtown San Jose is struggling, but one surprising destination is thriving
Fountain Alley is bustling with creative food and wine spots amid revitalization efforts
As San Jose grapples with its own version of the dreaded doom loop — the city lost more than 40,000 residents since 2020 and fell out of the top 10 most populous cities in the country according to U.S. census estimates — there’s a tiny sliver of downtown that has people talking, usually over trendy food and drinks.
It’s the last place locals would have ever expected: an old brick pathway known as Fountain Alley. The historical site is tucked away between the city’s two popular nightlife corridors, underneath its oldest (currently empty) skyscraper, the Bank of Italy Building. Because it sat mostly empty for decades, it was once known as “piss alley”— where after a night of drinks on either First or Second streets, one might stumble into the darkness looking for a creative alternative to waiting in line for a bathroom.
Now, people are lining up on Fountain Alley — the bricks sparkling clean — for businesses like Scratch Cookery, named recently one of The Chronicle’s best fried chicken restaurants in the Bay Area . Next door, patrons sip funky wines beneath a disco ball at the new Goodtime Bar, San Jose’s first natural wine bar, which opened in April to widespread acclaim. Behind those is Fox Tale Fermentation Project, a brewery nationally renowned for incorporating fruits and vegetables in its beer. Thanks to some open-minded investing in a new generation of local entrepreneurs — and a few much-needed lights — any historical baggage is a thing of the past.
Goodtime Bar “is bringing in all of these cool people who I’ve never seen come downtown,” Fox Tale owner Wendy Neff said of her new business neighbor. “It makes us feel safer that we now have a community that is thriving and giving people a reason to come out.”
The revitalization of Fountain Alley coincides with the arrival of a whole new slate of leaders downtown eager to try new things. In 2023, new Mayor Matt Mahan took office, alongside new city Council Member Omar Torres, who represents the downtown area. Shortly before them, the San Jose Downtown Association, a business group, appointed a new CEO, Alex Stettinksi. Then in April, a new downtown manager, Nathan DonatoWeinstein, whose job is to oversee city services, maintenance and events, was elevated from his previous position as head of business development.
“When we see a turnaround like the one at Fountain Alley, I think it’s a good microcosm of how little differences can add up,” Donato-Weinstein said.
Stettinski agreed. Since the pandemic decimated the once thriving daytime economy of nearby office workers, he said, the future of downtown San Jose lies in more unique offerings that people will travel to — rather than opening mainstream or chain options that are already available in surrounding areas such as Santana Row or Valley Fair
The downtown association estimates the area is still roughly 10,000 residents short of a critical mass that could sustain more mixed-use and retail developments that many locals say is important to revitalizing San Jose’s urban core.
“Downtown San Jose needs a lot of tender love and care,” Stettinski said. “It’s about changing perception over time. There’s not going to be any silver bullet to fix this.”
Sitting in his office a floor above the new businesses at Fountain Alley is Jeff Arrillaga, partner at Urban Community, a development and real estate company and staunch advocate for downtown San Jose. Urban Community owns the three
interconnected office and retail buildings on Fountain Alley where Fox Tale, Goodtime and Scratch Cookery operate, among others downtown, including the Bank of Italy Building, which it is redeveloping as
housing.
In what must be a rarity among commercial landlords, the tenants of the alley all refer to Arrillaga as their supportive “uncle.” He first spotted local food entrepreneur Conner Vu,
owner of Scratch, slinging Nashville hot chicken sandwiches at a pop-up down the street. Vu signed a lease in 2020 but didn’t open until 2022, in the meantime perfecting his recipe (the secret, he said, is using brined chicken breasts to stand out from ubiquitous thighs).
Fox Tale came next. Nearby bar owners told Arillaga he simply had to try the funky fermented beer the San Jose couple, Neff and her husband, Felipe Bravo, were brewing in their garage at home. Their relaxed, cafe-like taproom opened in spring 2022, pouring unique beers like Ouroboros, a dark ale made with oysters and lacto-fermented mushrooms. Fox Tale’s fermentations extend to a seasonally rotating menu of food and pickles, plus nonalcoholic options like kombucha and mocktails like the Nocturnal Dance with fermented strawberry, lemon verbena syrup and sparkling butterfly pea flower.
“We’re lucky to have really good operators who have all been referred to us,” Arrillaga said as a small group of office workers shuffled into Goodtime underneath him. “It’s kind of been its own filtering process. They all have a history with San Jose and want to do something special for it, not anywhere else. Customers have really responded to that.”
Neff agreed. “There’s a reason why chains don’t survive down here,” she said. “We’re all young and independent owners;
so the fact that (Arrillaga) has given us the room and grace to explore what we want to do has been huge.”
The spaces in which Urban Community’s tenants operate are small by San Jose standards — about 1,000 to 1,500 square feet — lowering the barrier to entry for new businesses. The bones, such as kitchen infrastructure, are good, but they are old: The building on 30 E. Santa Clara St., which used to be five separate ones, was built in 1895, and wasn’t fully renovated until 2008. Last year, it finally got a new splash of color — butter yellow bay windows above Fox Tale’s taproom, periwinkle blue at Goodtime, and a deep pastel red orange for Scratch.
Steven Huynh, owner of Goodtime, said the space has helped him find his calling in life, leaving behind a career as an engineering manager at Apple. His new purpose is to “democratize wine” in his hometown with his wife, Ann, an oncology pharmacist by day.
Goodtime Bar, by design, offers San Jose residents vibes that were once exclusive to places like San Francisco’s Bar Part Time or Oakland’s Snail Bar. To accompany the pours of hip, low-intervention wines, chef Alex Whiteman, a San Jose native who previously cooked at Momofuku in New York, serves small plates like fingerling potatoes with seaweed mayo and kumquattopped oysters on vintage dishware.
“Why should people have to travel that far for that kind of experience?” Huynh said. Since Goodtime opened its doors, Urban Community also invested in decorative lights outside, giving the previously underused alley a warm, inviting feel. Outdoor seating now lines the brick road.
San Jose residents Gloria Koh and her partner Sam Tang now frequently walk to the alley, taking their usual seats at Goodtime Bar two or three times a week. When the pandemic initially shuttered businesses, they considered leaving San Jose, but opted to stay put in their downtown home instead.
“We didn’t even know what natural wine was,” Koh said during a busy recent Friday night. “It’s the community of people that keeps us here.”