![]() “When I communicate with them, they seem satisfied. “It’s a small handful who complain,” says the business district’s Tipple. ![]() In consideration of nearby residents, amplified music must be kept at reasonable decibel levels. The Business Improvement District has fielded complaints from some neighbors and businesses who object to the loudness of the music, the inconvenience of the street being closed and the need to reroute buses into residential neighborhoods during the events, which begin at 6 p.m. It’s why they wanted to do it again this year.”īut not everyone has been so enthusiastic. “It was very neighborhood serving and had a younger demographic, which is always a good thing. “I know the block parties from last year were really popular on the West End,” says chamber president Joanne Webster. The San Rafael Chamber of Commerce is also a booster, taking notice of the good energy and fun its brought to downtown as the business community has struggled over the past couple of years. “And the music is a good reason to do it.” “We need to be out of our houses and outdoors,” says Zero Jacobsen, a 49-year-old IT worker who lives within walking distance of the Pint Size and is a regular at the bar and its block parties. He’s found that more than 20% of attendees are from the surrounding neighborhood. Violante has done surveys of bar patrons showing overwhelming support for his street parties and the community spirit they’ve brought to the West End of San Rafael. “It’s been so great for musicians, and it’s brought so much life back to the neighborhood.” ‘Community support’ “It’s revved up my whole musical life,” she says. Singer-songwriter Susan Zelinsky, who performs as Susan Z, lives a stone’s throw from the Pint Size and has played there with her bandmates at least 10 times, including her 23rd annual benefit for Wine, Women & Song, a charity she founded to fight breast cancer. “For whatever reason, there’s a good energy on that corner.” “It’s been a lifeline during the pandemic,” says guitarist Josh Zee, who has played the Pint Size with the Starling Six band and considers it one of his favorite gigs in Marin. Violante pays them a standard fee, and, with tips, some of the more popular bands can make up to $1,000 a night. They don’t seem to mind that there’s no stage, just a carpet of green artificial turf for them to perform on at Fourth and G streets. It’s also been a salvation for many local musicians, many of whom are still reluctant to perform indoors. “Live music has been our life raft,” says Whipper Snapper owner Bill Higgins. A Yelp reviewer wrote: “This bar could be placed in the Mission and fit right in.”Īnd neither would Whipper Snapper, the California Caribbean-style eatery next door. Inside, there’s beer on tap, a pool table, a creatively stocked jukebox, a turntable that plays vintage vinyl, work by local artists and strategically placed kitschy paintings of clowns on the walls. with a nameless glass brick façade that keeps it so under the radar that it’s easy to walk right past it without knowing it’s there. It’s certainly been fabulous for the Pint Size, an unpretentious watering hole at 1615 Fourth St. “Adam has really created this awesome vibe in the West End that doesn’t exist anywhere else in San Rafael,” says Sarah Tipple, executive director of the San Rafael Business Improvement District. On good nights, a couple hundred or more folks turn out to eat and drink and dance and listen to local bands. Two years later, the Pint Size Lounge’s block parties have become a phenomenon, a thing, a happening, one of the most vibrant and unlikely musical scenes in Marin County. They were happy to oblige, needing gigs as desperately as he needed customers. He found it in live music.Īfter the city agreed to close his block of Fourth Street to vehicles in his West End Village neighborhood on Thursday and Friday nights, Violante began inviting his musician friends to come down and play on the street outside his bar. He needed a little magic, a miracle maybe. He needed something that would lure cautious people out of their houses during COVID-19. In a kind of Hail Mary pass, he teamed up with the restaurant next door to build parklets for customers to eat and drink at curbside. After more than two decades in downtown San Rafael, Adam Violante’s little neighborhood beer-and-wine bar was looking at the beginning of the end in 2020. ![]() ![]() The pandemic was about to put the Pint Size Lounge out of business.
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