Just look around in downtown Fort Bragg and you can see the renewal happening with newly-paved streets, new shops, new galleries and more. The Fort Bragg Promotion Committee and local merchants this Friday night launch the First Friday Art Walk as part of an on-going series of monthly events planned to reintroduce Mendocino Coast residents to downtown shopping.

The monthly Art Walks, to be held through October, will feature some combination of music, dancing, art and late evening shopping as the major draw to downtown stores and restaurants.

Activities scheduled for August 1, from 5 pm to 8 pm: (more…)

In a small, rural community like Fort Bragg there are always mixed feelings about “big chains” competing with locally-owned and grown businesses. I’m not going to comment either way, except to report that according to Starbucks’ website, the Fort Bragg store is not on the closure list. This, is seems, it good for employment and tax revenues and not seeing another empty store in these hard economic times. Of course, people forget, that often, the so-called chains, are really a collection of stores owned by local folks in each town where the store exists. Closure of any business in a small town can’t be good. Rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

In search of family-friendly vacation spots, Elizabeth Blair, a journalist from TravelingMamas.com recently brought her brood to Fort Bragg. The website is written by four mothers. Elizabeth, known as Desert Mama  (she’s from Tucson) has created a story about her visit worth reading.