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10 reasons to visit Sierra Nut House Wine Bar and Bistro

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Natali Carrera
Natali Carrera is a devoted coffee addict who also loves her teenage son, her husband of 19 years and shopping small & local. She is the founder & CEO of parent support non-profit Success Together, Inc. and has been a freelance content creator for FresYes.com for 7 years. Natali is an unrelenting cheerleader for and lifelong resident of Fresno, as well as a Fresno State grad.
Latest posts by Natali Carrera (see all)

 

If you’ve lived in the Fresno area for any length of time, chances are you’ve either given or received a gift of delicious dried fruit or nuts from Sierra Nut House at least once.

Sierra Nut House has been in operation since 1969. The business began on the family’s almond farm in Clovis, CA, and it was followed by a gift shop that was built at Chestnut and Sierra. Sierra Nut House’s Wine Bar and Bistro is the most recent addition, located in the Villagio Shopping Center across from River Park on Blackstone and Nees.

Sierra Nut House

Sierra Nut House Wine Bar and Bistro located on Blackstone and Nees in the Villagio Shopping Center

This week, I had a meeting at the Wine Bar and Bistro—my first visit there—and I was blown away by how much it offers customers. I felt compelled to share with you, dear readers, some of the amazing things beyond fruit and nuts that await you upon your visit.

Here are my 10 reasons to visit the Sierra Nut House Bistro and Wine Bar.

1. Comfort foods

They make amazing breakfast pastries, frittatas, and hearty panini (wrap-style grilled sandwiches) from scratch. I tried the Apple Bread Pudding with slivered almonds and local raisins, which was served warm. It was heavenly!

2. All-you-can-drink coffee

Multiple roasts of coffee are served with free refills for dine-in guests, all day.

Sierra Nut House

Enjoy espresso beverages of drip coffee at the Sierra Nut House Bistro and Wine Bar’s café counter

3. Soup du Jour

Sierra Nut House Wine Bar and Bistro offers amazing soups each day, made with flavorful, fresh, and healthy ingredients. All of the soups listed on the Soup du Jour board were unique and mouth-watering, no standard-issue chicken soup to be seen.

4. Healthy and hearty options

If you like delicious salads, chicken bowls, and cheese plates, they’ve got ’em!

Sierra Nut House

Yummy, fresh lunch options on display in the Sierra Nut House café

5. Sugar-free selection

Once upon a time, Fresno used to have a Sugarless Shack store that offered sugarless candies and treats that even diabetics could enjoy. Sierra Nut House now fills that void, offering a wide selection of sugarless sweets.

Sierra Nut House

Sierra Nut House’s selection of sugar-free candies

6. CHEESE

Sierra Nut House offers a wide selection of gourmet cheeses, Italian snacks (including my family’s personal favorite, taralli, which are like savory, crispy, pretzels) and spreads—all items that make a wonderful snack or hostess gift combination.

Sierra Nut House

Just a few of the amazing cheeses available for purchase

7. Gift selection

Speaking of hostess gifts, Sierra Nut House offers a huge selection of wine, chocolates, local honey, jams, and nuts that can be purchased pre-wrapped or as a custom, you-fill-it gift basket.

Sierra Nut House

Just a fraction of the wine selection

Sierra Nut House

Local honeys for sale 

Sierra Nut House

Chocolate lovers rejoice: there’s a full aisle of gourmet goodies for you.

Sierra Nut House

A few examples of prepared gift items available for purchase

8. Chocolate

If you’re a chocolate lover, you’ll find hand-dipped truffles, fruits, and nougats in the cold case at the wine bar.

Sierra Nut House

Hand-dipped chocolates

9. Great staff

Sierra Nut House is known for customer service and knowledgeable staff who are happy to help customers select excellent gifts and wrap them expertly.

10. Fantastic atmosphere

Sierra Nut House’s Wine Bar and Bistro offers pleasant, comfortable indoor and outdoor seating perfect for breakfast, lunch, or a glass of wine with a friend or loved one.

Sierra Nut House

Interior view

Sierra Nut House

Outdoor seating

For more about what the Sierra Nut House has to offer, and to order online, visit their website here, and make sure to follow them on Facebook for updates.

BooBoo Bean Bakery and Café brings tasty pastries and more to northwest Fresno

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Natali Carrera
Natali Carrera is a devoted coffee addict who also loves her teenage son, her husband of 19 years and shopping small & local. She is the founder & CEO of parent support non-profit Success Together, Inc. and has been a freelance content creator for FresYes.com for 7 years. Natali is an unrelenting cheerleader for and lifelong resident of Fresno, as well as a Fresno State grad.
Latest posts by Natali Carrera (see all)

Jenny Rivera has a natural knack for baking. Her friends and family have benefited from her skills with a spatula and mixer for years, and when the opportunity presented itself last fall for Rivera to have her own bakery in a great location, she took it as a sign it was time to go all in and share her talents with the greater Fresno community.

Rivera’s new bakery, BooBoo Bean Bakery and Café, has been open just over two weeks, but the cozy space—whose name comes from her son’s nickname and her chihuahua, Lulu Bean—has already attracted a steady stream of regular customers.

BooBoo Bean Bakery

BooBoo Bean Bakery and Café is now open at Pavilion West

BooBoo Bean Bakery

A peek inside BooBoo Bean Bakery and Café

BooBoo Bean offers a variety of pastries and cookies, including specialty Italian items such as the Chimelli, a twisted, mildly sweet cookie with a hint of citrus, and the Italian Wedding Cookie, which is sweeter, dense, chewy, and drizzled with a light, lemon-y glaze. Rivera’s massive croissants look mouthwatering in the bakery case, and her butter toffee samples prove her skill at not just baking, but candy making as well.

BooBoo Bean Bakery

Rivera’s Italian Wedding Cookies (center) are among her best-sellers.

BooBoo Bean Bakery

An Italian specialty baked good: the Chimelli

On her Facebook page, Rivera claims to be on a mission to “perfect the cupcake,” and during my family’s recent visit to Boo Boo Bean, it seems many patrons feel she’s already achieved that, as cupcakes were flying out of the case due to demand. A steady stream of customers flowed in and out of the café the entire time I was there, which was a little over an hour on a Saturday afternoon.

BooBoo Bean makes delicious crisp-on-the-outside, dense-on-the-inside homemade waffles that are served right off the griddle and piled high with your choice of sweet or savory toppings. According to Rivera, the Cookie Butter Waffle is a best-seller.

BooBoo Bean Bakery

The waffle my son and I enjoyed

BooBoo Bean Bakery

My husband, who’s following a low-carb diet, enjoyed the crust-less fritata

In addition to baked goods and waffles, BooBoo Bean offers a variety of salads, sandwiches, and wraps. The Harvest Apple Salad is a customer favorite, as is the savory and lightly spicy Angry Tri-Tip Sandwich.

BooBoo Bean Bakery

My son’s Angry Tri-Tip Sandwich (plus bacon, because, well… he loves bacon)

BooBoo Bean also offers coffee and espresso beverages, including familiar favorites such as flavored lattes, mochas, and frozen, blended frappes. The signature drink offering, the Boo Boo Bean Latte, features a homemade lavender-honey syrup for a unique and delicate flavor.

Prices at BooBoo Bean are very reasonable, with artisan-quality baked goods starting at just $1.50. There’s also a loyalty card—each coffee drink earns a stamp, and the 11th drink is on the house.

If you’re looking for a great new place to enjoy a pastry and coffee with a friend, or a tasty lunch made with care, you can visit BooBoo Bean in the Pavilion West shopping center on the southwest corner of Bullard and West in northwest Fresno.

You can also learn more about BooBoo Bean by following them on Facebook and Instagram.

Tea & Relaxation: Riverpark’s Teazer Remodel

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Natali Carrera
Natali Carrera is a devoted coffee addict who also loves her teenage son, her husband of 19 years and shopping small & local. She is the founder & CEO of parent support non-profit Success Together, Inc. and has been a freelance content creator for FresYes.com for 7 years. Natali is an unrelenting cheerleader for and lifelong resident of Fresno, as well as a Fresno State grad.
Latest posts by Natali Carrera (see all)

Teazer World Tea Market

Have you ever gone somewhere and thought to yourself, “Surely, everybody knows about how great this place is, right?” and later discovered that in fact, no, not everyone is aware of the place, and when you share it with them, they later tell you how glad they were that you did? That’s been my experience (more than once) with Teazer World Market in Riverpark. Teazer, a tea shop, that took over the old Jamba Juice location in the main plaza of Riverpark just West of Edwards Theater some years ago.

The floor space of the original Riverpark Teazer was somewhat tight and due to the crowds of Riverpark, seemingly in opposition with Teazer’s zen-like décor and attempted calming atmosphere. However, recently, Teazer expanded to occupy both its existing space as well as the space directly East of it, doubling its seating areas and allowing for the spacious, uncrowded and calming atmosphere the place seemed to be aiming for all along.

Teazer World Market in Riverpark

Teazer World Market in Riverpark

Teazer Riverpark is now an expansive tea café offering a wide variety of teas to suit every taste as well as free wifi, comfortable seating, tasty (and often quite beautiful) desserts, as well as boxed tea and brewing accessories for sale for home use.

Teazer World Market in Riverpark

Due to the nature of my work, and the type of things I do in the community as a volunteer, I am often seeking good locations to have an out of office meeting or team gathering. Sometimes it’s just nice to get outside of the same four walls you’re used to seeing and cut down on the number of interruptions that threaten your train of thought so you can make more progress.

Teazer offers great options for both small groups and individuals, and even has one large, conference-sized table available if you need to gather with a larger group. The fact that this large table is off to one side of the café makes it comfortable not just for your group, but also for other patrons, as there aren’t any other tables directly next to it – so noise isn’t a major concern. Unlike the whirring blender and grinding bean sounds typical of coffee shops, Teazer is a relatively calm and quiet place to study, read or converse with others – despite its Central Riverpark location.

What to order

Interested in checking out Teazer, but not typically a big tea drinker? Don’t worry – there are lots of teas to choose from and even my 9-year-old son has found a tea he loves. For fans of traditional teas, there are a number of green, black, herbal and fruit teas for you to choose from. If tea is traditionally not sweet enough/too bitter for your liking, try Teazer fruit teas (hot or iced) in either Honolulu, which is their most popular fruity iced tea – smooth with slices of fresh fruit, or the Cherry Lemon – sweet but tart, with a strong cherry taste and fresh lemon slices (my personal favorite, and my son’s). Spice lovers may enjoy the Elephant Chai, an oft-ordered, popular choice, and if you’re looking for a truly soothing tea – you may really enjoy Lavender Earl Grey. Want to try a tea with cream or soy milk? Strawberry Fields and Irish Cream Cherry are both great bets.

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If you haven’t checked out the remodeled Riverpark Teazer location, give it a try the next time you’re looking for a great, relaxing place to study, read or meet with colleagues or friends – I may just see you there. (Also of note, if Riverpark is not a convenient location for you, Teazer offers three others locations – West Shaw at Feland, Downtown in the Galleria and on Olive in the Tower District. Each location has a unique vibe, but offers the same tasty drinks! For more info, visit their website here.)