Shop, Eat, Work in Vacaville....and bye bye Nut Tree Park, but not the Village

Sorry to say that the new Nut Tree park is closing it's doors it was announced yesterday.... =(   As baby boomers, we missed the old park and the new park held the interest of the under 4 crowd, just not enough to get the crowds going and keep the place open any longer...We say farewell again to an old friend, and look to the future when the Harbison House will open to the public. Harbison house is a historic home that is being updated and readied for public viewing. In preserving both the Harbison House and The Pena Adobe house, we ARE keeping our past here in the present for our children to see how it was in the early days of Vacaville when we grew fruit and sold it to others and the early families who created the original Nut Tree created a marketplace for the fruit and locally grown foods, they opened a restaurant and a candy shop for the enjoyment of those who passed by on old highway 40 in the early years of the 20th century. Later that century, they were joined by the fast food places on "hamburger hill" mostly because the passersby would DREAM of hamburgers when they passed through Vacaville at that time because the Basic Onion Facility was processing onions on the same location as my office now sits, being so close to the freeway, people could not escape the onion smells of Vacaville and associate us with onions, hamburger hill got many visitors because of this onion hint, putting into the people's minds that they really should have a hamburger as soon as possible! Back in those days, there were few retail stores in Vacaville, it was mostly a sleepy, quiet suburb where people laid their heads down in the night and then hopped into their cars and headed to the bay area and in busses and vanpools to their jobs at Mare Island. Back then, that is how you saved gas, you had carpool buddies, people you literally spent more time with than your own families it seemed....riding in monumental traffic jams at commute times because most of the employers had the same work hours. Vacaville was what they called a bedroom community, few jobs and little shopping and even fewer restaurants, the big ones were Murillo's and Pietro's which are both still in operation and are still awesome places to eat....but are now joined by some other awesome restaurants that are now starting to withstand the test of time, Wren's Cafe, Baker's Square, Burger City being one of them, a great place to gather, eat, check the sports scores and have a great meal. Stars, Yen King and other places such as Country Waffles, Omelette Bistro and are taking their accolades for the superior food and great service! Later we all enjoyed getting our first round of OUTLET stores and then another whole block of them, being joined by COSTCO and Sam's Club and literally hundreds of other brand name stores, Vacaville is really one of the destination shopping centers in this part of California! Most recently we started to welcome in all the new and long-awaited stores and eateries at the new Nut Tree Village! A great place to shop and eat and get what you want and what you need from soup to nuts, Panerra Bread is constantly busy every time I go there due to their awesome menu and great atmosphere, have a HUGE ice cream delight at Fenton's which, if you ever think you can.....have a meal there before your ice cream, their grill menu is AWESOME! (One method is to share a meal and then get the ice cream after!) Did you notice that See's Candies is now out there? Ritz Camera, Safeway, String's, Applebee's, Togo's Eatery, Olive Garden and so many more awesome places are now at your Vacaville fingertips! Jobs in Vacaville have increased hundred and thousandfold since the late 1970's.....it used to be that more people commuted out of town to work than worked in town, but that number has shifted the other direction in the past 10 years.... with MAJOR international Fortune 100 companies located here, Vacaville has been on the map for a decade as a place to locate your business! With a great source of reasonably priced houses, great shopping, great location to a major interstate freeway that joins the state capitol with the greater San Francisco Bay Area and that means midway beach to ski mountains for us. Businesses have had their eye on us for a long time now and it shows... With some places that have been here for ages and ages like Lucky/Albertson's distribution warehouse to Mariani Fruit (which just installed a state of the art solar energy field) to P G & E and others. We have attracted large employers such as Genentech, which just added a new building to their campus, Alza (J&J), State Compensation Insurance which just opened their new office complex in Nov 2008, Kaiser Medical Center and others who have plans to move here as well in the future. DOWNTOWN Vacaville has also undergone a genesis....going from a place to get from here to there, placing the library and senior center there started bringing more people into downtown, adding a town square, shutting down the creekwalk, holding farmer's market, having free concerts and bringing traffic thru the area, many many nice stores and eateries are now located there, you can get your photo taken, buy jewelry, eat fresh baked goods, buy a bike, a walker or a house, learn karate or beadery, book a cruise, eat a steak, buy a guitar, watch a flick, get your hair done, do your taxes, exercise, or relax in a day spa, AND MUCH MORE all in downtown Vacaville! Barbara Adams, Realtor Kappel and Kappel Inc 401D Davis Street Vacaville, Ca. 95688 707-673-7500 Direct Line 707-471-4068 EFax BarbAdamsRealtor@Yahoo.com VacaHomes.com VacaDixonHomes.com "For your growing Solano family, Barbara Adams cares!"