Is a wine bar/charcuterie place headed for downtown Fresno? Awards give a peek at future
A local charcuterie business has its eye on downtown Fresno, with plans to open a wine bar and market that would also carry its meat and cheese boards.
Fig & Honey Lavish Grazing is a catering company that creates extravagant tables piled with cheese, fruit, nuts, and meats for big events, and sells smaller boards and boxes.
It is the grand prize winner of downtown Fresno’s Create Here 2020 Business Plan Competition, announced Wednesday.
The competition, organized by the Downtown Fresno Partnership, is a way to boost new businesses in downtown. The winner gets a $10,000 cash prize to help open their business.
But for the rest of us, the competition is a sneak peek at what businesses may be coming to downtown Fresno – and some new ones that are already up and running. In addition to the grand prize winner, four more businesses won awards.
Several businesses that have gone through the competition in years past are alive and thriving, including Modernist craft cocktail bar, raw food and vegan business Raw Fresno and Root General store.
In total, $25,000 was awarded to businesses from a grant from the Central Valley Community Foundation and JP Morgan Chase’s PRO Neighborhoods grant.
Not every winner ends up opening a business in downtown, but many do, especially the grand-prize winners.
Each winning business is at least 50% women or minority-owned.
Keep reading to see this year’s second though fifth place winners.
Fig & Honey
Fig & Honey owners Allison Cassabon and Kellie Hasson are planning to bring their business to downtown’s brewery district. They haven’t released an exact location yet and didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
The site would also act as a home base for the catering business, in addition to the wine bar and market.
The business provides elaborate “grazing tables” that can feed around 300 people. It also has an online store selling smaller versions like $40 picnic boxes, for example, with brie, pickles, olives, oranges, meat, crackers and more.
More winners: Plant store, drive-in, etc.
Barb’s Drive-In, already up and running, is the second-place winner with a $5,000 prize. The drive-in theater, by the same people who run food truck Barb’s Soul Food, shows movies on a 40-foot blow-up screen in a downtown parking lot between the Crest Theatre and Chukchansi Park.
Tumbleweed Baking Company is the third-place winner with a $5,000 prize. It doesn’t have a storefront yet, but owner Meagan Anton hopes to open a bakery and cafe serving pastries, lunch, coffee and “after-dinner nightcaps.”
Quail State is the fourth-place winner with a $2,500 cash prize. The downtown rooftop bar is open for takeout drinks and as a market serving natural wines and bartending gear.
Living Together LLC is fifth-place winner with a $2,500 cash prize. The store is open by private appointment now at 2017 Tuolumne St. selling houseplants and ceramic art and pots. It will open to the public soon.
