‘Keep Tower Weird’ and ‘Mexican sushi?’ What to know about Fresno’s newest stores
Three new locally-owned stores have opened in Fresno.
Each caters to its own niche, with the biggest business being a Mexican supermarket.
Two other businesses that have been around a while in some form have opened new shops. One is geared toward knitters and yarn lovers. The other has a funky blend of stickers, art and gifts in the Tower District.
Sour Milk Shop
This little shop has all the quirkiness and sass you’d expect in a Tower District business, including the “Hello Sunshine” rainbow doormat that greets customers on Van Ness Avenue north of Olive Avenue.
Sour Milk sells all kinds of gifts, including stickers that say “Support your local subculture,” along with vintage clothing, books, candles and T-shirts.
The owners wanted to provide a place for artists who sell their work at events around town to sell their goods. Some artists’ products sold in the shop are local, others come from around the globe, said co-owner Ryan Urquidez.
Some products are hyper local, like the “Keep Tower Weird” sticker.
If the name Sour Milk sounds familiar, it may be because the shop had a small room inside Ragin’ Records on Fulton Street for a year before moving to its own, bigger store in February.
Details: Sour Milk is at 1474 N. Van Ness Ave. It’s open from noon to 6 p.m. daily.
Anzula yarn shop
Anzula is a yarn company in Fresno that has been selling wholesale to shops around the country for 19 years. When the pandemic shut down some of those shops and cut into sales, owner Kalliope Famellos started selling direct to consumers online.
Now’s she’s opened a retail store.
The company still processes, dyes and ships its wholesale yarn, but now a corner of the workspace is devoted to the store. It’s in a large brick building covered in murals on Blackstone Avenue south of Olive Avenue.
The store is open by appointment only.
The shelves are packed with a rainbow of yarn colors. Most of it is Anzula’s line of luxury yarn selling for about $35 a skein.
There are some other lines and sizes, including Anzula’s most popular colors packaged into $10 and $20 sizes.
The shop also offers kits with patterns for a shawl for example, complete with knitting needles and buttons. A few other notions are available like bags for knitting projects and needles.
Details: The shop is at 1001 N. Blackstone Ave., Suite 101. Customers can make an appointment online via its website, Anzula.com. Available appointments are generally between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays.
El Toro Loco Market
A new Mexican supermarket has opened at Shields and West avenues, in the former Las Palmas spot.
El Toro Loco Market is a full-line grocery store that opened the first week of March after new owners remodeled the space.
It now has more cash registers, and an expanded meat counter and larger frozen food department.
In addition to a produce department and all the regular supermarket departments, El Toro does check cashing and money orders.
It also has a jewelry counter and a restaurant called Tacos -N- Sushi in the back selling Mexican food and Mexican sushi.
A local business called Brans Sweet Treats also has a counter inside the store. It sells baked goods, like cake and peach cobbler in jars.
Details: El Toro Loco is at 1405 West Shields Ave. and is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
