Down to Business

Novato Theater Company Looks for a New Home

Lease is set to expire on Pacheco Plaza location. Also, the Pacifics baseball team caravan makes a stop on Grant Avenue and a shred event comes to Ignacio.

The Novato Theater Company is looking for a new home as its lease at Pacheco Plaza shopping center creeps toward its June 30 expiration. The company will finish out its 2011-12 season with Noises Off and a search is on for a new space to start the 2012-13 season as planned in the fall. Pacheco Plaza management has worked with the company so it can complete all of its scheduled performances and is also renting them temporary storage and rehearsal space in the former Westamerica Bank building in the shopping center. According to Sandi Rubay-Turner, the new president of the company's board of directors, the departure from the 87-seat theater will make way for new retail next door to the Subway deli. “We’re still looking for performance space …

• Photos (1)

Should Restaurants Battle the Foie Gras Ban?

Fatty delicacy has caused a sparring match between high-end restaurants and animal rights activists.

Animal rights activists and chefs have been sparring over a piece of legislation that would ban foie gras from restaurant menus in California. A fatty delicacy, foie gras is created by force-feeding ducks and geese to create a plump and tender organ. Animal lovers argue that the force-feeding, which ultimately results in an almost 10 times larger liver, is cruel and causes animals unusual emotional distress. But the ingredient is common in area food establishments. Many local restaurants, including LaSalette and Santé in Sonoma, have signature dishes which include foie gras (a quick check of Novato restaurant online menus resulted in a swing and a miss). Moreover, California's only foie gras producer is in Sonoma County: Sonoma-Artisan …

•  14 Comments
• Photos (4)

What's Your Favorite Coffeehouse?

For this week's Readers' Choice contest, we ask you to pick the best place to hang out and enjoy your java.

You have a couple of minutes before work and you failed to properly caffeinate before you left home. Where do you stop for a piping-hot treat? You are meeting a friend for a chat, and that friend suggests a place for a latte and snack. Where do you meet? You need to get out of the house and get some work done on the laptop or relax and thumb through the New York Times. Where do you crash land? In this week's Novato Patch Readers Choice, we ask you to pick your No. 1 spot among the city's coffee and tea houses. Here are the nominees for this week. As always, if we've missed someplace, please tell us in the comments and we'll add it ASAP. Note: We left out Marin Coffee Roaster's drive-thru location on Novato Boulevard and the Starbucks …

•  10 Comments
• Photos (1)
• Documents (1)

Brent Ainsworth

3:21 pm on Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Anybody remember that coffeehouse at the Square called Massimo's? I liked it. Too bad it only lasted about a year.   more ›

Dominican to Host Celebration of Entrepreneurs and Innovators

About 40 startup companies, five speakers and networking opportunities for investors, entrepreneurs, business professionals and others on May 17.

Pot Club Owner States Case Before City Council

Green Door collective's Lawrence Pebbles says he's hoping to negotiate with the city despite a moratorium on licenses for pot clubs.

Federal agents closed a medical marijuana club in Novato two weeks ago, but the Green Door Wellness Education Center remains open right next door to the shuttered collective on Novato's North Redwood Boulevard despite a moratorium on medicinal marijuana dispensaries in the city. Lawrence Pebbles, who runs Green Door, has kept his collective open since April 2010 despite the forced closure April 24 of the Green Tiger collective and an effort by his landlord, David Cesena, to evict the business, according to a story in the Marin Independent Journal. On Tuesday, Pebbles spoke during open time in front of the Novato City Council to emphasize that he's waiting for a response from City Attorney Jeff Walter about a proposal for the club to stay …

•  1 Comment
• Photos (7)

Aircraft Engine Lease Firm Shows Dip in Profits

The Novato company recorded a profit of $2.5 million in the first quarter, down from $4.3 million in the first quarter of 2011.

Readers' Choice

What are Novato's 'Destination' Spots?

For this week's Readers' Choice contest, we ask for your favorite locations you'd either show off to out-of-town visitors or check out on your own during a staycation.

Switch to make-believe mode here for a minute and picture yourself in Novato as a visitor from a far-off land ... like, say, Nebraska. If you knew nothing about this place and relied on a Internet searches or travel brochures, which places would be worth seeing while on a visit here? If you were hosting someone from out of town, which places in Novato would you show to those visitors? If you were saving cash and doing a staycation, what places would you check out — possibly for the first time ever? Here are the nominees for this week's Reader's Choice Award for visitor destinations. As always, if we've missed something, please tell us in the comments and we'll add it ASAP. As you can see, we left out restaurants and nightclubs because the …

•  21 Comments
• Photos (1)
• Documents (1)

Novato Chess Club

8:38 am on Monday, May 14, 2012

Moylan's   more ›

Marin History Museum Launches Smartphone App

Explore ancient Miwok Indian sites, historic residences movie filming locations and more than 75 historic shipwrecks off the coast with the new app.

The Marin History Museum recently joined a small group of museums that offer mobile applications for the community. The Marin History Museum app launched on April 26 and gives users access to the largest and most extensive collection of Marin County related historic content. The museum is one of less than a dozen national museums, including New York MOMA, the Smithsonian Institutions, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Natural History, that have developed applications as part of their public offerings. “We are thrilled to be the only county history museum with such an advanced mobile application,” Museum Director Michelle Kaufman said. “This is an exciting era in our own organization’s history and we are so grateful to have this opportunity…

•  1 Comment
• Photos (1)