FRESNO FOOD CHAIN FESTIVAL

FRESNO FOOD CHAIN FESTIVAL

Fresno is home to the nation’s biggest food festival, which takes place every May. It began in the 1970s as an annual company party for McDonald’s employees working at the first franchised McDonald’s in the country. Owner, Ray Kroc, celebrated the restaurant’s success with an event every year at his original store on Blackstone and Shields Avenues in Fresno, California.

It started as a day of free food and socializing for employees and quickly grew to include customers, who could comefor games, coupons and freebees, or to get their pictures taken with Ronald McDonald and shake hands with Ray Kroc. In 1976, to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the tenth store, friends of Kroc, Walt Disney and fast food giant, Harland Sanders, attended the festival, signing autographs and posing for photos with customers, an event that is immortalized with autographed pictures and video footage in the Fresno History Museum.

The tradition carried on after Kroc’s death in 1984 and expanded in 1985 when Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr., Baskin Robbins, and In-N-Out Burger—all California-based fast food chains—joined the festivities to honor Kroc’s legacy. Today, over sixty chain restaurants prop tents along Blackstone Avenue for the three day festival, which celebrates their 1940s and 1950s start-up histories and the ingenuity that’s helped them thrive across the country.

Every year, Albert Okura, who purchased the original McDonald’s in San Bernadino in 1998, donates items from the historic, Route 66 McDonald’s museum for display at the festival. Until 2010, this collection included a framed photo of Kroc, Disney, and Sanders from the Fresno McDonald’s ten-year party, which now hangs in the Fresno McDonald’s on Blackstone Avenue. The Route 66 McDonald’s museum is also the site of the original Juan Pollo, famous for their rotisserie chicken, which they ship hundreds of to the festival each year for the Juan Pollo booth and chicken auction.

Today, festival goers from all over the world can still meet and get pictures with classic food chain personalities like Ronald McDonald and Wendy, and recent years have brought special guests like Jarred, from Subway; Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Hannah Ferguson and Paris Hilton, from Carl’s Jr. commercials; and All Pro Eating Competitive Eaters, Molly Schuyler and Jamie “The Bear” McDonald.

The food eating contests are the largest festival attraction. There are over fifty eating competitions every year where contestants can vie to eat the most Taco Bell bean burritos, buckets of KFC fried chicken, or Jack in the Box tacos. Or, they can take the Double Down Challenge, consuming five sandwiches—ten friend chicken patties, five hamburger patties, fifteen strips of bacon, plus barbeque sauce and pepper dressing—in under ten minutes.

In recent years, the Taco Bell booth has become a popular draw because Fresno is a frequent test market for new Taco Bell menu items. Festival attendees, like food critics, journalists and fast food enthusiasts, visit the booth to try experimental items before they’re released to the public, like Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos taco, that has a shell coated with the nacho-cheese flavoring of Frito Lay’s Doritos, or the Fried Breakfast Waffle Taco, which consists of a waffle, folded in half, stuffed, taco-style, with egg and sausage, and then fried to artery-clogging perfection. The Pepsi booth is also an event favorite that’s brought special guests like NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, and musical artists Janet Jackson and Brittney Spears.

Some attendees come just to walk down Blackstone past all the colorful booths and street performers juggling, handing out balloon animals, and playing card tricks. Many of the tents offer samples, raffles, and drawings. The tables are lined with goodie bags and stuffed with coupons, fliers, t-shirts, pencils, mugs, stickers, and post cards. Food chains celebrate their landmarks—openings, closeouts, and sales achievements—with the public, sharing one-time-only items and giveaways. Year round, local franchise owners work to prepare their booths for the thousands of visitors that come to Fresno for the festival each spring.

The Ironic History of Randalph Mortes

The Ironic History of Randalph Mortes

At the dead end of 21^st Street and facing M Street, set within a grassy park, is the Merced Pork House Museum. One of the most historical locations in Merced County, the origin of the grandiosely pillared building dates back to the creation of Merced as a town in 1889 when it served as the county courthouse. By 1935 the newer courthouse was built several blocks away, and the white, elaborately constructed building remained unoccupied for the next three years. Randalph Mortes, the county’s local pig farmer, took out a property loan from the city and gained possession of the property.

After several months, Mortes and his family opened the doors of the building to invite the community into their Morty’s Merced Pork House, a specialty butcher market which sold only meat from Mortes widely renowned champion pigs. Mortes used the multitudes of rooms within the old courthouse as different curing, smoking, butchering, and baking stations, utilizing parts of the pig that were not yet commonly considered as sellable—jowls, tails, anuses, tongues, cheeks, nose, and testicles, to name a few. The experimentation with the stranger parts of pig earned the incredulous interest of the public, and the implementation of tasting small portions of the products before purchase quickly allowed Morty’s to skyrocket in profit and popularity.

By 1941 Randalph Mortes and family were some of the most prominent citizens in Merced County. The flyers, advertisements, and radio spots remained relatively simple, the catchphrase “Be a sport! Make it Mortes,” was a household proverb. When local restaurants began establishing supplier contracts with the Pork House, Mortes developed the idea to open a Pork House restaurant as well. Half a year later, roughly ten blocks down M Street from the Pork House, “The Bar-B-Q Pit” opened to a stunning crowd of around 12,000 people from Merced, Livingston, Atwater, and other surrounding areas; the unveiling of a six foot wooden statue of a pig, standing upright in coveralls, bandana, and a cowboy hat with a long wooden spoon in his hooves, was one of the first of what would be many town monuments designed and created by Mortes niece Sandra Carl. **IMAGE HERE PIG BAR-B-Q PIT**

The period of prosperity and plenty lasted until the beginning of 1953 when Randalph Mortes, at the age of 40, died of a heart attack. Both his family and the community were devastated at the news that Mortes untimely death was influenced by cholesterol issues in relation to the amount of pork he consumed on a daily basis. The shock forced the family to close the Pork House for several days while they planned the funeral, and ultimately their grief kept them from reopening the doors. Rather than close the doors of the restaurant, the family sold it to the restaurant’s manager; the man had been running the restaurant with the Mortes since the first day. Unfortunately, without the steady production of Morty’s Pork the restaurant lost a lot of business, but the gradual growth of the city population kept it alive enough to turn profit and keep out of the red.

Randalph Mortes’s family continued to maintain the ranch and pig farm but soon pursued other careers as newer generations grew up; in 1967 the family was approached by the City of Merced to memorialize the Pork House by turning it into a museum of the local history, particularly that of Randalph Mortes’s role and accomplishments in the community. The family consented, and signed the rights of the property over to the city. Mortes’s widow and eldest son cut the tape on the opening day of the Merced Pork House Museum in 1969. Citizens who visit report that the rooms still smell of salted pork and bacon.

Among the extensive exhibits and artifacts within the museum are; the original antique meat grinder used during the Pork House’s first years; a preserved, dehydrated, never-snapped sausage link hanging in the old curing room; boards from one of the original butchering blocks, stained with swine-blood and soft to the touch; a hand-painted sign with the “Morty’s” slogan and a winking pig; countless photos of Randalph Mortes shaking hands with mayors, handing out packages of pork, serving diners at The BBQ Pit, showing a pig at an agricultural fair.

The Merced Pork House Museum offers tours every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening—the tours are always ended by the party being escorted on foot the ten blocks to The BBQ Pit where the attendees are offered a discount on their lunches/dinners. Afternoon fees are five dollars, and evening fees are $7.75. Discounts for seniors and children under three years of age are available.

The Sportsman’s Lounge at the Lime Lite

The Sportsman’s Lounge at the Lime Lite

Sportsmen of all disciplines come to the brick and deep burgundy walls of the Lime Lite’s Sportsmans lounge to shake off the spells of the day, but find instead that this dark dinner house known by many for being a “Fresno tradition” contains a state of the art facility where semi-professional tennis players, golf aficionados, professional kayakers and wrestlers come to experiment with new equipment amongst the happy hour Lime Lite martinis, fried goods and disco tech. Owner Brandon Smittcamp, avid golfer and health junky, masterminded the Lime Lite restaurant’s new presence as a sportmans lounge early this summer after having had a vision within a dream that placed him in proximity to scholars and self-actualized individuals including Aristotle, Maslow, Kierkegaard, Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze. Inspired by the vision, Smittcamp decided with much community support to create a recreational entity geared to support coaches, trainers, semiprofessionals athletes and beachcombers alike in inter-disciplinary discourses, providing a meeting place of like-minded individuals that compare strategies scribbled out on green cocktail napkins. New to the facility is a roof-top driving range where patrons after procuring a new driver can test out their new purchases by targeting mid-day east or west bound traffic along beautiful Shaw Avenue. The roof-top facilities also provides space for Fresno City College’s Astronomy club that meets twice a week sharing the space with the Central Valley Extra Terrestrial Tarot Readers, and PIT (Paranormal Instrument Testers) that have recently proven the spot above the restaurant on Shaw Avenue to be latent in cosmic energy, making the Lime Lite a hot spot for multidimensional transcendence into the spirit realm. According to expert opinion, this “hot spot” is attributed to the large number of Fresno’s elderly customer population that crosses into the afterlife and The Lime Lite’s doors on a regular basis.

Come in any given day of the week and witness the fervor and excitement for the love of sports by rubbing elbows with some of our local celebrities who have streamlined some of greatest athletes clubs, and organizations within these vary walls. One local icon available on a daily bases on the grounds of the facility is a local philanthropist, and semiprofessional tennis player, Mike McGaffrey. Mike McGaffrey also known locally as “Coach to the Stars” is known to have taught such tennis greats as Nick Nelson “The Five Handed Tennis Freak” from Honduras, Comedian Woopi Goldberg, and tennis legend and grand slam title holder Martina Navratilova. Beyond these tennis greats The Sportsman’s Lounge takes pride in providing an underground state of the art gym located just below the entrance doors, with the first Olympic size swimming pool and kayaking simulation center known to be the first of its kind here in the greater Fresno Fig Garden area. Come every Thursday night for local Game night and sit at John the “He-man” Heberger’s round table as he entertains you with his best Aaron Neville impersonations, and recounts his tales of big game hunting on the wondrous Fresno landscapes and blossom trails just outside the Lime Lite doors.

Local Cuisine: Tri-Tip

Local Cuisine

Tri-Tip

Although barbecue is ubiquitous throughout the United States, the Central Valley is home to a cut of meat that does not exist anywhere else in the world: Tri-Tip. Weighing a scant 1.5 to 2.5 pounds, this tiny triangular muscle (tensor fasciae latae) lies at the bottom of the sirloin subprimal cut and seems to only be found on cows butchered in Central California.

It seems obvious to Central Valley butchers now, but its success was not so certain back in the early 1950s, when this bovine section was overlooked due to its tough, sinewy texture. Credit for the discovery of this sacred-cow part is shared by Otto Schaffer, a German immigrant butcher and former owner of Schaefer Meats in East Oakland, and Bob Schutz, a one-armed butcher and former meat manager at a Santa Maria Safeway. Both men are recognized as the founders and promoters of this previously unknown cut of meat. It just so happens that within the same year and within only a few hundred miles of each other, these two strangers each posed the same question with similar results: What if, instead of being ground for hamburger or chopped for stew, this tough little muscle got seasoned and slow roasted and carved just right? The delicious answer to that question has made food history in the Central Valley.

This tasty cut is a must-try for those coming to Fresno. There are two possible locations, depending upon which end of town you find yourself. On the north side of town, located in a strip mall off Cedar and Herndon, is a tri-tip kiosk called Mike’s Grill. This spot is for those who want a picnic-like experience, as it offers only folding chairs and rickety card tables beneath a tarp on hot pavement. These sacrifices may be worth the flavorful, tender tri-tip Mike offers, but those with fussy kids who are looking for fries, a decent bathroom, and a temperature controlled dining room may want to look downtown where you can find Big D’s Tri Tip & More. Located on a triangular corner, very much shaped like the tri trip itself, Big D’s is in an old brick building that has recently been renovated as part of the revitalization of downtown Fresno. It has tables and chairs beneath a real roof and plenty of space to accommodate the tri-tip-hungry customers. They offer tri-tip plates, tri-tip tacos, tri-tip chili, tri-tip chili dogs, and tri-tip frito boats all for reasonable rates. One thing to note is they close at three each day, so don’t plan on this spot for supper.

If you are a do-it-yourself kind of grill man (or woman) and you want to take a bit of the Central Valley dining experience home with you to Connecticut or wherever you hail from, I have included a recipe for grilling this yourself. However, you may need to stock an ice chest full of the meat to take back with you, as you will likely be disappointed trying to find it at meat markets in your hometown where the butchers are probably grinding up this muscular gem instead of proudly placing it in the display case for the culinary pleasure of the true meat connoisseur.

Bob’s Simple Tri-Tip Recipe

2-2.5 lb. tri-tip roast

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Salt

Rub the seasonings to cover the entire tri-tip roast. Place the roast on a spit and grill over an open flame (if available, use red oak wood to start the fire). Roast for 45 minutes or until the thick juices are dripping from the meat into the fire and you can wait no longer. Take it off the spit and be sure to slice against the grain, as this is what ensures a tender texture. Enjoy this Central Valley favorite and share it with friends!

Food: Fresno Grizzlies

Food

Fresno Grizzlies

 

In downtown Fresno, there is a relatively new attraction. Strategically placed next to the historic Fulton Mall, there is a new and improved ballpark. This premier ballpark is located on the corner of Tulare and H Street. Chukchansi Park houses the Triple A affiliate team The Fresno Grizzlies. The team has proudly worn this badge of honor, for the last 17 years the Major League Baseball’s (MLB) San Francisco Giants. Now, the Grizzlies have been dropped as the farm team; their contract null and void, but the community still rallies around the team. Clearly, by the surroundings of the Grizzlies Stadium such as the catty-cornered Greyhound Bus Station, vacant rundown factories, and the Fulton Mall, the community values and makes America’s favorite pastime accessible by all and allows fans to come in by the busload from all over. A great attraction and popular event in the ballpark is called “Thirsty Thursdays” during the summer months has crowds coming in by the droves. Thirsty Thursdays is when vendors sell Tecate Tall Cans for only two dollars each, making it a great compliment to watching America’s favorite pastime. So while players are playing their hearts out trying to qualify for the major leagues, the fans in the ballpark are consuming inexpensive, skunky alcohol for a cheap price. This specific event brings out the best in people and the attendees grow drunker by the inning. But be sure to purchase all the beer you plan to consume by the bottom of the 7^th inning, because they stop selling at the top of the 8^th which is at least one reason to pay close attention to the game. While some fans become disgruntled by this last call for alcohol, an advantage for the crowds is that you can purchase up to two tall cans at a time and with that knowledge, crowds can be more efficient with their consumption. An even bigger event is the Taco Truck Throwdown Challenge. Crowds from all over the Central Valley come to taste test homemade tacos served by various competing trucks. The Taco Trucks come from all over the Central Valley to win the title of Fresno’s favorite roach coach. This event is huge and it only happens once a year. Last year, over 12,000 “fans” (of food not baseball) attended the game this night. The tickets go on sale at the beginning of July (approximately a month in advance) starting at $20 which includes a t-shirt to wear as a reminder of the event. This t-shirt can be worn at the event to hide the inevitable spillage of salsa, kept as a novelty souvenir of the time you participated in a taste-testing, or often, participants give the shirts to each truck upon purchase of a taco for a signature and draw a creative picture representing the different trucks. Due to the creative nature of being a cook, many (at least one person per truck) has the artistic ability to keep the crowd commenting on their artwork for the duration of the taco consumption. The drawing serves as a reminder when it is time to cast votes and is somehow representative of their signature ingredient. While the intent is to bring crowds to watch Fresno’s very own baseball team, the crowds tend to be consumed with consumption and frequently miss the game plays, but not the food. This event reportedly uses at least:

2625 pounds of beef

1000 pounds of shrimp

1300 red onions

28,000 tortillas

550 heads of lettuce

75 pounds of Sugar

500 bunches of cilantro

1200 Limes

200 Liters of Sunflower Oil

300 gallons of Pace salsa

800 pounds of Lard (Manteca)

600 packets of McCormick taco seasoning

1100 avocados

200 pounds of sour cream

500 wax peppers (after running out of 2000 jalapenos)

400 Bottles of Tapito

Not to mention the unmeasured amounts of sweat and tears that goes into cooking for hours on end for insatiable crowds.

If you think this sounds good, you’re right. It truly is a delicacy to the crowds and worth the trip to Fresno—even if that means traveling by Greyhound.

Tommy Baker the Million Dollar Prime Rib Master

Tommy Baker the Million Dollar Prime Rib Master

During your next tour of Fresno, stop by the Lime Lite Restaurant and ask any staff member about Tommy Baker the million dollar prime rib master, and you will discover where good food comes in pounds, and cocktails glasses overflow like fountains flooding into the dining hall. On the eastern wall mounted just left of the rich dark wood bar you will find a shrine of caricatures of former employees of the Lime Lite Restaurant, some of them ghosts now, peaking in and out of the dusty walls amidst the 70’s décor. Looking past the stained paisley carpet and tuck and button hunter green booths you will find a small closet sized kitchen, humble at first glance, but a dwelling by which legends are created, and adding yet another sight to the tour of swanky and mysterious Fresno dark dinner houses. These spaces are filled with some of the greatest simple pleasures of life, some delicacies taking decades to perfect, some a life time and beyond, passed on from wooden spoon of inspiration from the greasy pot of spoilage. So can be said of Tommy Baker, long time chef of the Lime Lite Restaurant, and later patron, philanthropist and inventor of the world famous Five Pound Prime Rib Challenge. According to Former owner George Millutinovich, Baker was a connoisseur of the prime rib, having the moist and tender flesh with almost every meal of the day, creating some seventy different preparations of prime rib since the age of five. Some of these preparations made popular by Fresno residents include: Prime Rib Oscar; where a 14oz cut of prime rib is adorned with 5oz. of Dungeness crab and smothered with a rich and bold hollandaise sauce, Mexican Prime; a prime rib that is stuffed with 100 jalapenos and slow cooked in a deep pit with a Fig Garden wild boar straddling the prime for extra flavor and symmetry, and lastly prime rib ice-cream topped with a syrupy warm version of a jus. Baker was also famous for the vodca-horseradish jelly shot, which gained popularity in the late seventies, but fell out of practice by 1983 because of health concerns relating to some 50 patron heart attacks, contributing to 450 bypasses and over twenty fatalities during the scope of a fifteen year period.

The Prime Rib challenge first invented by Tommy Baker back in 1973 was an idea unsettled in the back of Tommy’s mind, but continued to ferment for the last 30 years before coming to fruition in 2000. Tommy believed that the 5 pound prime would help distinguish the restaurant from other dinner houses of Fresno, but Mr. Millutinovich was reluctant to add the monstrous portion of prime rib to the menu. The dream of mountain high prime rib never did leave Baker, and it wasn’t till the 1999 when he won $33 million dollars from the California Lotto at the age of 77 that he was able to convince Mr. Millutinovich otherwise. The prize winnings not only landed the Baker 5 pound prime rib Challenge on the Menu, still on the menu today, but also landed George’s family restaurant on the other side of town upon purchase of a new sight for the restaurant on the corner of Palm and Shaw Avenue. The new location of the restaurant more than tripled the size of the old location located on highway 99 and Clinton Avenue, but never affected the size of the kitchen. The “Small Kitchen with a Big Prime Rib” became a motto to the restaurant and later used for promotional purposes, commercials, and later creating bench marks to industry standard in the Fresno area. It was said that Mr. Millutinovich first coined the phrase, “Big ideas come from small spaces” affecting those across all disciplines of study locally and internationally, and later becoming a principle of study to innovators and entrepreneurs alike, intersecting with science, technology and society. Tommy Baker’s big check can still be found framed in the restaurant as a reminder of guest of how Tommy’s dream and love of prime rib helped to inspire an industry and people. The Baker 5 pound Prime Rib Challenge continues to intrigue patrons, but out of the 900 guest that have attempted to finish the colossal serving, only two have been able to finish, including Baker himself who practiced daily until his death in 2010, and his old drinking friend Richard Telles, who till this day can still be seen traversing an old oval dinner plate under the dim subterfuge of the smoky dinner house, with horseradish as sidecar, knife in hand.

The Fulton Mall

The Fulton Mall

Located in downtown Fresno between Inyo and Tuolumne Streets, the Fulton Mall is a pedestrian only zone that stretches for six blocks through the heart of Fresno’s central business district. The Fulton Mall boasts breathtaking Italian Renaissance, Basque, and industrial architecture that led Dickinson Weber, author of Early Tall Buildings: A Sentimental Sketchbook Collection, to assert that it “could probably not have been duplicated outside of California.” During your stroll along this marvel of 20th Century architecture, you can observe statues and fountains commissioned specifically for the mall’s construction, including pieces by Seattle’s George Tsutakawa, local artist T. Newton Russell, and renowned French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir. Currently, the Fulton Mall operates as one of Fresno’s most unique interactive museum experiences.

First proposed in 1958, construction on the Fulton Mall began on March 30, 1964 and was dedicated the following September. It is the brainchild of notable Austrian architect Victor Gruen, the man who, in the mid 1950s, was responsible for giving America the gift of the modern shopping mall, and named by The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell as having “may well have been the most influential architect of the twentieth century.” His work in Fresno is no exception, as the Fulton Mall is an exemplar of the true mall aesthetic as well as a living, breathing museum. Interactive exhibits on the Fulton Mall include shopping at discount clothing stores of all varieties, including farmwear, tasteful urban fashion, and quinceañera boutiques; getting coffee, food, or a drink with friends; or simply taking a stroll and enjoying the open air, the architecture, the artwork, and interacting with the true-to-life performance artists you are sure to meet along the way, from businessmen and -women, gentrifying hipsters, and down-on-their-luck hobos, vagrants, and addicts.

Attractions and Special Events

On Thursdays one can enjoy lunch from a variety of local food trucks, and be sure to keep yourself apprised of the many music, art, food, and beer festivals that utilize this historic space for their events. The first Thursday of every month sees the Mall transformed into a veritable wellspring of art and culture for Art Hop, where one can take a leisurely stroll through two historic landmarks (the Bankers Ballroom and the Pacific Southwest Building), a coffee shop, and a public house and observe the work of local artists. Multiple participating art galleries and museums are located very near the Fulton Mall.

The Mall offers something for sports fans as well. Chukchansi Park is located at the south end of the Fulton Mall where visitors can watch exciting reenactments of minor league baseball games by the cast of the Fresno Grizzlies, Fresno’s one-time Triple-A farm team for the San Francisco Giants.

In order to make the Fulton Mall experience as authentic as possible, plaques and signs have been completely removed from the premises to better recreate the tone and style the Fulton Mall exemplified when it was still a running, functioning mall, and to better achieve architect Gruen’s original intention, and not, as he once referred to the contemporary corporate shopping mall, as one of “those bastard developments.”

Note: Because of the Mall’s authentic recreation, visitors should be wary of undisciplined cyclists, stray dogs, motorized wheelchairs, carrying cash on their person, and interacting with the performers for too prolonged a period of time.

The Big Fresno Fair

The Big Fresno Fair

The Big Fresno Fair: More than just the Central Valley’s largest event!

The Big Fresno Fair (District), founded in 1884, is the fifth largest fair in the State of California. The District represents the 21st District Agricultural Association, an entity of the California Department of Food & Agriculture Division of Fairs & Expositions.

Attractions

The Big Fresno Fair has a long tradition of showcasing Central Valley Agriculture and Livestock. Visitors can Check out the Livestock Pavilion and see everything from farm animals to cow-milking demonstrations at the Challenge Dairy “Cow Palace” Milking Barn and more. This building features 12 days of livestock events including beef, dairy, goats, sheep and swine. By participating in these events, 4-H and FFA students not only have the opportunity to showcase and sell their animal projects, they also learn responsibility and gain agribusiness experience (unpaid labor).

Every year awards are given to those who compete in the Milk It For All It’s Worth dairy challenge where participants race against the clock to see who can fill a metal pail with the most cow’s milk in 90 seconds. Participants can register hourly in their respective age brackets 5-10, 11-15, 16-20, and 21 and older. The milk gathered from these lively competitions is later fried and sold for consumption by several of the Fair’s vendors (see Fair Cuisine). Winners receive coupons for discounted entry into other Fair exhibits, such as the Pinnacle Farms “Corn Castle” Planting Shed and the Barrett Brothers’ Plantation “Seed Depository” Insemination Shack.

Fairgoers can enjoy seeing baby animals like sheep, pigs and chicks, as well as all of the fun, educational and interactive exhibits in AgVentureland at the Big Fresno Fair! This unique experience affords visitors from all walks of life to experience the simple joys to be found in raising small livestock. Fairgoers can talk with farmers, ranchers, herders, and livestock specialists to learn all about the raising an animals from babies to big, strong, healthy adults, to the mass slaughtering to provide families all across the state (and even world!) with meat to eat, some of which can be savored on site!

Don’t forget to enjoy all of the fun also to be had at our Carnival! We have a giant slingshot, the Century Wheel, Super Shot Drop Tower, and many more!

Fair Cuisine

            The food you find at The Big Fresno Fair is unlike anything else. This unique food experience only comes around once a year! Don’t miss your opportunity to satisfy your Big Fair Food cravings! Don’t forget to pick up your Food Map at any Information Booth.

As you walk around the Fair, you will be greeted by an array of mouth-watering aromas at every turn. The Fair has seemingly endless options to choose from, ranging from deep-fried corndogs to deep-fried butter to deep-fried Pepsi.

• New Chicken Waffle Taco at Pepe’s Mariscos
• NEW spicy mango-flavored shaved ice treats Mangonada and Mexican chip-blend Tostilocos from J.L.Q. Concessions in the Wells Fargo Agriculture Building
• NEW Gooey Monster Funnel Cakes, Pan Puffs, Maple Syrup Funnel Cake and Deep Fried Candy Kabobs (bits of your favorite candy bars deep fried in funnel cake batter) at Funnel Cake Express Inc.
• NEW Deep Fried Candy Bars and Deep Fried Kool-Aid at MBM Concessions Fat Fanny’s in Sports Zone
• NEW Deep Fried Pork Rinds with Lime & Chile at Good Ol’ Burgers

Of course we make sure every year to include local fan favorites!:

• Deep Fried Oreo’s & Twinkies at MBM Concessions Fat Fanny’s Funnel Cakes in Sports Zone!
• Crab Fries, Seafood Gumbo, Gator Bites, Jambalaya and more at Southern Comfort Kitchen!
• Big Bubba’s Tri-Tip, BBQ Beef and Smoked Turkey Legs.
• Country Fair Cinnamon Rolls, Frozen Bananas, BBQ’d Corn, Churros, Sonoran Hot Dog, and more!
• Jumbo Corndogs, Polish Corndogs, Cajun Corndogs & Regular Corndogs
• Cotton Candy & Caramel Apples

Here are what some fair goers had to say about the food!:

John G. Abbot

“There are two things that I look forward to…beerrocks and soft tacos. That is the definition of traditional Fresno Fair food!”

Michael Brenner

“I come for the big pickles. Just the big pickles. Some people come for the corndogs and funnel cakes, but me, I come for the pickles. They’re just so big.”

Sara Moore

“Most definitely the shrimp ceviche from the Mariscos Stand! I look forward to it all year!”

Sam Krikorian

“As a medical doctor, I usually advise my patients to stay away from foods high in fat, cholesterol, and sugar. But at the fair, it’s anything goes. Have you tried the deep fried Snickers? Fat Fanny knows how to fry a candy bar just right.”

Jackyln King

“I would have to say that my favorite Fair food is the Baked Potato fully loaded and Corn in a Cup…and then for dessert, most definitely an ice cream sundae!”

The Mafia Trolley at The Old Spaghetti Factory

Nestled quietly off of Shaw Avenue, at the corner of 9^th Street, is one of Fresno’s finest Italian restaurants, The Old Spaghetti Factory. What makes this place unique is not the food, although it’s excellent, but rather the trolley that sits in the middle of the restaurant. Converted with tables, folks can enjoy an authentic Italian meal and drinks while sitting inside a real San Francisco trolley… a trolley that is rumored to be where Mafia kingpin Don Cordello was murdered in 1975.

James Randall, the original owner of the restaurant, had addressed these rumors dozens of times before his death in 2003, claiming that these were just “wild tales of gangsters that was more fantasy than reality.” He claimed the trolley was originally from the Northern California Traction Company, car 409, which ran in San Francisco until the mid-1970s. It was decommissioned and sat inside a warehouse until 1983 when it was saved through the efforts of the Bay Area Historical Commission and the Railway Historical Society. The trolley was eventually moved to what would become the Old Spaghetti Factory after Randall read the story about the displaced trolley. He wanted to save it and thought tying his soon-to-be-opened restaurant to the gangster myth of the Mafia Trolley would make for an interesting story and the piece of decor would be a conversation piece, so it was brought down to Fresno.

Shortly after the restaurant opened, stories began to surface that the trolley was, in fact, the real trolley where Colombo Family kingpin Don Cordello was fatally wounded on May 18, 1975 by a small group of gangsters headed by Jimmy “Zhoosh” Russo, a recently axed member of the Colombo Family that had a target on his back for defying Cordello’s direct orders..

Is this true? Here is what we do know.

The murder did happen in a trolley and the authorities today cannot identify the current location of the trolley. Russo was a Colombo Family Caporegime (Capo), one of the city’s most notorious crime families. The Colombo Family, headed by Cordello, dealt in liquor and restaurants as a means of insulation, running “pseudo-legal” operations that kept them safe from the troubles illegal drugs, prostitution rings and corrupt union dealings created. It also kept potential wars with other mob families running those games at a minimum. At the time, the family controlled more than 60% of the city’s restaurants and 85% of the bars.

According to former family members and historical documents, Russo initially ran errands and, occasionally, bartended. In 1967, at the age of 26, Russo had become a high-ranking Capo by showing his unquestionable devotion to the family after serving six years in prison for extortion, taking the fall for shaking down small businesses in lower Haight. Russo did spend six years in prison. That has been verified. According to stories, despite his loyalty, it was said that many other members of the family did not like him. It’s unclear what issue they had with Russo, but other Capos were often overheard saying there was “something different” about Russo and they felt “uncomfortable” around him, although it’s unclear as to what it was about him that made them nervous.

In 1969, Russo opened his first restaurant on Columbus Ave and 16th Street, The Spaghetti Factory, and immediately began catering to the gay population of San Francisco, a niche he thought the Colombo Family should control. This was a real restaurant that was very popular in the early 1970s. Initially, family members didn’t acknowledge that they were running the city’s finest gay establishment and ignored all signs that their new restaurant was a gay hub. Russo’s success prompted more moves in catering to the otherwise shunned gay population. By 1972, the Colombo crime family controlled the majority of gay bars and restaurants in the Castro, North Beach and the Mission districts, quickly becoming the epicenter for the city’s burgeoning gay community. Russo ran everyone of these places with great success controlling everything from the booze, the food, the jukebox and the cigarettes. He bribed San Francisco’s Sixth Police Precinct each month to turn a blind eye to the goings on at the establishments.

According to rumor, the Colombo Family’s Godfather, Don Cordello, could no longer ignore that nearly 100% of the gay restaurants and bars in the city were under his family’s control. He asked Russo to turn the establishments straight. Russo argued that he couldn’t just change the restaurants and bars and that the bars were what they were… nothing was going to change that. He asked Cordello to accept that fact, but Cordello didn’t believe that you couldn’t simply change an establishment straight. Former family member Vinnie “Muttons” Storgoni in his memoir “Growing Up Colombo” claimed that Russo wanted nothing more than for his restaurants to be accepted. Russo refused the Godfather. The biggest crime one can commit in the Mafia

In 1975, under the direct orders of Cordello, Michael “Mickey Bats” Mussini, another Capo in the Colombo Family, opened up The New Spaghetti Factory directly across the street from Russo’s Spaghetti Factory. Storgoni claimed the was Russo’s message that he would be killed. A few days later, Russo changed the restaurant’s name to “The Old Spaghetti Factory,” sending his own death message to Cordello.

On May 18, 1975, according to the San Francisco Examiner, Cordello was riding the trolley after picking up some bread at Geno’s Bakery. Russo’s faction, made up mostly gangsters from San Francisco’s Castro District, was on the trolley and executed Cordello. A single shot to the back of the head during the commotion at a stop where people were getting on and off. According to rumors, Russo, afraid of the evidence on the trolley, paid the police off and hired a moving company to get rid of the trolley. Russo disappeared never to be seen again. Some say he was caught and killed, others say he changed his identity and ran to a tropical island.

Randall always claimed the stories were all non-sense fueled by tall-tales from local patrons. Randall’s life-partner Steve Catalano, who took over the business after Randall’s passing, said no one probably will ever know and that’s what makes this restaurant so appealing to people. If you go to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, a drink and to sit inside a piece of folkloric history, ask the locals to tell you the story of Cordello and Russo and leave a nice tip for your barkeep.