Within about three weeks in September, Sonoma Plaza lost three businesses that many residents had built routines around. Vella Cheese Company sold its last wedge on September 4. Oso Sonoma and Parkside Wine Bar both closed on Saturday, September 26.
Over the same months, the places that opened or took in displaced regulars share a pattern. They moved into the Plaza's old civic buildings. Dead Letter is in the former post office, SMASH is in a historic bank building, and the Friday jazz that used to play at Parkside now plays in an old fire station. The Plaza's evenings are regrouping around a handful of historic shells, and the reason Oso gave for closing explains why the buildings matter so much.
Three civic buildings, three new uses
| Building | What it held before | What's there now | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Former post office, First St. E. and E. Napa St. | Maya Mexican Restaurant, for more than two decades | Dead Letter | July 16, 2026 |
| Historic Spanish Colonial bank building, 497 First St. W. | Taub Family Outpost | SMASH, with Beacon upstairs | May 2026 |
| Old fire station, Gehricke Wines on Patten Street | Gehricke's tasting room | Friday night jazz from the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society | Begins Oct. 9, 2026 |
Dead Letter comes from John Toulze and Sondra Bernstein, the partners behind The Girl & The Fig and Poppy. The Sonoma Index-Tribune describes the room as a modern California restaurant "with subtle nods to its post office past." There's a wooden postal window full of vintage postcards, and an Art-o-mat machine that once sold cigarettes now sells tiny $5 artworks. Chef Jeremy Zimmerman cooks on a three-level Spanish grill. Most of the larger plates are meant for sharing, such as a butterflied trout for two over red curry at $42. At opening, the posted hours were 5 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and 5 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with reservations at deadlettersonoma.com. In an October 1 Sonoma Valley Sun column, Kathleen Hill reported that the owners were hinting at seven-day service and possible pop-up dinners on three Tuesdays this month. No dates have been announced, so treat that as a plan for now.
SMASH is a much more casual project for chef Ari Weiswasser, who also runs Glen Ellen Star and Stella. Downstairs you order for yourself and sit at the bar, at communal tables or on a small patio. Upstairs, the Beacon speakeasy serves craft cocktails with the full SMASH menu. It's open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The Index-Tribune called the downstairs noisy and family-friendly and suggested takeout or the outdoor tables for anyone who wants it quieter.
Why the building decides who stays
Chef David Bush, who owned Oso Sonoma and Parkside Wine Bar with his wife Kelley Bush, put the closing in plain terms. "We have been in desperate need of upgrading and updating the kitchen and building in general," he told the Index-Tribune. "When it came down to it, it was too costly to spend the money on a building we don't own."
That decision ended a 12-year run. Oso won Best New Restaurant in the Index-Tribune's 2015 People's Choice Awards and had 14 employees when the closing was announced. Parkside, at 5 E. Napa St., had opened in September 2023. Two years later it won Planning Commission approval for beer and live music, a change Kelley Bush said at the time was meant to "broaden our appeal." As of early October, no report names a new tenant for either East Napa Street space.
The new arrivals got around the same problem in different ways. Toulze and Bernstein spent months rebuilding the old post office before opening. The Index-Tribune says staff wiped curious locals' nose prints and handprints off the windows every day during that stretch. Weiswasser moved into a bank building that already housed a food business. Gehricke didn't open anything new at all. Its firehouse already pours wine, and adding jazz on Friday nights only took a booking.
The stone building on Second Street East
Vella Cheese Company is the clearest case of a business and a building closing at the same moment. The company was in Sonoma for 94 years. Its shop at 315 Second St. E. sits in a stone building that local and company histories date to 1904, when it was built as a brewery. Tom Vella started his own cheese company in 1931.
When Vella announced in late August that production was ending, the owners expected their remaining stock to last several months. It lasted about 10 days. The Index-Tribune photographed a line out the door on August 25, and the shop's final day of selling cheese was September 4. A note on the company's website now says the retail store and mail order are permanently closed. The owners have said they plan pop-ups to sell their remaining aged cheeses but haven't set dates.
What happens to the building is the open question. In her September 4 column, Kathleen Hill reported that another Sonoma food family hoped to rescue the cheese factory. No family has been named and no deal has been reported. As with the post office and the bank, the next business there will probably be shaped by the structure it inherits.
Friday jazz moves down the block
The Sonoma Valley Jazz Society has produced live jazz in the valley for 37 years, and it was booking the musicians who played at Parkside. When Parkside closed, the musicians had to find a new home quickly. They found one at Gehricke Wines in the old fire station on Patten Street, on the same block as Parkside. The Jazz Society's page gives the address as 32 Patton Street, at the corner of Broadway, and describes the series as weekly Friday evenings with no cover.
The first night is Friday, October 9. The two published start times don't match. The Index-Tribune says 7 p.m., and the Jazz Society's own page lists 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. As of the Index-Tribune's October 2 story, the full lineup of performers hadn't been set, so check sonomavalleyjazzsociety.org before you go.
The move matters more this fall because Sonoma Speakeasy closed temporarily last month for its owners' medical reasons. That leaves the valley with two fewer regular live-music rooms at the same time. One Parkside program has no new home yet. Parkside was about to host Sonoma State jazz students in an artist-in-residence program, with drummer Joe Campbell and vocalist Ella Hoffman as the first artists. No new venue for the residency has been announced since the closure.
A few blocks off the Plaza, smaller shifts
Away from the Plaza's historic buildings, the changes this year were quieter and mostly about the daytime.
- Sonoma Eats reopened at 561 Fifth St. W. in the former La Hacienda space, which was Pearl's before that. Owners Efrain Balmes and Hayley Cutri are expected to add more of Balmes' Oaxacan family recipes.
- Sam's General Store opened at 520 Broadway, next to Delhi Belly, and is open 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
- Verano Café at 18976 Highway 12 in Boyes Hot Springs added dinner Tuesday through Sunday, under operators Beronica Peres and Carlos Rubio.
- Il Fuoco ended restaurant service in Boyes Hot Springs on May 31. Owner Rob Larman said a disagreement with the landlord contributed, and he plans to keep doing catering and smoking work.
Il Fuoco follows the same pattern as Oso. A business in a rented space reached a point where the arrangement with the building stopped working.
What's still unannounced
A few things haven't been reported yet:
- New tenants for the Oso Sonoma and Parkside Wine Bar spaces on East Napa Street.
- A buyer, or a named rescuer, for the Vella Cheese building, plus dates for its aged-cheese pop-ups.
- Confirmed dates for Dead Letter's seven-day service and its Tuesday pop-ups.
- A new venue for the Sonoma State jazz residency.
Each of those will show up first in the Sonoma Index-Tribune or Kathleen Hill's Sonoma Valley Sun column. The jazz at Gehricke starts Friday, October 9.
Sonoma Plaza's historic buildings have been changing hands and uses for generations, and the next change on Second Street East or East Napa Street will tell the town a lot about the coming decade. If you'd like to talk about how a building's history shapes what comes next for it, Carolyn Roberts would be glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.
