Downtown Riverbank, Riverbank, CA

Downtown Riverbank is built around Santa Fe Street, the old center of a town that began at a crossing on the Stanislaus River. The Riverbank Historical Museum and the public library sit among the storefronts. Every October the city closes these streets for its free Cheese & Wine Festival, now in its forty-ninth year, and a farmers market uses Santa Fe Street during the year too. Homes here are older and closer together than the stucco subdivisions farther out, mixed in with the small shops and civic buildings of the main street. Stepping from the commercial blocks onto the side streets takes about a minute. After dinner, those quiet side streets make an easy loop back to the car. Santa Fe Street is where the sit-down food is. Get Toasted, at 3308, is the brunch stop, and Black Sheep Kitchen & Cocktails, at 3319, opens seven days a week with a patio and a full bar. Just over the boundary on Atchison Street, El Ranchito does homemade Mexican food and seafood, and Sno-White Drive-In is the drive-in stop. For outdoor time, Plaza Del Rio is the small downtown park, with the Riverbank Skate Park beside it. The river and the large picnic grounds at Jacob Myers Park are a few minutes away by car. Small errands can be done on foot, but bigger shopping heads out to the Crossroads area or on to Modesto, a short drive south. StanRTA buses serve the town, and there has been no passenger train station since the Amtrak stop closed in 1999. The railroad is the thing to know. Freight trains on the BNSF line pass through Riverbank, so they are part of the soundtrack of living this near the old center. In exchange, Downtown Riverbank is the closest thing the city has to a downtown you can walk around.