Oldtown, Salinas, CA

Oldtown is the historic downtown of Salinas, a grid of Victorian and Art Deco storefronts around Main Street that still works as the city's meeting place. It is a district of shops, offices, bars and museums, and the houses sit on the blocks around it rather than inside it. John Steinbeck is the thread running through the place. The National Steinbeck Center stands at 1 Main Street with hands-on exhibits about his books and his life, and the writer's childhood home is two blocks west of it. One of the handsomest buildings, a bank from 1929, now holds a brewery taproom. Amtrak's Coast Starlight stops at the station on Station Place just north of the shops, and Monterey-Salinas Transit runs buses through downtown. Eating and drinking is the main reason people come. First Awakenings at 171 Main Street handles breakfast, Patria farther up the street handles dinner, and Rollick's Coffee and The Beerded Bean cover the espresso, with beer on the menu at the Bean for later in the day. Alvarado Street Brewery runs its taproom in that 1929 bank at 301 Main Street, with dozens of taps and a full kitchen. On Saturdays the 300 block of Main fills with farm stands and food vendors from 9 until 2, whatever the weather. For grass and shade, Central Park at 420 Central Avenue has a rose garden, tennis courts and a tree trail for shade. Oldtown has produce stands but no full supermarket, so a weekly shop means driving out along North Main or South Main. Street parking is workable on ordinary days and stretches several blocks out on market Saturdays. That is the honest limit of living near here. It is a place to spend an afternoon, and its old brick fronts are the part of the city that feels most like a town square.