I know we haven’t even gone through winter yet, but Danville’s Rose Garden seems to be on its way to making things look like springtime.

Located along the southeast corner of Camino Ramon and Sycamore Valley Road, the project headed by Blake Hunt Ventures hopes to bring a collection of unique shops to the Tri Valley area. The 48,500 square feet of specialty retail, 10,600 square feet of office space and 350 parking spaces will house restaurants like San Ramon’s Cafe Esin, Amici’s Pizzeria, Bittersweet Chocolate Cafe and Amaranta Cocina Mexicana.

Already open on the building site is the Navlet Garden Center, which has taken up  2 and 1/2 acres of the total 10 plus acres.

The developers are hoping that the Rose Garden will be able to retain the interest of Danville residents from shopping elsewhere, and they also hope to bring along new customers along the Interstate 680 corridor from Pleasanton to Walnut Creek.

- Joseph Natividad

Nowadays, the only time the Green Valley Shopping Center in Danville gets filled up with cars is during lunchtime…when everyone’s headed to Taco Bell.

Business has been floundering ever since Albertson’s, the center’s anchor tenant, closed down during the summer of 2006. Neighboring shops have experienced a 10 percent decline in profit since then and they would all welcome a new addition to bring customers back to the area.

A doughnut shop, thrift store, dry cleaner, Chinese restaurant and hair salon currently fill up rest of the shopping center, but there have been rumors floating around that either a Longs Drugs or British grocery store could fill up the vacant lot.

Longs has inquired about only opening up a pharmacy but hasn’t filed an application with the city. Fresh and Easy, a grocery chain from the UK, is beginning to pop up in the Southern California area and looks to do the same up north.

- Joseph Natividad

Are you looking for a quiet neighborhood without much traffic and with beautiful homes with established landscapes? If so you should check out the homes in the Bent Creek and Old Ranch areas of San Ramon: www.BentCreek-Old Ranch.com.

Nestled in the Dougherty Valley, the Bent Creek-Old Ranch area consists of the following developments:

• Bent Creek
• Bent Creek Estates
• Bent Creek Parc
• The Hills at Bent Creek
• Old Ranch Estates
• Old Ranch Summit

The Bent Creek-Old Ranch area is bordered by the following boundaries:

• On the west by a hill that separates the Doughtery Valley from Alcosta Blvd. and the valley that includes the 680 corridor.
• On the south by the Dublin border.
• On the east by Dougherty Road, across from which is open space on the grounds of Camp Parks.
• On the north by a creek that separates where Dougherty Road becomes Bollinger Road (which leads on to the Windermere development).

The creek mentioned above travels through the whole Bent Creek development. There is a trail along the length of the creek, often on both sides of the creek, so every Bent Creek home has this beautiful trail to take serene walks, job, walk dogs, etc. You will find Bent Creek neighbors to be very friendly. I’ve lived in the Bent Creek-Old Ranch area for 15 years and I often walk my dog in the evening. My current dog is Bob who is some sort of hound mix and my previous dog was Betty, a gorgeous and incredibly well trained Flat Coat Retriever. If you have never seen a Flat Coat Retriever they are part of the same family of dogs as Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers, yet the Flat Coats have long black hair and are thinner, almost like a black Irish Setter but not so skinny.

The Bent Creek homes were built by Ponderosa and the Old Ranch homes were built by Davidon. The oldest of the Bent Creek and Old Ranch homes were built 15 years ago, and many have had their bathrooms and kitchens remodeled with new fixtures and counter-tops. One nice thing about a 15 year old neighborhood is that all of the landscaping and trees are well established. So many modern developments have no landscaping and the homes are incredibly close together so you get what I call the “fish bowl effect”, where it seems all of your neighbors can look right into your home like you were in a fish bowl. The Bent Creek and Old Ranch homes have great privacy due to all of the mature trees.

The other night the 9-piece Dance Party band that I run, The GROOVE Doctors, played a gig at
# 1 Broadway in Los Gatos, CA. After the gig when I was driving home I hit a curb and I blew out my tire. The hole in the tire was on the side and I knew from previous experience that this tire was not going to be saved and I was going to have to buy a new tire.

So I put the spare on, which was quite an adventure in itself, and I drove the car with the flat tire in the trunk to Big-O Tires in Dublin, CA located at 7121 Dublin Blvd., not far from the 580/680 interchange.  For 15 years I have lived in the Tri-Valley area which is in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area and includes the communities of:

• Livermore
• Pleasanton
• Dublin
• San Ramon
• Danville
• Blackhawk
• Diablo
• Alamo

I have been going to the Dublin, CA Big-O store the entire time I’ve resided in San Ramon and  I think they have the most fabulous tire warranty around. Big-O will fix all flats and they will rotate your tires, all for free. But since I destroyed by tire with the side blow out and it was not salvageable, I was resigned to having to pay for a new tire. So you can imagine my surprise and how pleased I was when I was told that my tire was under warranty and would be replaced for free, even though it was 100% my fault that I destroyed it.
Besides the great warranty, the other reasons I like Big-O is that they:

• Have a large selection of tires at reasonable prices.
• Do other tire related services such as alignment, balancing, shocks, suspensions, etc.
• Will do the work while you wait without you having a previous appointment .
• Provide a shuttle service if they are backed up or if the work you’re having done is more complex and takes a bit longer.

What is wonderful about the particular Big-O store that I frequent in Dublin is that every single person who has ever helped me in 15 years there has been wonderful and has had the three things I look for in outstanding customer service

• Friendly.
• Knowledgeable.
• Genuinely care about  your satisfaction.

These three customer service attributes are  not only what I look for when am the customer, but they are the foundation of what my realty company, Star Realtors Group, is built on.

One of my favorite things to when I need to go to Big-O for tire work is to drop the car off at lunch time and walk down the street to Athens Burgers, located at 6999 Dublin Blvd # A. Athens has been a home run hit since the day it opened. Athens has incredible burgers which big buns, large fresh cooked patties and if you get cheese of bacon, they taste wonderful. But the menu is not just burgers, there is everything from specialty chicken burgers and  sandwiches to Mexican or Greek dishes.

One last thing about Big-O. When I last had my tires rotated about six months ago I was convinced to replace the compressed air in my tire with nitrogen. I was told that the nitrogen had less moisture than the compressed air and therefore would help my tire maintain it’s air pressure better and have more even and less wear. I was a bit skeptical but it was only $5 per tire so I took a chance. Well I can not believe how much the nitrogen has helped with the life of my tires. I have front wheel drive which tends to wear down the outside of the front ties. Since I switched to nitrogen in my tires they have wore much better and more evenly and there is much less wear on the front tires. given the cost of high quality tires, this is the best $20 I have ever spent.

If you are in Danville, CA and you want some great food at low prices as well as a “neighborhood bar” feel, then the Tower Grille is the place for you. Located at 301 Hartz Avenue by the Clock Tower, the Tower Grille was opened this summer and is run by local restaurant and bar veteran Gordon Clark. Gordon was the manager at Gordo’s in Danville for a number of years and then he went to run the bar at El Balazo in San Ramon.

The Tower Grille has been doing fantastic business right from the beginning yet they have done no advertising, they are relying on word-of-mouth to let folks know about what they have to offer. The owners of a bar or restaurant are doing something right if they can pack the place with no advertising and just rely on other patrons letting their friends, family and coworkers know that they have found a gem of a place to go socialize, have some drinks and get some incredible food.

To me what sets the Tower Grille apart from most sports bars is the decor and also the food. The Tower Grille is very nicely decorated, this is not a saw dust on the floor type of place. There is a main room with the bar and TV’s, a side room available for private parties as well as a covered patio. As nice as the decor is, the food is even better. This space used to be a steak house and the chef from that restaurant has stayed on. The steak is the “best around” in the opinions of the Tower Grille regulars. There are also lighter fare such as salads, there are a number of wonderful entrees and a great selection of incredible sandwiches. (My favorite is the Italian Sausage and Peppers).

Everything on the menu is less than $20 and most dishes are much less than that, so the Tower Grille is an incredible value. One warning is that this place can get noisy, a Sunday night football game I attended had some boisterous fans in the house. But if you want to socialize in a relaxed but clean and elegant setting with fantastic food, please check out the Tower Grill. To contact the Tower Grills call 925-820-6996.

San Ramon’s now 10-month old Home Rehabilitation Grant Program is appearing to be a success story, helping assist low-income residents to apply for up to $5000 in grants for home repairs.

Since its creation, the program has helped 49 San Ramon residents pay for their roofing, plumbing and other problems in the household. Out of those beneficiaries, 18 were seniors and 10 were female heads of their families.

The city’s Home Rehabilitation Grant Program has been such a hit that town officials would like to see it grow. At first, $125,000 had been allocated to the redevelopment fund but has now agreed to settle on a budget of $375,000 a year to keep up with the overflow of grant applications.

San Ramon isn’t considered a pioneer in this kind of city relief service – Hayward, Pleasanton, Livermore and Pleasant Hill have made similar efforts.

It’s good to hear about a program implemented by local Tri-Valley cities that have a genuinely positive impact on the residents that need dire assistance. I don’t see why other cities with large populations of low-income residents in the Bay Area couldn’t benefit from a similar type of program.

- Joseph Natividad

Downtown Pleasanton is taking things to another level. Already known for its assortment of shops and outdoor cafes, city officials are attempting to make it a place for local artists to showcase their work.

$50,000 has been set aside each year by Pleasanton since 2000 and now their fund now has grown to over $350,000 and counting.

The downtown area is rich in architectural history but has little public art to show for it. The city’s plan is to bring pieces that “reinforce community identity and values.”

There have been quite a few ideas thrown out in the open that the city council is deliberating over. Among them are a rotating exhibit of banners, a sculpture on one of Main Street’s corner and artistically inspired benches all over the downtown area.

Another interesting proposition was a chalk festival on Main Street. Children and adults alike would be allowed to draw on sidewalks during the two-day-long event. I thought to myself: that would be quite a sight to see a bunch of hopscotch squares and names written in funky colors.

- Joseph Natividad

Penny Pennington of Livermore heard about a request for small-batch ice cream recipes and she gladly turned in a simple one she had for peach ice cream. The recipes were meant to be used in smaller electric ice-cream machines and hers turned out to be the unanimous favorite of all the testers.

I learned that most beat up, overripe fruits help make the best tasting ice cream and sorbet. They end up getting mashed and pureed so their appearance doesn’t really make for much of a difference anyway.

I was always curious as to how homemade ice cream could be made. Penny Pennington’s recipe sounds simple enough for a novice in the kitchen like me. Her recipe yields about eight servings and takes 10 minutes to make.

She uses fresh peak-season peaches and blanched them in boiling water for about a minute to loosen up the peels. Click here for the recipe.

The summer heat has been turning up as of late and no time is better than now for a scoop of some of your favorite ice cream. Penny Pennington proves that you don’t have to drive to your local Cold Stone Creamery or try to get a hold of the neighborhood ice cream truck before it drives away. All you need are some overripe fruits, a few kitchen appliances and other common ingredients and you’re pretty much set!

- Joseph Natividad

Hope Hospice has been providing the Tri-Valley area with end-of-life and bereavement care for the past 27 years. Lately, it has been desperately searching for a new place to call home in order to move out the space they are renting on Dublin Boulevard.

Jim Tong, the man who oversees a number of property holdings in the area, heard about the organization’s problems and looked to see what could be done to help. He talked to the Lin family, who was willing to donate a half-acre of land to Hope Hospice near Fallon Middle School on Keegan St. and Kohnen Way.

The organization’s intended land savings will now be used to build a permanent office space.

This is not the first time that the Lin family was able to give a helping hand to the city. They had previously donated a large sum to the Dublin Library, which opened sooner than it would’ve without them.

It’s nice to hear a story of people giving back to the community especially on this Labor Day weekend. You don’t have to necessarily allocate huge sums of cash to your local charity. Just think about donating your time to help volunteer locally. It can be at a soup kitchen or a senior home — you can certainly make a difference in someone’s life.

- Joseph Natividad

The newly opened, state of the art Dougherty Valley High School opened this past Monday. Located in Windemere, the newest addition to the San Ramon Valley Unified School District begins with just freshmen and sophomores, and the first graduating class will be in 2010.

The $130 million dollar project was paid for by Shappell and Windemere BLC Developers as an incentive in order to be allowed to build 5000 new homes in the area. Featuring wider hallways, easily accessible classrooms, larger lockers and a boatload of new technology, prospective students helped come up with the high school’s design.

Dougherty Valley High School is also employing a new kind of security system in which teachers can use Columbine security locks if they spot intruders on surveillance.

The city of San Ramon used $9 million to share part of the costs in building the school’s Olympic sized pool and a performing arts center that can seat up to 600 people.

- Joseph Natividad