A little sandwich shop opened in downtown Fresno. One flavorful highlight? The people
The owner of a new downtown Fresno restaurant met her front-counter employee in an unusual way: Banged up from a car accident, she couldn’t drive, so she asked a stranger in her neighborhood for a ride.
OK, he wasn’t a total stranger. She knew his dad, who had talked him up.
But he gave her that ride, which snowballed into him helping her get the restaurant open and becoming the person working at the front counter.
“From the minute I asked him for a ride, he’s been working,” said owner Faviola Avelar of her worker, Kinley Gee.
She’s the owner of Downtown Oak, a newish restaurant at the corner of L and Kern streets in Fresno. It’s open for breakfast, lunch and, during Grizzlies baseball home games, dinner.
It specializes in sandwiches and breakfast burritos.
It’s a little place with a limited menu catering to mostly downtown workers. But it’s got a few unexpected perks on the menu — like havarti cheese and brioche bread.
There are little parfaits in pink and orange that shine like gems, made from ice cream and Jello.
“It sells like crazy,” Avelar said.
Those are made in house, along with pretzel bites, cake slices and a few other goodies.
The breakfast burritos cost $7.99. The build-your-own sandwiches are $11.99, or $13.99 if you get a combo with drink and a side (and the sides aren’t just chips, there’s candy and much more).
For the sandwiches, customers choose from six breads, six meats and a slew of other toppings.
Everyone who works here seems to have the same favorite sandwich: the turkey, bacon, avocado.
The people
One of the highlights of this place is the people.
The first person a customer will usually meet is the fast-talking Gee. He’s the one who gave the owner a ride.
If you’re new, he usually starts off with something along the lines of, “My name is Kinley, Favio’s in the back,” with a quick explanation of the restaurant.
Some of the retirees in the neighborhood just love chatting it up with him, Avelar noted.
“I’ve had people come and here and literally say, ‘Where is he at? He’s the face of this place, you know that, don’t you?’” she said.
One woman left when she found out he wasn’t there.
Gee has a background in construction, automechanics and those general handyman skills that the rest of us pay big money for. Plus, he was in the Navy — which he’ll tell you about if you hang around long enough.
Before the restaurant opened Avelar needed some flooring work done and to fix the broken glass on her cooler. She had a quote from a professional for $2,000, plus the cost of labor.
Gee shook his head.
“I said, ‘I can get it done for 300 bucks.’”
He did, and he’s been doing work like that ever since. He’s even been to known to walk up to strangers on the sidewalk and convince them to try the restaurant.
As for Avelar, she’s a bit on the quieter side.
She grew up here. She’s worked in restaurants before, though this is the first she’s owned.
She lived in Las Vegas recently, working “in the dirt” in the excavation business. When the pandemic happened, she moved to a pretty property with views of oak trees in Paso Robles.
Looking to do something more, she found the Fresno restaurant for rent on Facebook Marketplace. It was once CHARburger and later the BoxCar Cafe.
There turned out to be a convoluted connection involving a couple of cousins and a divorced distant family member that helped her land the space.
It has big windows that sunlight streams through in the morning. There are trees outside and a few outdoor tables.
She named the restaurant Downtown Oak because it reminded her of the views of the Paso Robles property, even though the trees here aren’t oaks.
It’s also why she created a seating area with comfy chairs and couches designed to encourage people to stay a while.
“This is the whole purpose of the (seating) area,” she said. Come and have a cup of coffee and enjoy the beautiful view.”
Details: Downtown Oak is at 901 L St. Orders can be called or texted in at 702-994-3905. Hours: Regular hours are 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. — and often later — Mondays through Fridays. During Grizzlies home games, the restaurant will be open special hours, usually reopening from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the evenings Mondays through Fridays, plus from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sundays.
