The Reynolds, Venice, Italy May 31st, 2025
If we're lucky, perhaps Evonne will invite all of us out for a Saturday night Livermore hoedown or a hootenanny.
By Peter Hartlaub, Culture Critic April 24, 2025
I’ve been in downtown Livermore all of 10 minutes, sitting on a bench in front of a fountain, when the most Livermore thing happens.
A woman with short gray hair and a bright purple blouse, pulling a cart with a giant speaker, is strolling up First Street singing Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” with all her heart. Who needs a Chamber of Commerce when Christina Morales is spending her Monday morning doing solo sidewalk karaoke?
Livermore is a town known for (in ascending order) its agriculture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a really old light bulb that won’t go out. But there’s a fourth draw that Morales embodies: an earnest throwback charm that has to be experienced in person.
“Variety and diversity,” Morales says, taking a break from “switching it up like Nintendo.” “We have a range of people, working on ranches and in wine country, and we have the labs here too. … (Livermore) changes, but also stays the same.”
Like a lot of native Bay Area residents, I’ve been sleeping on Livermore for most of my life. Until recently I wasn’t even sure it was in the Bay Area. (It’s the easternmost city in Alameda County … condolences to Tracy.)
But a few visits in recent years to watch my kids run at Granada High School challenged my lifetime Livermore indifference. There are grapevines everywhere. The weather seems eternally perfect. The city is surrounded by green rolling hills. “It’s so nice there,” I kept telling my wife.
Before my trip to the city’s historic downtown, I email Gasia Mikaelian, KTVU journalist and Livermore native, asking for a few suggestions. “I LOVE LIVERMORE,” is Mikaelian’s all-caps response. But she says the prospect of Livermore as destination is a newer phenomenon.
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I’ve been in downtown Livermore all of 10 minutes, sitting on a bench in front of a fountain, when the most Livermore thing happens.
A woman with short gray hair and a bright purple blouse, pulling a cart with a giant speaker, is strolling up First Street singing Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” with all her heart. Who needs a Chamber of Commerce when Christina Morales is spending her Monday morning doing solo sidewalk karaoke?
Livermore is a town known for (in ascending order) its agriculture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a really old light bulb that won’t go out. But there’s a fourth draw that Morales embodies: an earnest throwback charm that has to be experienced in person.
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“Variety and diversity,” Morales says, taking a break from “switching it up like Nintendo.” “We have a range of people, working on ranches and in wine country, and we have the labs here too. … (Livermore) changes, but also stays the same.”
Christina Morales sings karaoke with her portable sound system on First Street in Livermore. Morales, who works at a local school, frequently sings and dances around the city’s downtown area after work.
Florence Middleton/For the S.F. Chronicle
Like a lot of native Bay Area residents, I’ve been sleeping on Livermore for most of my life. Until recently I wasn’t even sure it was in the Bay Area. (It’s the easternmost city in Alameda County … condolences to Tracy.)
But a few visits in recent years to watch my kids run at Granada High School challenged my lifetime Livermore indifference. There are grapevines everywhere. The weather seems eternally perfect. The city is surrounded by green rolling hills. “It’s so nice there,” I kept telling my wife.
Before my trip to the city’s historic downtown, I email Gasia Mikaelian, KTVU journalist and Livermore native, asking for a few suggestions. “I LOVE LIVERMORE,” is Mikaelian’s all-caps response. But she says the prospect of Livermore as destination is a newer phenomenon.
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“I still marvel at the fact that people come to Livermore from other (‘cooler’) cities to shop/eat/go wine tasting,” Mikaelian writes. “Growing up there in the 1980s, it was very much a ‘cow town.’”
Livermore is named after Robert Livermore, an Englishman who immigrated to California in 1822, established a cattle ranch, then built a fortune, turning the Livermore Valley into a way station for fortune-seekers heading to the Sierra. Though less revered than Wine Country to the north, Livermore has grown grapes since 1840, around the time Napa got started.
The Chronicle pretty much ignored Livermore until 1924, when city leaders unveiled the slogan “Live Longer in Livermore,” combining census and climate data to make dubious assertions about longevity among residents. (“Livermore Claims Fountain of Youth,” the first headline read.)
Vine Cinema & Alehouse on First Street offers movies, beer food and plenty of local wine in Livermore.
Florence Middleton/For the S.F. Chronicle
Around that time Livermore established the “World’s Fastest Rodeo,” continuing this June, where gates are lined up so the bull riding and barrel races start as soon as the last one ends. The U.S. Department of Energy in 1952 established the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory science and technology institute, where five periodic table elements have been created, including Livermorium. And in recent years the city has been aggressively reclaiming its wine roots, recently establishing a “Wine Heritage District” to raise money for marketing and education.
There’s a little bit of all of this on First Street, the city’s walkable main drag, where Baughman’s Western Outfitters (established in 1881) exists near a park with a giant, rotating ball sculpture that dispenses Lawrence Livermore facts. (“Livermorium has 116 protons!”)
A window display at Baughman’s, which has been selling westernware to Livermore since 1881.
Florence Middleton/For the S.F. Chronicle
I break my rule of exploring Bay Area downtowns by transit and bike (BART directors voted down a Livermore extension a few years ago) and drive to the city limits before biking in. There’s so many very old and brand-new buildings in Livermore, often adjacent to each other, that it looks like the aftermath of a violent collision between two different cities.
Mikaelian insists I start at Donut Wheel, a First Street institution where Savanna Taing and her family have been serving the community since 1988. Their chocolate old-fashioned doughnuts done well are a metaphor for Livermore’s lack of pretentiousness.
Everything “there is 99.9% better than any fancy/prestige donut with bacon or lavender or whatever they’re putting on donuts these days,” Mikaelian writes.
From there, it seems like every other business is something beloved and old, or bubbling and new. I meet Bob Borden, who has been selling comic books at Fantasy Books & Games since 1980, in a gloriously cluttered space that rewards repeat browsing.
Customers browse a stack of posters inside Fantasy Books & Games on First Street in Livermore, which is packed with an array of comics, toys, games and manga.
Florence Middleton/For the S.F. Chronicle
Across the street is Locanda Wine Bar, serving cocktails, wine and Italian food in a pergola-laden indoor/outdoor setting since 2021. I opt for Tequila’s Taqueria two doors down, clearly a locals place, where I see two groups of workers in white overalls and safety vests and try to overhear their orders. (The carnitas are excellent.)
Livermore is clearly gunning for wine tourism dollars. But flyers on windows reveal ultra-small-town touches, such as a “Pajama Shopping Day” downtown and streets shut down every Thursday evening for a farmers market that appears to be a utopia of smoked meats. Even the store that sells adult toys has a family-friendly name: Not Too Naughty.
Residents seem excited about the changes, including a new minipark under construction near Borden’s store. The closest comparison may be San Luis Obispo, where wine country’s incursion and growth is so visible, but hasn’t impacted the small-town feel.
I hear this from Kenny Way, another Livermore native who owns the Vine Cinema & Alehouse, where Way started as a teen taking tickets. The 70-year-old theater has comfy couch seating, a huge lobby and robust wine menu, filled with local labels. (I’m charmed when my ticket taker Rolando is also my sommelier.)
During the first weeks of the COVID shutdown, Way says he started selling popcorn outside the theater on weekends. The line of Livermore faithful stretched for blocks.
“And they just kept coming back. It was nuts,” Way says. “We did that for 14 months and our customers supported us the whole time.”
I think about this later as I order a tempranillo red from Omega Road winery in Livermore Valley, relaxing in the spacious Vine theater. Maybe it’s better that tourism hasn’t exploded here.
Maybe this small-town aura is the real draw.