MADE FROM SCRATCH

The French Laundry restaurant has teamed up with California Lottery in what’s got to be one of the tastiest promotions ever. At stake: a dinner for two at the estimable and wickedly high-end Yountville restaurant, and a two-night stay at the nearby Napa Valley Lodge. Lots of wine and Champagne too.

So how do you participate in this “Ultimate Foodie” contest, which runs through the end of the month?

According to a release from the California Lottery, it’s pretty simple.

Go buy an Emerald 10’s scratch-off, take a picture of yourself with the ticket and then “send us that photo with the best caption you’ve ever written telling us who you’d share this exceptional dinner with and why.”

You’ve got a 500-character limit to convince the lottery that you’ve earned this 18-course tasting menu dinner. But here’s the thing we have to mention. State lotteries have long been criticized because of the income demographic of the typical scratch-off buyer; lottery tickets are generally the poor-man’s gamble. It would be great if a couple of lesser means won this dinner, but we suspect a run on the $10 Emerald 10’s from all economic quarters this month, which is probably part of the idea.

The Lottery will pick a winner by Valentine’s Day.

The California Lottery brags that it is a $5 billion operation, and “one of the few state agencies that is a revenue generator,” and, yes, sales from scratch-offs go to fund schools and other wholesome things.

RUMI WITH A VIEW

Want to fight climate change while listening to the poetry of Rumi and other mystics? Well, who doesn’t?

 Mark you calendar and get set for the return of Rumi’s Caravan. The rolling poetry ensemble, made up of poets from around the Bay Area, is coming to Santa Rosa Feb. 7 for a day of poetry and a Persian eats throwdown at the Glaser Center in Santa Rosa. The event even includes live music and whirling dervish dancers.

All proceeds go to benefit the Santa Rosa–based Center for Climate Protection.

DOWN & OUT IN SANTA ROSA

Downtown Santa Rosa has a significant presence of homeless persons, no question about it. The morning scene in front of Peet’s on Fourth Street, the homeless who hang around the library—there’s a down-and-out, naked-city feel to these streets, and you don’t have to cock too much of an ear to hear the grumblings from local business owners about the situation.

Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Jonathon Coe sent around an email late last week to businesses in and around Downtown Santa Rosa. He writes, “During our meeting with many of you to discuss issues facing downtown as well as in the surveys we conducted, the topic of homelessness was mentioned a great deal.”

As the Bohemian was going to press on Jan. 6, the Santa Rosa City Council was meeting to discuss the issue, and what might be done about it.

What indeed. There’s a report from Santa Rosa city officials in the offing. We’ll keep you posted.

A plan is quietly afoot in Sebastopol to build a boutique hotel on what’s now the
site of the Sebastopol Tractor Co.

Local commercial real estate developer Ronald Basso and the Piazza Hospitality Group, which owns the upscale Hotel Healdsburg and h2hotel (and the upcoming h3 Guest House in Healdsburg) have brought in an architect to design a hotel for the site.

If built, the hotel would be located right around the block from another hotel-in-the-works located at the Barlow, an upscale retail complex. The area is a part of town that’s been subject to intense debate over development and the future character of Sebastopol.

Details on the hotel are scant. “We have an idea,” says David Baker, the San Francisco–based architect who designed the Piazza hotel properties in Healdsburg.

Baker says Basso and Circe Sher, Piazza group’s sales and marketing executive, have been laying the groundwork for the proposed hotel, which, he says could house a restaurant, spa, gardens in the spirit of Luther Burbank and perhaps work
space for artists. The property at 6828 Depot St. is 1.13 acres, according to real estate records.

The proposed hotel was news to James Saxson, who owns the 30-year-old tractor business but not the building it’s housed in, which had historically been the site of a lumberyard. Basso owns the building and the lot.

“I haven’t heard a word about that,” says Saxon.

He says Basso’s had the 1940s-era building up for sale “since he’s owned it,” and the asking price is $3 million.

“As much as I’d love to, there isn’t much to talk about at this point,” says Basso. “At this point, everything is very preliminary.”

He says he would like to develop the property, but it’s an open question as to what form that will take. “There’s a desire on my part to develop the property, no question.”

But he says, “You’re way premature on this. Nothing has been submitted, not even as a concept.”

Basso says he is sympathetic to Saxson and his business.

“He’s a small businessman and he’s struggling, and I don’t want him to think he’s getting kicked out next week, before this is even going before the planning commission.”

Northeast Sebastopol is where highways 12 and 116 cut through the town, which provides a useful metaphor for a town at the crossroads. Sebastopol has worked to attract the tourist trade to the advantage of the town’s tax base, while possibly ushering out some of the last of the agricultural services economy in the process.

“The whole farm-support businesses that were out here are gone,” says Saxson. “Ninety percent of what used to be here has disappeared.”

Redevelopment-minded Sebastopol leaders had previously put together the Northeast Area Redevelopment Plan for this part of town, historically the city’s industrial and commercial district. It called for a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use new neighborhood of 55 acres, with retail outlets, a “civic space” (park) and other developments.

As a candidate for Sebastopol city council in 2010, Basso, who owns numerous commercial properties in town, answered a candidate questionnaire about the plan pretty bluntly: “The Northeast Plan is dead and buried.”

Five years later, it’s not so dead after all—even if the hotel proposal is in its infancy.

“The [hotel] proposal is unformed as yet,” Baker says, “because we’re going to be taking a lot of input from a lot of people. We’re going to ask people, what do they want to see? Sebastopol’s a special place, and people will want to have a voice with what’s going on there.”

Baker hopes to see “workshops on the site” to talk about the proposed hotel, but none has yet been scheduled, and says the immediate task is to talk to the “various stakeholders and get their feedback on it.”

“We’re going to talk to the community first and not just say, ‘We’ve got the money, here’s the plan, if you don’t like it, go away.'”

Last June, city planners put on a workshop devoted to the fate of northeast Sebastopol. Saxson says he wasn’t invited to the workshop, but he went to it anyway. He says he didn’t hear anything about a hotel to replace his tractor store at the workshop, which Basso also attended.

In an email, Sher said she was traveling and unavailable for comment. Sebastopol councilman Robert Jacob did not return a call for comment.

A spokesperson from the firm that represents the Piazza Hospitality Group, Glodow Nead Communications in San Francisco, said she “cannot confirm that this project is connected to the Piazza Hospitality Group.” Pressed, she would only say that Piazza is “investigating” the plan.