"We enjoyed serving the community, but the numbers just didn't make sense." Chef David Bush said that to the Sonoma Index-Tribune in September, explaining why he and his wife Kelley Bush would close both Oso Sonoma and the Parkside Wine Bar next door on East Napa Street on Saturday, Sept. 26. Oso had been on the Plaza for 12 years. It won Best New Restaurant in the paper's 2015 People's Choice Awards and had 14 employees when it closed.

Parkside's closing reached past the dining room, because its Friday nights belonged to jazz. That music played again on Oct. 9, in a converted firehouse on the same block, with no cover charge.

What Closed, and the Reason Given

Bush named the cause directly. "We have been in desperate need of upgrading and updating the kitchen and building in general," he told the Index-Tribune. "When it came down to it, it was too costly to spend the money on a building we don't own." The paper reported that the restaurant had a hard first few years, then grew steadier as it became a favorite of both Sonoma Valley residents and visitors.

It was a hard September around the Plaza. The Vella Cheese Company retail shop at 315 Second St. E. made its last cheese sales on Sept. 4, earlier than its August closure coverage had suggested. The company said production had stopped and its retail and mail-order business had closed for good. In the same month, Sonoma Speakeasy, another live-music room, closed temporarily, and the most recent local coverage gave no reopening date.

An Oct. 2 Index-Tribune music column called losing both rooms "a blow to the musical vibrancy of Sonoma Valley." It also tested the writer's 2018 nickname for the area, "Valley of the Tunes." The writer coined it after an informal search turned up more upcoming live-music events in Sonoma Valley than in San Francisco. The column listed the pressures on venues: stay-at-home habits left over from COVID-19, streaming services, people drinking less alcohol, and rising costs. It put the fix plainly: "when we do go out, we need to spend more."

The Series Belonged to the Jazz Society

The detail that kept Friday nights going comes near the end of that column. Parkside never booked its own jazz. The Sonoma Valley Jazz Society has organized and produced live jazz in the valley for 37 years, and it scheduled the acts who played at Parkside.

Because the Society booked the musicians, the roster, the weekly time slot and the audience's habit all belonged to the Society, so they didn't close when Parkside did. The column described "a bit of a kerfuffle among the affected jazz musicians and a scramble to find them a new home." The Society only needed a new room, and it found one before October was two weeks old.

The new room is Gehricke Wines, in the old fire station on the same block as Parkside. The Sonoma Valley Jazz Society gives the address as 32 Patton Street, on the corner of Broadway, and spells the street "Patton." The Index-Tribune spells it "Patten." The Society's announcement reads like a change-of-address card for regulars:

Weekly jazz has officially moved from Parkside to Gehricke Winery at 32 Patton Street, a perfect new home for our Friday evenings.

The same page promises "the same great jazz just a short stroll down the block." For anyone who walked to Parkside on Friday evenings, that is the whole change. The route to the music is about the same, and the stage is now in a former firehouse.

Free to Hear, Kept Going by the Wine

The Society lists every Gehricke show as free, with no cover. The listening is free, and the Society is open about how the arrangement is paid for. Its page asks guests to "settle in with a few glasses of Gehricke's beautifully crafted wines" and says the wines "help support our new venue partnership."

That makes the Index-Tribune column's "spend more" line concrete. A winery has its own reason to fill a Friday evening. The Society brings the musicians and a regular crowd, and Gehricke supplies the room and the wine. The audience keeps the arrangement going one glass at a time. It is the column's economics put into practice, on the same block where the old version stopped working.

Check the start time before you head over. The Society's page lists the shows as 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Oct. 2 column gave 7 p.m. With the series this new, the Society's own site at sonomavalleyjazzsociety.org is the one to check before a Friday out.

The Rooms That Book Their Own Music

The rest of the week around the Plaza runs on a different model. These venues book their own performers, and the music is part of a business that already sells food or drinks every day. Taken together, they give a fuller week of live music than Parkside's Friday slot did.

Here is the recurring pattern, drawn from each venue's own calendar or the Index-Tribune's October listings:

• Monday: Murphy's Irish Pub has open mic at 7 p.m., with sign-ups at 6:30.
• Tuesday: On the first Tuesday of the month, Murphy's hosts karaoke at 7 p.m. The next one falls on Nov. 3.
• Wednesday: HopMonk Sonoma has open mic at 7:15 p.m., and El Verano Inn has its own open mic at 7 p.m., according to the Index-Tribune's Sound Check for mid-October.
• Thursday: Murphy's has a show at 7 p.m.
• Friday: The Jazz Society's series plays at Gehricke in the early evening. HopMonk Sonoma has music at 6 p.m., and Murphy's starts at 7:30 p.m.
• Saturday: HopMonk has sets at 12:30 and 6 p.m., and Murphy's at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
• Sunday: HopMonk has music at 12:30 p.m., Murphy's at 5:30 p.m., and El Verano Inn holds its Sunday Night Jam at 7 p.m.

Murphy's anchors this list. The pub describes its program as live music six nights a week. Its October calendar mixed its own afternoon and evening slots with local bands. One Saturday paired Northern Still at 2:30 p.m. with Andre Thierry and His Rocking Band at 7:30 p.m.

HopMonk's and El Verano Inn's times come from the paper's mid-October listings, which are the best guide to how those rooms run their weeks right now. The weekly Sound Check column is the quickest way to see who is playing where on a given weekend.

A Sunday Afternoon at the Sebastiani

The Jazz Society's work goes beyond the Friday series, and its next big date shows what the organization can put on when it books a larger room. The Society's schedule lists Kenny Washington at the Sebastiani Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, from 2 to 5 p.m.

It's a one-time concert, separate from the weekly series. On the calendar, it's a fall Sunday afternoon at the Plaza's historic theater, booked by the same group that moved its Friday shows from Parkside to Gehricke in two weeks. For anyone who wants to back the Friday series, the November date is a natural next step. The 37-year track record that kept jazz going on Patten Street is the same one filling the theater on Nov. 1.

What the Old Firehouse Holds Now

September closed Oso Sonoma, Parkside and Vella's counter, and the Speakeasy is closed temporarily. The Friday jazz series came through September in one piece because the group that built it, a valley nonprofit with nearly four decades of booking behind it, never depended on a single room. On Friday evenings, the music is in the old firehouse at the corner of Broadway, a short walk from where it used to be, still free to hear, with a glass of Gehricke's wine supporting the arrangement.

I've lived and worked in Wine Country long enough to know that a town's character often sits with the people and organizations who keep its traditions going. Sonoma's Friday jazz is a good example. If you're thinking about what everyday life around the Plaza looks like, from the walk to Gehricke on a Friday to a Sunday afternoon at the Sebastiani, Kellie Larson is glad to talk it through over coffee. Contact us whenever you're ready.