The No-Cover Night Off Sonoma Plaza Moved Down the Block to an Old Firehouse

For months before it opened, staff at Dead Letter wiped nose smudges and handprints off the front windows every day. Locals kept pressing against the glass to see inside the old post office at First and East Napa streets. The doors opened in mid-July. Ten weeks later, two of its neighbors on East Napa Street served their last night. Oso Sonoma and Parkside Wine Bar both set Saturday, Sept. 26 as their final day.

Put those two dates side by side and you can see how evenings at this corner of the Plaza changed this year. The corner now has a dinner room that takes reservations. The walk-in, no-cover music that used to happen a few doors away is still around. It just moved down the block, to a tasting room inside a former fire station on Patten Street.

The Corner Turned Into a Dinner Table

Dead Letter is the newest restaurant from John Toulze and Sondra Bernstein, the longtime partners behind The Girl & The Fig and Poppy. They redid the building at 101 E. Napa St., which had been home to Maya Mexican Restaurant for more than twenty years, as a modern California restaurant with small nods to its days as a post office.

The center of the kitchen is a three-level Spanish grill. Cooks move pork steaks, trout fillets and sweet corn between the levels to control the heat and char. Chef Jeremy Zimmerman runs a menu of snacks and shared plates built mostly around grilled seafood, with blistered vegetables, Ibérico pork in tomatillo sauce, and chopped chicken livers with rhubarb jam. The Index-Tribune's opening review listed three prices:

• Butterflied trout over red curry sauce with charred cucumber labneh, sized for two or more, at $42
• Chicken karaage in a pool of hummus with preserved tomatoes, at $24
• Local rockfish sliced raw in strawberry aguachile, at $18

Most of the larger plates are meant for the middle of the table. "We're removing food envy," Zimmerman told the paper. "When the food hits the center of the table, people keep talking."

The dining room is dark gray and burgundy. Black-and-white images shift across tall screens set against the stone walls. An Art-o-mat machine that once sold cigarettes now sells tiny $5 artworks the size of a pack. A wooden postal window holds vintage postcards.

The hours set the rhythm. Dead Letter serves dinner only, from 5 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and from 5 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Reservations are taken through deadlettersonoma.com, and the phone number is 707-933-3665. It is closed Monday and Tuesday and does not serve lunch.

What Closed at 5 East Napa and Next Door

Oso Sonoma closed after a 12-year run on the Plaza. Readers of the Sonoma Index-Tribune named it Best New Restaurant in the paper's 2015 People's Choice Awards, and it had 14 employees when the closing was announced. Chef David Bush and Kelley Bush co-owned both Oso and Parkside, and Kelley ran operations at Oso. Bush said plainly why they were closing:

"We have been in desperate need of upgrading and updating the kitchen and building in general. When it came down to it, it was too costly to spend the money on a building we don't own."

Parkside's story is shorter, and it matters more for anyone who likes free music downtown. The wine bar at 5 E. Napa St. opened in September 2023 as a tasting room with small snacks. About two years later, Sonoma's Planning Commission approved Kelley Bush's appeal to add beer and live entertainment. The approval allowed opening hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and live music three or more times a week in two-hour sessions. In that time, Parkside went from a tasting room to one of the few places off the Plaza permitted to host regular live music, and that space is now empty.

Parkside also worked with the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society on no-cover Saturday shows, which the Index-Tribune described as monthly. Its last weekend had Sonoma State University drummer Joe Campbell on Friday, Sept. 25, and a jam session with Joe Kelner and Steve Webber on Saturday, Sept. 26. As of early October, no new tenant has been reported for either storefront.

Where the Music Went

The jazz needed a new home, and it needed one quickly. Parkside was one of two local music venues that shut down in September. The Index-Tribune's Tim Curley reported that Sonoma Speakeasy also closed temporarily because of its owners' medical issues. The Jazz Society has produced live jazz in Sonoma Valley for 37 years and had been booking the acts at Parkside. Curley described the musicians' search for a new room as "a bit of a kerfuffle."

The answer was on the same block. Gehricke Wines' tasting room, in the old fire station on Patten Street, will host the Friday night jazz series starting Oct. 9. The Jazz Society's own page gives the address as 32 Patton Street, at the corner of Broadway, spelling the street differently from the Index-Tribune. It describes the series as weekly, with no cover, and says, "Weekly jazz has officially moved from Parkside to Gehricke Winery."

The schedule has grown in the move. The Index-Tribune described the Parkside partnership as one Saturday a month, and the Society now lists the Gehricke series every Friday. The start time is less clear. The Society lists every show from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Index-Tribune's Oct. 1 listings put "Jazz at the Firehouse" on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. Check with the Society before the first night. The Oct. 2 article said a complete performer schedule was not available at press time.

The student program has not landed anywhere yet. On Sept. 11, the Society named drummer Joe Campbell and vocalist Ella Hoffman as the first Sonoma State jazz studies students in its new artist-in-residence program at Parkside. Campbell was booked for Sept. 26 and Oct. 17, and Hoffman for Oct. 2. Two of those three dates came after Parkside's last night. "The closing of Parkside Wine Bar is a blow to students and musicians," Society president Janice King said on Sept. 21. She added that she was looking for other venues around Sonoma Plaza that might host the students. No new venue for the residency has been announced, and the Gehricke page does not list student performers.

The Fall Jazz Calendar, as Listed Today

The two Sebastiani dates are Sunday matinees with ticketed doors, a different kind of outing from the Friday shows. The Friday series is the only no-cover Society event on this list, and it is the part of Parkside's calendar that carried over.

How a Friday Evening on This Block Works Now

The new hours fit together almost exactly. The Gehricke set, as the Society lists it, ends at 7:30 p.m. Dead Letter's Friday hours run until 9:30 p.m. A Friday on this block can run like this:

1. Arrive at the old firehouse on Patten Street at Broadway around 5:30 p.m. Pour a glass of Gehricke and stay for the set. There is no cover.
2. Walk over to First Street East and East Napa when the music ends at 7:30.
3. Sit down to a reserved table at Dead Letter and order the trout for the table, as the menu intends.

Before September, an evening on this block could stay on one side of East Napa Street, with Parkside's music and Oso's kitchen side by side. Now the two halves of the evening are in two buildings on the same block, and dinner needs a reservation. No new tenants have been reported for the Oso and Parkside storefronts, the Speakeasy's closure is described as temporary, and no new venue has been announced for the Sonoma State student residency.

At The Joel Toller Team, we keep an eye on these changes around the Plaza because which rooms open, close and change hands shapes how the town spends its evenings. If you'd like to talk through what's happening downtown in Sonoma, or anywhere else we work, we'd be glad to meet with you. Schedule a Confidential Consultation.