*The article originally appeared in issue 5.1, “Sight and Sound,” 2013

From his 90s exploits at Ajax to the more recent Naglee Park Garage, Chris Esparza’s impact on downtown San Jose has come in many phases. He looks to take his next step with Blackbird Tavern.

Long-time downtown ambassador Chris Esparza remains one of the most connected people in San Jose. He’s built his Rolodex organically after having a hand in several local ventures past and present, among them Ajax, Naglee Park Garage, Giant Creative, Fuel, and soon-to-open Blackbird Tavern.

Though a local, Esparza was never able to call one particular neighborhood home growing up. Attending five different schools over seven years, including a two-year stint up in Auburn, California, the frequent moves never allowed him to settle in. “It was five years of never knowing where my class was, of being new and uncomfortable,” Esparza recalls. “In a lot of ways, that probably led me to producing events and hosting people.”

After graduating from Gunderson High in 1985, Esparza spent time at both West Valley and De Anza College, though he admits he had no direction at the time. A year later, he got a job working at Santa Clara club One Step Beyond. It proved to be the job that changed his life.

“It was my first exposure to the young twenty- and thirtysomething alternative life—the goths, the skinheads, the mods, the punk rockers, the death rockers, and everything in between,” he remembers. He saw the club present everything from metal to English soul and rockabilly, witnessing sets from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Ramones, Megadeth, and Fishbone. The work inspired him to move to San Francisco, where he worked for two years.

However, when his mother passed away, he felt a need to get away. “I took the opportunity to be somewhere else at Christmas time,” he says. Buying a one-way ticket to Europe, he traveled through Spain, Belgium, and Scotland, picking up work wherever he could. Upon his return, he decided he wanted his own club.

In 1991, Esparza and business partner Chris Elliman opened Ajax. During its mythical four-year run, the venue hosted the likes of The Fugees, The Roots, and Ben Harper, establishing itself as a destination for forward-thinking cool. It attracted all pockets of the downtown scene during San Jose’s “Four Corners,” 90s nightlife heyday. Esparza admits he was the social creature of the group. “In a way, I was a natural doorman,” he says. “I liked greeting people, getting them excited about what we were doing, and telling them when to come back.”

Looking back, Esparza sees his Ajax period as a time when he and Elliman could seemingly do no wrong. Arriving at a time when the area was just starting to become Silicon Valley, the low cost of living fostered plenty of nightlife. Ajax was championed by local creatives. “I think they trusted us to curate night after night,” he says. “We said, ‘Look, I know you’ve never heard of Ben Harper, and no one else has either, but we heard this guy’s cassette tape, and I’m telling you, don’t miss this.’ And they would show up.”

Sadly, the club’s four-year run came to a close after negotiations with the space’s owners fell through. Esparza was effectively locked out, with the space maintained by the owners. In nine months, the space was vacant.

Two years after the demise of Ajax, Esparza and a similar cast of partners returned with Fuel, an international café in the current Blank Club space. It showcased a similar vibe, though it wasn’t exclusively a club. “It was for an adult that wanted a beautiful space that wasn’t as easily defined as a café or nightclub or restaurant,” Esparza says. “It was literally all of those things.” Boasting a painted globe on the ceiling, it was conceived from the ground up and seemed primed to tap into the same crowd that made Ajax such a success. Yet, where Ajax could do no wrong, Fuel’s four-year run was mired in constant, needless self-reflection. The message was the same, but somehow, the crowds had dried up.

After coming back to the fold with much more business savvy than he had at Ajax, Esparza struggled to understand why Fuel was failing. “It was a business learning experience,” he says. “You can be good, and you can be the smartest guy on the block, but if you don’t have a little bit of luck and timing on your side, it doesn’t matter who you are.”

“YOU CAN BE GOOD AND YOU CAN BE THE SMARTEST GUY ON THE BLOCK, BUT IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK AND TIMING ON YOUR SIDE, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO YOU ARE.”

-Chirs Esparza

In retrospect, Esparza ties in the trouble with the economy. In conjunction with the tech boom, rent skyrocketed, stealing spending money from the venue’s target audience of local creatives. At the same time, the steady rise of illegal downloading significantly changed how artists toured. Suddenly, a $300 show became a $3,000 show, and Fuel couldn’t keep up with the discrepancies. It closed its doors in 2001, an unsung gem that was never able to find its niche like Ajax so easily had.

During his days at Fuel, Esparza began to be approached by organizations to serve as a creative consultant, leading to the creation of Giant Creative. Going twelve years strong, Giant is now responsible for KraftBrew, Winter Wonderland, and the Great Glass Pumpkin Patch in Palo Alto. The outlet became a necessity when Fuel was struggling. It’s since become his main gig, allowing him to help anyone from small businesses to the city of San Jose.

In the restaurant realm, Naglee Park Garage has been Esparza’s latest success. He lovingly calls the 30-seat bistro “the tiniest restaurant on the face of the Earth.” Despite its limitations, he, business partner Brendan Rawson, and head chef Louis Silva have made it a signature downtown eatery.

After the space, a former service station, suffered a series of failed business ventures, its owners decided to wait until the right offer came around. They were envisioning an Americana-themed restaurant with a great selection of beer and wine. As luck would have it, that was exactly what Esparza, Rawson, and Silva were looking to pitch. Luck returned years later when Guy Fieri’s Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” called. Their segment led to national exposure, and repeat showings now result in a spike of emails requesting the location’s fabled ketchup recipe.

Still, Esparza sometimes has trouble making sense of their subsequent success. The show didn’t change their formula; it only got the word out. As he maintains, “We were great before ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.’ Why does it take national television to tell you to go eat there when you live in this town, and there aren’t many choices?”

Yet even with his string of successes, his best conception may have yet to officially begin. Esparza and Rawson are ready to bring their savvy to downtown’s epicenter with Blackbird Tavern, a restaurant and café located along Paseo de San Antonio that looks to appeal to out-of-town business folk and locals alike. Much like Ajax and Fuel, he wants the venue to offer great food, music, and conversation for patrons.

Patio seating is set to spill out onto the Paseo. Plans are in place to serve wine from vineyards in the Santa Cruz mountains, and their bar will offer a well-curated selection of craft brews and California spirits. Esparza even hopes to pair food with music. For him, the value in the idea goes both ways—patrons get an all-encompassing dining experience and those behind the scenes remain on their creative toes.

Some speak of the Blackbird space as cursed, the speculation stemming from a string of franchise failures over the past decade. To counter the talk, Esparza offers a history lesson, noting that a taqueria lasted in the space for twenty years, making it through massive downtown light rail development before those three failed. He attributes the failures to bad business strategies. “I know why they closed and I know what they did wrong,” he says. “I won’t make those mistakes.”

A lot has changed since his first days working at One Step Beyond in the mid-80s, when he discovered a wealth of alternative culture. He’s learned plenty in the process, but what rings loudest for him remains the people he’s helped bring together. As a teen who constantly struggled to find his place, Esparza finds comfort in the fact that he’s been able to create spaces where others can find theirs.

The article originally appeared in issue 5.1, “Sight and Sound,” 2013

*We post this with a heavy heart at the passing of my friend, mentor, and fellow progenitor of culture, Chris Esparza. Content Magazine and I personally have received so much from the friendships and connections that Chris created. I will miss him. We will miss him. But the world, and especially Downtown San Jose, is better because of his life and work. We respect and thank him, say goodbye, and rest in peace, my dear friend.

Daniel Garcia, Aug. 2024

Original article published in Spring/Summer 2010

Every year, 12,000 people travel from all across America to hear music by over 1,400 performers during a four-day period. With more than 80 venues from which to choose, listeners have the opportunity to see a host of new faces and acts. The event is heralded by musicians and fans alike. It began as the dream of Austin’s music lovers, a dream that eventually became “South By Southwest.” It took years to become what it is today, but with patience and dedication, South By Southwest became one of the country’s biggest music festivals. The dream lives on, but this time it does not reside with southerners in a town that was virtually unknown by the music industry just 20 years ago. The dream is occurring right here in San Jose.

Last June, more than 5,000 people made the pilgrimage to downtown San Jose to attend a five-day event known as “Left Coast Live.” The festival’s theme was “The Sound Of Things To Come.” Monday through Thursday featured discussion panels on the future of the music industry, an outdoor cinema, and free concerts. Left Coast Live culminated on Friday night with performances from nearly 100 bands at 35 different venues in downtown San Jose. The festival was well received by music lovers and festival-goers alike. Founder Chris Esparza felt the pressure of managing such a huge endeavor for the first time. “About a month out, I kept having nightmares,” said Esparza. “We have this five-day event. There are over 500 band members involved. Forty businesses were personally invested. The city was invested. I kept wondering if anyone was gonna show up. If I let them down, I might as well move.” Esparza did not disappoint. The festival was a huge success. Esparza is no stranger to the music scene. After spending some time in San Francisco and traveling the world in the late 80’s, Esparza decided to return home to San Jose. It was here that he opened the Ajax Lounge in 1991. Ajax Lounge hosted some of the greatest acts of our day — the Fugees, Ben Harper, Cake, The Roots — well before they were internationally known. Anyone who attended one of these shows in the early 90s can attest to the energy, creativity, and well-attended concerts during that time.

It was also a time when San Jose’s music scene flourished. “If you were in your twenties, you lived in an apartment for $300 a month,” said Esparza. “You rode your bike everywhere downtown. There were no cliques at these shows. You would see the business guy next to the hairdresser next to the punk rocker. They all hung out together.”

But all of this changed during the economic boom in the late 90’s. Rents shot up, but many incomes remained stagnant. The affordability of the live music scene during the weekends began to decline for the twenty-something set. “The cost of living is tough on a 25-year-old,” said Esparza. “It’s tough to buy a beer and see live music. Big houses and crazy busy lives don’t make for cramped apartments and time for art anymore.” The Lounge Bar closed, and Esparza opened up Fuel. But instead of bringing the energy that Ajax encompassed in the early 90s, Fuel operated more for private parties and corporate business functions. “There was a desert of an interesting creative crowd that dried up,” said Esparza, who later sold Fuel (now occupied by the Blank Club) in 2001.

Then Esparza opened Neglee Park Garage in 2006. He also began Giant Creative Services, which puts on events like “Winter Wonderland” and “Big Band And BBQ.” It was at this time that a local music organization called South Bay Live approached him. “They wanted to address the dying ecosystem of live music in San Jose,” said Esparza. “We agreed that we wanted to create a festival unlike anything that’s been in town before.” The goal was to initiate a musical renaissance. But the only way the festival could work was if people supported the vision of community and economic development through arts and cultural events. After two years of communications and 15 volunteers on board, “Left Coast Live” was born. The festival was a huge success. Planning has already begun for this year’s event. “We’re going to make it a six-day event this year,” said Esparza. The festival will retain the theme of “The Shape Of Things to Come,” offering panels and free concerts throughout the week. Instead of one huge night of music, the festival will stretch into Saturday. “We are asking the question of how do we blow people away but have a lot of fun while doing it,” said Esparza. With creative components like a beer garden and the main stage residing in the Ramada Inn Hotel parking lot, this year’s festival is rising to a whole new level. “It’s going to be a big spectacle,” said Esparza. “We’ve got a lot of interactive pieces.”

The future of Chris Esparza and Left Coast Live looks promising. But Esparza knows San Jose needs more venues. “There is a definite need for a venue that holds 500 to 800 people,” said Esparza. Currently, the Civic Center holds 2,800 people, and the California holds 1,000. “I would love to see five more venues open,” Esparza noted passionately. “I want it where on Tuesday, you can have four choices on where to see live music, and on Saturday, you have seven.” We can only hope for such a dream to come to fruition. In the meantime, we can take what is given to us: a great music festival this summer that promises to hold many surprises. Left Coast Live will take place from June 21-26 in downtown San Jose.

Original article published in Spring/Summer 2010

Read the 2013 article “A Stroll Through Chris Esparza’s San Jose”