Albany exudes a certain sixties flair that’s impossible to resist. Neon signage and flat-faced houses pressed up on Albany Hill Park are good indicators of the unique character of the city. Take a trip to the East Bay and check out these charming locales.
Solano Cellars
Solano Cellars offers wine and cheese tastings as well as winemaking classes and a vast wine selection. The shop specializes in unique wines, both local and worldly, and prides itself on supporting emerging wineries as well as classic ones. The staff are knowledgeable and the atmosphere casual.
If you’re more the beer-and-billiards type, Club Mallard is for you. Lodge-like and cozy, Mallard eschews the bumping-bassed, sticky-floored nature of the dance club and instead takes its moniker from a more upstanding sort of establishment, which sets the tone at relaxed and dignified.
Dimly-lit and filled with fossils, you may feel that you’ve stepped into the world of Indiana Jones on entering Bone Room. The walls are hung with shadowboxed moths and butterflies, pinned in mid-flight; taxidermy creatures stand guard over jars of pale animal bones; fully-constructed skeletons goad you on towards books and build-your-own kits. Founded by herpetologist and natural history buff Ron Cauble, the Bone Room has been a haven for natural history nerds for nearly two decades.
Whether you’re craving a pot of PG Tips or a bottle of Berliner Weisse, The Junket in El Cerrito Plaza is your spot. Selling groceries from the UK and Germany, it is also a cafe and a deli and a grocery. For Europhiles and adventurers, it’s a great place to get hard-to-find treats or to try something new and daring.
Retro-diner-style signage directs you into Flowerland’s bursting-bright nursery, where you’ll find yourself wandering through a veritable jungle of flowers, succulents, seeds, and gifts. The place is a miniaturized botanical garden.
Reminisce about birthday parties past by slipping on a pair of ever-stylish shoes and bowling a game or two at Albany Bowl. With daily deals on lanes and shoe rentals, scads of arcade games and air hockey tables, this bowling alley will strike all of your childhood checkboxes.
An aquarium supply store that could double as a miniature museum, Albany Aquarium on San Pablo is a wonder. With a wall of glowing tanks filled with all manner of anemone, crustaceans and cephalopods, you’ll feel emerged in an underwater grotto from the start. In addition to a vast variety of water creatures, the shop offers a lush assembly of plants with which to furnish your favorite fish tank.
