New Village bar boosts Vallejo’s nightlife

VALLEJO – Soft warm light and music with hints of jazz and world beats flow out onto the sidewalk from Village, a new bar that opened two weeks ago at 1503 Tennessee St. 

The three owners, Chelsey Dyer, Melanie Teixeira and Tony Ferraro, as well as head chef Leah Tumerman, met in Vallejo through a group of friends who were taking turns hosting pot luck style parties.

“We felt like the spirit of that hosting and sharing was something that we wanted to extend into the Vallejo community,” Tumerman said. “The logical, and maybe totally insane choice, was to try and create something open to the public as a group of friends.”

Village is small, with a DJ booth that includes shelves of records prominently displayed right by the entrance. The bar stretches along the opposite wall, lined with canisters of loose leaf teas, coffee, wine, and a menu of specialty non-alcoholic drinks. A handful of tables complete the indoor ambience. A spacious patio in back keeps the bar from feeling overcrowded.

The combination of reasonably priced drinks and food, carefully selected music, and a cozy, sociable atmosphere has filled a vacant niche among Vallejo’s afternoon and evening gathering places. 

Ferraro is a classically trained pianist with years of experience as a touring musician so his area of focus has been to ensure that Village has great music with no cover charge. To this end he has set a loose rule of playing only vinyl, so the music is more intentional and less like “wallpaper,” he said.

“It establishes some sort of filter for what music could be played here at all, because some music just doesn't make it onto a record,” Ferraro said. “But it's also just nice to have this ground rule so anything that you're hearing out of the speakers has been selected by a human being.”

Since its opening, Village has featured DJs like Chaz Bear and Mejiwahn. In between DJ bookings, Ferraro, staff members or sometimes neighbors spin from the house record collection, which leans heavily on jazz, funk and soul from North and South America but also includes some ambient and electronica from Europe, post-punk selections and even some rock. 

Teixeira has drawn on relationships she built working in the wine industry and in fine dining to curate quality beverage selections that are delicious but affordable. 

Many of the Village wines are artisanal projects of winemakers who are known for signature offerings at larger wineries but, on their own, opted to work with grapes grown in wine regions like Lodi, Contra Costa, Suisun and Solano.

“Grapes that are grown around here tend to be less expensive because they're lesser known wine making regions, but the result is just as delicious,” Teixeira said, adding that the lower costs for grapes allow winemakers more room for creativity so they can produce unique flavors that defy the industry trends. 

She built the Village list of non-alcoholic beverages with the same creative effort. Her house made winter tonic flavored with cinchona, star anise and citrus is a delight to the senses.   

The three owners called on Tumerman to serve as head chef because of her celebrated creations at the pot luck events where the group met. 

Tumerman wanted her menu of bar snacks to be craveable, nutritious and affordable. The Ham and Jam Tartine, a sweet and savory open-faced sandwich topped with melted cheese and shaved fennel slaw, exemplifies her intention, “If you’re going to have grilled cheese, put a salad on top of it,” she said.  

The chef carefully crafted the menu and the kitchen processes to minimize cost while still using quality, local ingredients. Menu items range from $5 to $13 and with a $5 beer or an $8 draft wine, your night out at Village can be easy on the pocketbook.  

“I really love that there are ways to have an affordable meal, or to have a more luxurious experience by ordering the whole menu plus dessert,” Tumerman said. 

The Village partners plan to highlight local food creatives from Vallejo and the greater Bay Area by hosting regular pop-up events for guest chefs. In that spirit, the Village kitchen collaborated with Christina Topacio’s Bay Area culinary studio Salo-Salo to serve her lumpia with sawsawan sauce. Topacio trained the Village kitchen staff in preparing the traditional Filipino appetizer. 

On Friday and Saturday nights the bar has a club feel, with residents and visitors streaming through the door seeking a place to unwind from the week. On weekdays, the interior is just the right size to create a lively but intimate neighborhood bar scene.

Mitch Pawlowski, who has lived in the neighborhood for seven years, said that although he is sensitive to concerns about gentrification he feels that the bar strikes the right balance with its elegant atmosphere and affordable prices “I don’t want people to be pushed out because of changes in the neighborhood but I want to have a nice place that we all get to enjoy,” he said.

The positive response the partners have received from the community in their first weeks of operation is a welcome sense of validation after three years of planning and preparation.

The idea for Village started as an email thread about the possibility of opening a bar at a vacant building in downtown Vallejo. The subject line read: “Pie in the sky (...or … maybe?).” 

That location turned out to be the first of several downtown spots that had various cost prohibitive requirements like earthquake retrofits or major construction to resolve access issues. 

But then Lisa Rybovich Crallé, the director and founder of the popular art gallery Personal Space, drew the group’s attention to a former barber shop next door to the gallery. Dyer, who has led the design work on the Village interior, said that as soon as she walked into 1503 Tennessee Street she could see the potential.

The trio signed the lease in January of 2024, which began a year-long process of planning and permitting before any major changes to the building took place. 

Once the project got the go ahead for construction to begin the group reveled in turning the empty shell into an environment that facilitates social exchange. “I wanted people to feel warm and cozy. That was the goal,” Dyer said. “And all the decisions were around, Does this feel warm and cozy? Yes, okay, we can proceed.”

In keeping with the partners’ commitment of affordability and sustainability, Dyer used recycled materials whenever possible. She said some of those reused elements turned out to be signature details that informed the design process. When they were finally ready to open, Dyer celebrated by posting a video clip showing the stages of the construction process. 

Village is open on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. They are closed on Tuesday. The Village menu and event calendar can be found at village.fm.