The Milano closure (first posted by Mike Oz) hits Fresno's blogoshpere especially hard - along with the local artist community, filmmakers, foodies, podcasters, musicians, cyclists, festival organizers... The point is, co-owner Kendall Simsarian opened his doors to the creative community like few businesses have in Fresno. We in turn promoted, talked about and went to Milano's as much as we could (very similar to Cafe Corazon - another closed Fulton Mall business).
And it still failed.
Among other things, we believe this shows the creative community has little pull outside of "the bubble." Bubble? Yeah, you know, Fresno's creative class rarely getting the average Fresnan to notice or care what we think about Fresno junk... at least it seems like it from this little blog/podcast's perspective.
Sometimes we're just talking amongst ourselves in our nerdy bloggy bubble, not connecting to folks outside of it.
Also, is this sending a big message to Fresno entrepreneurs looking at the Fulton Mall? The message of: Unless you want to open up a discount store, don't bother with the Fulton Mall for a while. Because, no matter how hard you try or how creative you get, one day you'll be closing your doors.
*An example of what we'll miss at Milano's:
