Echo Park Craft Fair this weekend in downtown

If you’re shopping locally like we are for the holidays, the Echo Park Craft Fair this weekend is a required shopping destination. Although featuring many Echo Park artists, the fair has grown out of its backyard diggs of the past and to a new location in downtown.

Started three years ago by Beatrice Valenzuela and Rachel Craven, it has now grown to over 40 vendors. We know Echo Park’s Tavin will be there, along with lots of local vendors and exhibitors selling home goods, fashion, jewelry, pottery, an candles, and more. Check it out!

The Echo Park Craft Fair
Saturday, December 15, from noon to 7:00 pm
Sunday, December 16, from noon to 5:00 pm
The Storefront Bazaar is located at 821 E. 3rd Street

Echo Park’s Taco Zone truck gets its own tables

No longer do you have to use your car (if you brought one) as a dining table while you munch on your late-night grub at Echo Park’s popular taco truck, Taco Zone. It just got a little easier to drunkenly juggle those tacos and burritos at the Vons-adjacent taco truck with the addition of “modular” tables, likely removable, as posted in a video by Ways and Means.

h/t LAist

A new shade of blue for Echo Park’s Little Joy

Little Joy on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Portia has undergone many exterior paint jobs over the years. From green to black, and covered in colorful murals, the dive bar now dons a purple-ish blue shade.

The exterior facelift is just one of the new changes that new owners Joaquin Reyna-Donaldson and Donald Andes have been working on since closing the doors in November. We’ve reached out for some more info, but for now it’s not clear whether or not the dive-bar vibe will be a thing of the past.

Allston Yacht Club reopening as “Allumette”

Although owners Charles Kelly and Bill Didonna closed four-year-old Allston Yacht Club in September, the duo have been remodeling the space to reopen a new restaurant under a new name.

“Allumette” (French for matchstick) will reopen some time in early 2013 under chef Miles Thompson, who oversaw the pop-up Vagrancy Project at AYC. Zagat has the scoop:

The menu will keep his focus on “seasonal, soulful” dishes, things like red kuri with broccoli, vadouvan and carrot, monkfish with sour cherry and chorizo, and rabbit with hazelnut tortellini. This time the bar will be overseen by Serena Harrick, another Harvard & Stone alum.

Perhaps the facelift the restaurant is getting will wash it clean of any past karma – prior to AYC, it was Restaurant 15, which lasted just a year. But now that Echo Park isn’t a stranger to upscale dining, hopefully Allumette will stick!

Echo Park street in the holiday spirit

Photos by Christine Peters

Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park today just got a little more festive – some new holiday decor was installed along the corridor earlier today.

The Echo Park Chamber of Commerce sponsored an “Adopt-a-Pole” drive, which a number of businesses participated in along with Council District 1 and 13, as well as Senator DeLeon’s office. It will sure look nice for the Echo Park Community Parade on Saturday!

Photos by Christine Peters

Delilah Bakery officially up for sale

Owner Genevieve Ostrander just reopened the Echo Park Avenue bakery in June after some renovations and a menu rehab, but the six-year-old business is now officially up for sale. She tells Eater LA that she put the bakery up for sale due to “unforeseen medical issues,” and that she is “VERY motivated to sell.” Asking price is $150,000 or best offer (plus rent).

h/t Eater LA and The Eastsider LA