Work was happening inside of Spokeasy on a Thursday morning in November. A fire closed the craft beer bar two years ago.
Joshua Tehee
The Fresno Bee
In the two years since a fire closed Spokeasy Public House, Mike Adame has fielded the same question on an almost daily basis.
Are they going to reopen the Van Ness Avenue beer bar?
It’s to the point, where he almost wants to go with a bit of gaslighting, just to mess with people. “Like, we’ve been open the whole time. What are you talking about?” says Adame, one of Spokeasy’s three owners.
The actual answer is, yes, Spokeasy will reopen.
At some point.
There are signs of progress. Last week, Mirror Coffee teased plans to move into the building on Van Ness Avenue, which sits in the Tower District along a strip colloquially known Van Ness Village (and includes Root Access Hackerspace, Sour Milk, Summer Fox Brewery and others).
The pop-up coffee shop has operated inside Moto Delicatessen & Bodega, on weekends, for the last three years. It will take over the space at the south end of the building that had been Jazzy’s Jeans N Things.
On Thursday, the doors were open at that spot, and at Spokeasy, and work was happening inside both.
But even now, Adame doesn’t have a definitive timeline.
“I can tell you, a lot of stuff has been done to the space,” Adame says. That included repairs to the roof, which took a year to get done.
The fire broke out in the back portion of the building and while none of the tenants — Spokeasy and Jazzy Jeans N Things, plus The Labyrinth Collective — were open at the time, and no one was injured, the damage displaced all three businesses.
None have reopened.
“There’s just been a lot of waiting,” Adame says.
A new Spokeasy Public House
When Spokeasy does reopen, it will still offer the curated selection of craft beers that was part of its profile.
But it will look different.
The far wall was removed, and the bar top extended out. It can accommodate around 30 stools, Adame says. Space in the back room is being set aside to expand the bar’s collection of retro-arcade machines. One of Adame’s jobs at the moment is to find those games. He would love to get his hand on an old Paper Boy console. The patio will likely remain closed.
Spokeasy was opened in 2012, by two self-proclaimed “bike geeks,” and home beer makers who set out to create a laid-back little neighborhood bar. It had a whole history well before Adame came in as an owner. “When I started going to Spokeasy, the walls were bright yellow,” Adame says.
Over the years, it took on the aesthetic of its neighborhood and customers, many of whom gifted Spokeasy the homemade art and old bike parts that became part of its decor.
That process of building the space has to start again, Adame says.
“It will start taking on personality once we’re up and running.”
But that too will take time, he says.
This story was originally published November 6, 2026 at 5:18 AM.
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The Fresno Bee
Joshua Tehee covers breaking news for The Fresno Bee, writing on a wide range of topics from police, politics and weather, to arts and entertainment in the Central Valley.