"It really couldn't be better being directly across from City Hall," Reese Browning told the Sacramento Bee in March. "Vernon Street is the city's main street so it's where all the parades are, the community gatherings and all that kind of stuff."
Browning was explaining why Old Town Pizza spent a decade trying to get into the former Roseville post office at 320 Vernon St. This October shows what he meant. Nearly every downtown event on the calendar takes place at Vernon Street Town Square, right across the street from his construction fencing. For downtown, the square matters more than any one restaurant. The most expensive restaurant project on Vernon Street in years was designed to face it.
Why the Old Post Office Faced the Right Direction
The building at 320 Vernon went up in phases between the 1930s and the 1960s and has sat mostly unused since the U.S. Postal Service left in 2020. The city bought the half-acre site in 2010. Its plan was a six-story mixed-use project with a hotel, housing, retail and a rooftop restaurant. That plan fell apart once developers decided the site could not support that much building.
Old Town Pizza, which also has locations in Auburn and Lincoln, bought the building for $1.75 million as part of an $8 million investment, according to the Bee. Browning said most of that money is going upward. "The vast majority of the money and time that it takes to renovate the property was to structurally reinforce the roof so that we could have people up there," he said.
The money is going into a rooftop that looks out on the square. A restaurant that only cared about its dining room could have picked any address downtown. This one put its biggest expense into seats overlooking the space where the city holds its gatherings.
ABC10 reported the rooftop plan in detail:
- A full bar and dedicated restrooms
- Elevator access
- Roll-up glass walls
- Heaters and evaporative cooling
- Open-view sections overlooking Vernon Street
- Cornhole
The heaters are the detail that ties the roof to October. They let a deck meant for summer evenings stay open into fall. Capacity figures don't agree. ABC10 put the rooftop at about 200 people, and the Bee reported up to 300.
October on the Square, in Date Order
This is the calendar the rooftop was built to overlook. Every event below except the first and the RTAA musical takes place at Vernon Street Town Square, 311 Vernon St.
- Thursday, Oct. 1: Roseville Rising Culinary Showcase. 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Randy Peters Catering and Event Center. You can sample food from 13 new local food entrepreneurs, all recent graduates of the third Roseville Rising cohort. Tickets are $39, and Randy Peters' Catering runs a no-host bar with specialty drinks. Roseville Rising is a Roseville Venture Lab program run by the City of Roseville and GFN: Growth Factory Nonprofit. The Downtown Roseville listing says ticket proceeds go directly to the food founder cohort.
- Thursday, Oct. 8: Food Truck Mania. Starts at 5 p.m. SactoMoFo organizes it, and the event page lists gourmet food trucks, live music and a kids' zone.
- Saturday, Oct. 10: Halloween Towne Night Market. 4 to 9 p.m., hosted by The Bombshell Group, with vendors, food trucks and entertainment.
- Oct. 16 to 18 and Oct. 23 to 25: James and the Giant Peach. Roseville Theatre Arts Academy's mainstage musical runs over two weekends at 241 Vernon Street, a short walk up the block.
- Thursday, Oct. 29: Family Fun Night. 4 to 8 p.m. The listing includes trick-or-treating along Vernon Street, a costume contest, live music, food trucks and vendors. The page also says its own website will be updated with this year's information, so details could change before the night.
Food Truck Mania, the Night Market and Family Fun Night all fall on Thursdays and a Saturday. All three are evening events and all use the same square. A rooftop across the street with heaters and an open view of Vernon Street is aimed at exactly those nights.
The One Festival That Left Downtown
The Falling Leaf Food & Crafts Festival, hosted by Living Smart, was originally listed at Vernon Street Town Square. A notice dated Sept. 14 moved it to Maidu Park on Sunday, Oct. 18.
It is a large event to lose from the square. The listing promises more than 100 vendors with fall goods and food, a pumpkin patch with pumpkin painting, a kids and family costume contest, carnival games, inflatables, live music and food trucks. Entry is free.
There's a practical catch. The Downtown Roseville event page still lists 311 Vernon St. in its venue fields, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you use its "Add to Calendar" button, your phone will save the old downtown address. The festival takes place at Maidu Park, so change the location on your calendar entry by hand.
The move also shows something about the square. It works well for evening events that fill a few hours on a weeknight or a Saturday. A daytime festival with more than 100 vendors and inflatables needs more room, and this one moved to a park that has it.
What You Can Use on Vernon Street Right Now
The rooftop isn't open yet, but the ground floor of the street already has places to sit outside before or after an event on the square. In a mid-August roundup of outdoor dining, Downtown Roseville listed four patios on or near this stretch.
The Daily Nosh, 105 Vernon St. A breakfast-and-lunch spot run by Randy and Lisa Peters. They targeted a June 8 opening at the address once used by 105 Noshery. By August, Downtown Roseville described it as newly opened, with a shaded patio cooled by a large ceiling fan. Since it serves breakfast and lunch, it fits the Sunday morning musical matinees better than the evening markets.
The Monk's Cellar. The patio is to the left of the big arched door, with craft beer and wine facing Vernon Street.
Goose Port Public House. A large, shaded, dog-friendly patio with no TVs, quieter than the sports bar inside. On a food truck night, it's the easy option if you bring the dog.
The Fig Tree Coffee, Art, & Music Lounge. Specialty coffee, local art and live music, with outdoor seating.
The street also lost a place this year. Daniello's, the speakeasy-style restaurant at 229 Vernon St., had already closed quietly when its closure was announced in March. It had been open since late 2022. Old Town Pizza's plans include a basement speakeasy-style entertainment space in a later phase. That would bring the concept back to Vernon Street, but not this fall.
Where 320 Vernon Stands on Sept. 30
The opening target has moved several times this year.
- Early 2026: ABC10 reported a June opening.
- March: The Sacramento Business Journal and the Bee both reported August. Browning said construction had slowed because of design approval challenges with the rooftop and winter storms that caused water damage to parts of the old building.
- July 27: The Business Journal reported a mid-September target. It described pizza ovens waiting to be installed, roll-up doors for the rooftop, and "coming soon" signs on the fencing.
- Aug. 14: Downtown Roseville said the project was "still on track for a September 2026 opening" and that the rooftop would be part of Phase 1.
As of Sept. 30, we have not found any published confirmation that the restaurant has opened. ABC10 describes Phase 1 as the Old Town Pizza dining room, Slice Beer Co. on the main floor, and the rooftop. The basement comes later. That's a change from a June Downtown Roseville post, which had put the rooftop in Phase 2. If the current plan holds, the rooftop opens together with the dining room.
The square's October calendar is set, and the rooftop that faces it is the part still unconfirmed. Old Town Pizza's Instagram account is the most direct place to check before you plan a night around it.
When a long-empty building on Vernon Street comes back, it changes how the blocks around it get used, and we follow those changes closely. If you're wondering how projects like 320 Vernon could affect what your downtown Roseville home is worth, Brian Perry Real Estate Group is happy to walk through it with you. Schedule Your Complimentary Concierge Consultation.
