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Community Corner

Sunday Street Fair: Say Hello to the Patch Team

Sunday's event promises plenty of music, food, a beer garden and 130 vendor booths, including that of a 'discovered' jewelry designer. The Patch team will have a booth, stop in and say hello.

Although the Sherman Oaks Street Fair will log its 21st year on Sunday, some participants are looking forward to it as first-timers. They include jewelry designer Kyle Chan, musician Gerrit Folsom and the event’s beer garden operator Angela Marsden. Each provided a preview of what they plan to bring to the event.

The street fair, sponsored by the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce, runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. along Ventura Boulevard between Van Nuys Boulevard and Kester Avenue. It will include more than 130 vendors, two food courts, two gourmet food trucks and two entertainment stages, one for local school performers and one for bands.

Chan said his vendor’s booth will allow him to connect with his customers. The Hong Kong-born designer, a graduate of the Gemological Institute of America, previously managed a wholesale jewelry company. He created his own line of jewelry and sold it at street fairs simply for fun. But Chan was “discovered” about 18 months ago by a store owner who wanted to carry Chan’s line of merchandise (kylechandesign.com).

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Now, Chan’s creations, using diamonds, colored stones, pearls and precious metals, are sold wholesale from a downtown Los Angeles showroom and carried by others in about 15 locations. He has since quit his day job to focus on designing jewelry full time.

“But I still do a lot of street fairs,” Chan said. “I have a lot of retail followers and I just won’t drop them. No matter where I go, they show up.”

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For Marsden, offering the beer garden will allow her to introduce herself as the new co-owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill (pineapplehillsaloon.com). The Sherman Oaks restaurant and bar has been tucked away in a mall at 4454 Van Nuys Blvd. since 1978. Marsden and her business partner, acting teacher Christopher Liebe, became the new owners Aug. 1 and are eager to upgrade the bar’s food and level of service but preserve its neighborhood feel in a business they hope to run for many years.

“We want to put back the heart and soul that had been missing from the bar for awhile,” she said.

The beer garden will enable her to offer discount beer coupons at the fair to encourage a visit to the pub, which she said could become “the Cheers of Sherman Oaks,” referring to the classic sitcom about a Boson bar.

“It’s exciting for us,” Marsden said about the fair. “I’m not a big believer in advertising, so the fair is a way for us to be social with the local residents.”

For Gerrit Folsom, a member of the band the Ride (theridezone.com), performing Sunday at 3 p.m. will be an opportunity to jump into another outdoor festival and “get out and have fun,” he said. Folsom’s band is rock and country influenced, and it will play a 45-minute set of original music. Some of the Ride’s members bring stellar backgrounds, he said, having played with Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Boz Scaggs and Jimmy Buffet.

Folsom helped secure the Guitar Center as a sponsor to provide all the instruments for the bands, so that each act will seamlessly follow the other without the need to take down and set up instruments and reset sound levels.

He also helped line up some of the other performers. They include a 14-year-old violin prodigy who will play a tribute to jazz violinist Jean Luc Ponty, a progressive band, an '80s tribute band and a pop soul singer.

“I’m a big supporter of the chamber raising money to help the schools,” Folsom said. “I’m a Sherman Oaks resident, and most of the bands have members who live in Sherman Oaks.”

The Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce (shermanoakschamber.org) will provide discount coupons at its fair booth for its farmers market at Sepulveda Boulevard and Camarillo Street.

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