North Bay Bohemian

Bay Area Burger Week returns Oct. 7-18 with specials at restaurants across Sonoma and Napa counties, from Santa Rosa's B**r Baron Wh***ey Bar to Napa's Super Duper Burgers.

What makes the North Bay the North Bay? You tell us.

Every year, thousands of readers cast their ballots for the people, places and pleasures that make life around here a little more interesting and a lot more us. The result is our annual Best of the North Bay issue where this cultural census poll becomes a big love letter to the place we call home.

There are no wrong answers, just your well-informed opinions. Vote for your favorites and help us celebrate the people and places making the North Bay the North Bay.

Nominations open until Nov. 8. Vote here!

Sonoma County Poll https://Bohemian.com/best-of-ballot-sonoma

Napa County Poll https://Bohemian.com/best-of-ballot-napa

Spreckels opens its season with Dear Evan Hansen, a sensational cast wrapped around a story that lets its central liar off the hook for consequences. The review calls the resolution too easy and the treatment of mental illness reductive, even as singers like Addison Brown and Nathaniel Howe carry the show through Oct 11 at the Codding Theater in Rohnert Park.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/dear-evan-hansen

Volunteer divers with the Purple Urchin Removal Project haul buckets of purple urchins pulled from Stillwater Cove on the Sonoma Coast. The group, founded by local diver Eric Sedletzky, is working to help the coast's bull kelp forests recover after a 95% die-off over the past decade.

Norbays winners get announced in the Bohemian's Oct 21 issue, but the real payoff comes two days later at Ross Street. Live bands, food trucks and games fill the block off Mendocino Ave between 5th and 7th, starting Oct 23 at 7pm.

Read more here ➤ https://www.downtownsantarosa.org/do/norbays-awards-at-ross-street-sessions-oct-23-7pm

Vote for your favorite local bands in the Norbays Music Awards '26.

The North Bay demands to be heard and the best way is through its music.

It's your moment to amplify the bands, solo acts, and scene-makers who keep Sonoma, Napa, and Marin moving. Cast your votes!

The winners will be revealed in the Oct. 21 issue, so make some noise now—your ballot is the opening act!

Cast your vote by Sept. 30, noon (no ballot stuffing, folks), and see the winners take center stage in the Oct. 21 issue! Let’s hear it! Mark your calendar for the live awards party on Fri., Oct. 23 at Ross St. Sessions!

https://bohemian.com/2026-norbays-north-bay-music-awards-poll/

California's current w**e surplus leaves high-grade, small-batch fermentations sitting unbottled in tanks while industrial producers gobble up bulk inventory. Startup label Chateau Gato exploits this market inefficiency by buying up those abandoned excess lots to sell direct-to-consumer, tying the proceeds directly to animal shelter funding. By pairing surplus w**e "rescues" with cat shelter funding, the brand turns industry overproduction into an ongoing revenue stream for local non-profits.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/w**e_for_cats

**eIndustry

Petaluma singer-songwriter Sean Hayes has released his 10th studio album Bright on Bright recorded in just two and a half days at a secret studio near Petaluma. He kicks off a 10-date East Coast tour this week starting in Decatur Georgia.

A free poetry event founded by a Beat-scene widow in 1996 has grown enough that poets now fly in from South Carolina and New York to read alongside local names. The 29th Petaluma Poetry Walk packs 24 poets into eight downtown venues on Sept 20, still free, still built on the same idea Geri DiGiorno started with, bring the words to the street.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/petaluma-poetry