One of the few (locally) viral posts I did on The Fresnan was the Five Worst Parking Lots in Fresno post. It still gets search traffic to this day, not sure why.
It went viral because of two reasons:
A topic that everyone can relate to.
The Fresno Bee linked to it.
Unless you get Graciella Moreno (roll those Rs, baby) to talk about you, getting the Fresno Bee to link to a post is your best bet.
Here is the list of annoying lots in case you don’t want to click over and read it:
Dog House Grill.
Save Mart (Bullard & West).
Trader Joe’s (Barstow & Blackstone).
Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
River Park (everywhere)
Not much has changed. Except the crappy Trader Joe’s parking moved North - that lot sucks too.
Maybe I could be convinced to switch out the Zoo parking with something. It’s really only bad when it’s a busy day. But what would replace it?
Yeah, that list is eight years old and I don’t think I want to change it.
Side story: One time I was in the check stand at Save Mart (Bullard & West) and the checker sorta brought up my post (not knowing I was the one who wrote it) because the bagger was talking about the parking lot.
Checker says “Oh yeah, it’s been called, like, the worst parking lot in Fresno. They even did an article about it in the Bee!”
I laughed a little and said, “Oh geeez, they gotta have something better to write about than that, right?!”
Thank you for reading a classic. Have a nice rest of your Fresno week and try to watch yourself backing out of those stalls.
-Mikey The Fresnan
🍻✌️
I would add Campus Pointe in there. the stalls along "the strip" in front of Maya Cinemas are hard to get into, especially when you have to park between 2 cars. They're super sketchy backing out of because of the cars traveling along there that you can't see. And then the spaces in the other areas of the parking lot are super tight! I've been tempted to take a tape measure out there because they don't seem to be the same size as other parking spots around town. and they're green! who does that? they can be hard to see and figure out what is an actual spot. Plus on the north side of the lot ,back by the Gibson Farm Market, they had those kind of round-a-bouts but don't mark them clearly. I've seen so many people inadvertently drive over them because they don't know they are there. They are half traffic circle/half speed bump but fully annoying.
I assume that the Trader Joe's you mean is the one by Sportsmans/Annesso/Houston Hot Chicken (lol) or is covered as an extension of River Park, but that one sucks shit too. Also I'm sick of this trend of business trying to claim 2-4 spaces inside a giant parking lot (what is it with this city and not building fucking garages?). If your business doesn't have the pull that's your own fault. Oh, and restaurants trying to claim four spaces for takeout or big boxes doing the same for "curbside pickup" or whatever can also kiss my ass. Yes I am going to park there, tow it if you have to. And it goes without saying that "law enforcement parking" anywhere can suck a fat one. Hey, you know who *doesn't* need special parking? People who can park wherever they want always.