Mill Valley resident Sara Oliver has garnered the opportunity of a lifetime – and she's got the Redwoods' Purlettes + One to thank for it.

Oliver's eponymous hand-knit handbag company, which has been buffeted for nearly a decade by the Purlettes + One community of knitters living at the Redwoods Retirement Community – will be featured on the Dec. 4th episode of Shark Tank, the popular ABC show that features entrepreneurs pitching their businesses to a panel of famed business people and investors in the hopes of getting their financial investment.

Oliver is seeking an investment in exchange for equity ownership in her business, and her application was picked from a pool of 55,000 entrepreneurs to pitch her business to the "sharks."

The Purlettes + One is a group of knitters that first came together at Oliver's request. Recalling that she first learned to knit from her mom and grandmother, Oliver approached the activities director at the Redwoods – she'd taken her kids to the senior community years earlier as part of a playgroup – to see about gathering a group of knitters. And so the Purlettes – their name reflects their “knit one, purl two” expertise, as well as the pearls of wisdom they impart," according to Oliver – was born. The "plus one" refers to Hector Richards, the sole male member of the group.

The relationship with the Purlettes + One has been so successful that Oliver is using it as a model to spread throughout the country. The members are paid for their work, and they meet weekly with Oliver to get new assignments and to turn in their work from the previous week.

The 411: Sarah Oliver Handbags will appear on Shark Tank on ABC (Ch. 7) at 9pm Friday. Dec. 4. The show is slated to include footage of The Purlettes+1 (see below).

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Three months after her New Wrinkles musical unleashed a "riotous smorgasbord of material" to the Throckmorton Theatre, famed Marin singer-songwriter Rita Abrams is bring it back to the Throckmorton stage for a pair of Dec. 13th performances.

New wrinkles, which Abrams co-wrote with Gerald Nachman and Morris Bobrow, “serves up the pains, perils, and poignancy of aging in heartfelt and comedic sketches and songs." In a review earlier this summer, the Marin Independent Journal raved: "The whole affair rolls out with enormous energy and infectious enthusiasm. The opening night crowd loved it. Theatergoers under 40 may think this show’s not for them. No problem — their time is coming."

The 411: New Wrinkles is at the Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave. on Dec. 13. Performamces are at 4pm and 7:30pm. More info and tix.

The Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center and Mill Valley business are formalizing the holiday shopping night that has been a longstanding tradition here in town on the first Thursday of December – in this case Dec. 3 – where shops and restaurants stay open late and have various special promotions for customers.

Merchants are staying open late, offering discounts or gifts with purchase. If your business is interested in participating, email ef042mgr@eileenfisher.com or info@millvalley.org.

Here's a list of the current participants:

• ​Eileen Fisher: 15% off, Double Rewards Points, gift for all attendees, refreshments.
• OSKA: 30% off, free gift with purchase, refreshments.
• Famous4: Live music in-store featuring Tommy Castro and some of Mill Valley's top musicians.
• EO Products: Customer Holiday Party, 5–7:30pm - 25% off everything in store; gift with purchase; open til 8pm.
• Branded Boutique: 20% off the entire store; beverages and treats.
• Carolina Boutique
• Balboa Cafe: Happy Hour 3–6pm.
• Mt. Tam Dog Co.
• ​Weathered Nest: 10% off
  

The Outdoor Art Club continues its series of free public events with a focus on the Bonsai on Thursday, Dec. 3.

Bonsai Master Jay McDonald, the vice president of the Marin Bonsai Club, will give a 90-minute talk and demonstration of his extraordinary skill. The Club, founded in Mill Valley in 1958, is dedicated to promoting the ancient art of bonsai (tree in a pot) and inspiring interest in others. McDonald's bonsai were featured at the Klyce Barn during the 2015 OAC Garden tour.

​Light refreshments will be served.

Just a few months after longtime Balboa Cafe chef Rick Edge left for the Kenwood Inn & Spa, Balboa owner the Plumpjack Group has landed Howard Ko, one of Napa Valley's rising chefs, as its new executive chef.

Ko comes to Balboa after working at some of the food world's most well-respected establishments, including the French Laundry with Thomas Keller, the Restaurant at Meadowood with Christopher Kostow and Goose & Gander in St. Helena.
Ko will be serving up "market driven bistro classics" with a greater “emphasis on locally sourced ingredients” with "modern twists," and will be making slight changes to the menu over time.

Ko was raised in Koreatown in Los Angeles and fell in love with cooking at a very young age, according to Plumpjack. After spending time in LA mastering the art of pastry making and baking, Ko traveled to New York City to attend the Culinary Institute of America. As a student at the CIA, Ko assisted at Daniel on weekends to gain experience in the kitchen doing everything from peeling potatoes to cleaning mushrooms.

After stints at the legendary Napa Valley eateries mentioned above, Ko ran the kitchen and was responsible for putting a dramatic spin on neighborhood eatery Goose & Gander. Ko also introduced a shared plates concept, new flavors, and new techniques with the goal of bringing people together to taste different flavors.​

Ko lives in Napa with his fiancée, Wendy, and dog, Whiskey, and when he’s not in the kitchen, enjoys CrossFit and growing his eclectic collection of cookbooks

The 411: Balboa Café is at 38 Miller Avenue. More info.

For the past 25 years, San Rafael-based Marin Ventures has been striving to help intellectually and developmentally disabled adults seek independence, personal growth and community integration. One of the ways it does just that is through its art program, giving participants the opportunity to work in a variety of mediums, including drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, photography, and videography. Artists are trained in traditional art techniques and principles.

Mill Valley residents and visitors and loyal attendees of the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk have a chance to see the program’s success for themselves, as Marin Ventures is showcasing "Windows into Expression," its artists’ work at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Avenue, Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–4pm), including at the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk on December 1, 6–8pm.

For the past five years, Record Store Day – an 8-year-old celebration of independent music stores that has grown into the biggest sales day of the year for Gary Scheuenstuhl's Mill Valley Music shop – has had holiday shopping kick-off companion.

Black Friday Record Store Day is set for Friday, NOv. 27, and Scheuenstuhl is gearing up to sell a bevy of Record Store Day exclusive vinyl release. 

Record Store Day started as a grassroots campaign in 2007 to support independent record stores that were facing extinction in an increasingly digital music business. The event features hundreds of musicians appearing and performing at independent stores across the country, and issuing special vinyl and CD releases to mark the occasion. It has grown immensely over the years. In 2008, there were 10 special Record Store Day releases. In recent years, there have been hundreds of special RSD releases.

Scheuenstuhl uses RSD as a way to remind customers about his fantastic inventory, holding a storewide sale – 20 percent off new items and 30 percent off used items that are not RSD-specific releases – to reward those who come to the shop on Saturday.

The 411: Black Friday Record Store Day 2015 is Friday, Nov. 27. Mill Valley Music is located at 320 Miller Ave., (415) 389-9090. Click here for more details, and click here for a full list of Record Store Day releases nationwide. ​

Two months after the Mountain Play revealed that its 2016 production of the Tony Award-winning musical West Side Story would be directed by Jay Manley, the organization announced that David Moschler, who won a 2015 Theatre Bay Area Award for Outstanding Music Direction, will be its music director, and that Nicole Helfer, a 2015 Theatre Bay Area Award for Outstanding Choreography, will be the choreographer. Manley directed the Sound of Music for the Mountain Play's 100th anniversary production.  

“We are thrilled to have gathered a remarkable artistic team for this important production,” says Sara Pearson, Mountain Play executive director and producer. “The energy and enthusiasm is building daily and everyone is looking forward to creating an exciting fresh perspective on this beloved classic.”

Based on Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare’s infamous play about ill-fated young love, West Side Story is a Broadway classic written by Arthur Laurents and songs from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Made famous by the 1961 Academy Award-winning film of the same name, the musical is known for one of the most complicated and beautiful scores in musical theater history. West Side Story explores racial tensions playing out on the streets of the Upper West Side in the 1950’s. The story centers around turf wars between the Sharks and the Jets, two rival street gangs, one white and one Puerto Rican. When Tony, a member of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, whose brother is the leader of the Sharks, the young lovers must stand up to their families, their communities, and the very social order of the world they inhabit.

The 411: The Mountain Play's production of West Side Story runs May 22, 29, 29, June 5, 11, 12 and 19. Performances start at 2pm. MORE INFO.

A downtown Mill Valley retail space steeped in local history is on the market, as property owner Tom Kostic is looking for a tenant to fill his 2,500-square-foot storefront at 21 Throckmorton Avenue.

The vacancy was predicated by Summerhouse, one of Mill Valley’s most popular housewares and furniture brands, which consolidated its three local spaces into two over the summer by taking over the former Cabana Home space at 238 East Blithedale Avenue.

For the previous 23 years, Summerhouse owner Robert Adams had kept a 6,000-square-foot warehouse in the building at 250 East Blithedale that formerly contained Mill Valley Services before it closed in September 2014, opening it on the weekends for customers to check out a larger inventory than was available at his stores at 21 and 57 Throckmorton Avenue. 
Adams also saw an opportunity to relocate the inventory from the 21 Throckmorton store into the new one.

The building that contains the 21 Throckmorton space and the adjacent 23 Throckmorton that was the former home of the Tamalpais General Store until it closed in 2010 has a rich history in Mill Valley. According to the Mill Valley Historical Society, in 1929, there was a Studebaker Agency in this location, and in 1939, a pharmacy. Bennett's Variety Store occupied the building from 1942 to 1980.

What would you like to see open in this space? Tell us in the comments below.

Mill Valley Mayor Ken Wachtel took a recent ride in a Marin County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue fixed wing, single engine airplane, and came home with some spectacular photos of the 94941 and surrounding area. See captions for location of each photo.

On the hunt for pies that will blow the socks off your Thanksgiving dinner guests?

Equator Coffees & Teas is looking to save you a trip to the San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, where best friends and Three Babes Bakeshop owners Anna Derivi-Castellanos and Lenore Estrada have been making mouths water and drawing raves review with their pies.

Equator's downtown shop (2 Miller Ave.) is hosting a Three Babes Bakeshop pop-up shop on Wednesday, Nov. 25, with a pie menu that includes: Classic Apple, Pumpkin, Bourbon Pecan, Chocolate Pecan (gluten-free), Salty Honey Walnut and Pear Blackberry Crumble.

Three Babes will also be at both of Equator's locations in Mill Valley on Saturday, Nov. 21 selling slices of pie and taking pre-orders for pickup on Nov. 25. 

As for the pies themselves, reviews are through the roof. SF Weekly says "their signature Salty Honey Walnut is so flavorful, so unique, and so mouth-wateringly delicious" and that their "popular flavors sell out fast and for good reason. You’ve never tasted anything like this before.” Huffington Post has raved: “Home to quite possibly the world’s most perfect pies, Three Babes Bakeshop busts out some classics and some not-so-classics like salty honey walnut, vanilla sugar buttermilk and brown sugar pear custard."

Customers may also order online at three-babes-bakeshop.myshopify.com. Equator Coffees & Teas are at 2 Miller Ave. and 244 Shoreline Hwy. at Proof Lab.

It's safe to say that the hair business along the second block of East Blithedale is a family affair.

Four years ago, colorist Christine Donahue and stylist Heather Fultz, longtime colleagues at DiPietro Todd, teamed up to create Revery Salon, "a fun, yet relaxing, intimate atmosphere" at 94 East Blithedale Ave. Their stellar reputations followed them, and business grew steadily to some 2,000 clients, so much so that when a space nearly triple in size to theirs opened up earlier this year, they jumped at the chance to move down the block to 138 East Blithedale.

San Francisco residents Donahue and Fultz then passed off their old space to their husbands, Tony Morales and Luke Fultz, a tattoo artist and graphic designer, respectively, to open the Shavery Barbershop and bring "a taste of the city and something hip and cool into Mill Valley," Heather Fultz says.

The couples are celebrating Revery's fourth anniversary in Mill Valley with a Grand Opening Celebration on Friday, Nov. 13, 4–7pm, with wine and cheese and a Trunk Show featuring NV Blue tunics and dresses, Lulu Design Jewelry, My Scrappy Bag leather handbags and wine from Pine Ridge Vineyards. Nearby Bright Antenna Records will be playing tracks from their label catalog.

"It should be a blast," Fultz says.

The 411: Revery Salon's fourth anniversary Grand Opening Celebration is Friday, Nov. 13, 4–7pm at 138 East Blithedale Ave. 

You know that weekday evening moment after you get the kids to bed and have a second to take a deep breathe with your spouse and unspool the day?

It’s safe to say that that moment is pretty damn interesting in the Tarr household.

In the span of just two years, Doug Tarr has turned his Mill Valley Code Club, which teaches kids to code through a variety of innovative techniques, from a few kids sitting around the family’s dining room table into a burgeoning juggernaut with locations in downtown Mill Valley, Greenbrae and San Francisco.

And just upstairs from the Code Club in the Mill Creek Plaza building that houses All Wrapped Up and the Balboa Cafe, the atelier-style design studio of J’Amy Tarr Outerwear, the Mill Valley native’s eponymous clothing line that is already popular in the 94941 and ready for a breakout beyond, is open for business.

“We are certainly never lacking for conversation,” J’Amy Tarr says with a laugh of the life of an entrepreneurial couple. “It is very exciting. It can be intense. We have very different things going on, but there are plenty of similarities in terms of strategizing and giving each other feedback.”
​
The opening of her studio (by appointment only) is a pivotal moment for Tarr, who attended Strawberry Point School and whose mom, Christy Herrmann, taught in the Mill Valley School District for 40 years, primarily at Old Mill and Edna Maguire elementary schools. Tarr’s career has taken her to New York City, Seattle and abroad, including interning for renowned designer Michael Kors, for whom she worked on a dress for Beyoncé that was on the cover of InStyle magazine.

But after those intrepid journeys to learn from some of the best, Tarr has long since found her own voice, and she’s back on home turf. She was recently invited to reimagine an updated wardrobe for Hillary Clinton as part of a San Francisco Chronicle story, and the newspaper did a feature story on Tarr over the summer.

“I have definitely found my own way,” Tarr says. “There’s a high-end element to my clothing but it’s deeply rooted here in the Bay Area. It’s made in San Francisco and it’s really special.”