About this site
Built by Someone Who Lives Here
I grew up in Orangevale. Roberts Elementary, Pershing Elementary, Andrew Carnegie Middle School, and Bella Vista High School — class of 1987. I've watched this community grow up around strip malls and big-box stores while the independent businesses that give OV its personality fight to get noticed.
We had neighborhood spirit and pride back then, before those words meant something else. We attended the neighborhood parade every year on our local street — and one year we didn't just watch, we entered it. Built a float. Called ourselves the Terramore Terrors. That's the OV I remember — the kind of community where people actually showed up for each other.
In my early 20s you could find me shooting pool at Reign's Irish Pub with Andrew and the best of them. That's the OV I grew up in — the local spots, the regulars, the places that had a personality because the owner was there every night. That's what this site is trying to preserve and celebrate.
In 2016, when the signs went up along Greenback Lane announcing a downtown redevelopment plan, I registered this domain — and DowntownOrangevale.com — because I believed something was actually going to happen. I still believe it can.
DowntownOV.com is the guide I wish existed when I wanted to know where to grab a happy hour on a Friday, or which local place was doing something interesting this weekend, without scrolling through Nextdoor ads for tub refinishing and suspicious giveaways.
What This Site Is
- Local only. No national chains, franchises, or corporate locations. Period.
- Community-submitted. Businesses and events get listed when owners or organizers submit them. We review everything manually.
- Free to list. If you're a local business, you belong here — no fee to be in the directory.
- OV-focused. Orangevale. Not Sacramento, not Folsom, not Fair Oaks. OV.
- Low drama. This isn't a forum. It's not a place to complain about your neighbor or warn people about a sketchy van. It's a positive local resource.
The Bigger Picture
Orangevale has a Sacramento County Streetscape Master Plan — officially adopted in 2015 — that imagined a walkable, pedestrian-friendly downtown corridor along Greenback Lane. The zoning framework exists. The design guidelines exist. What takes time is everything else.
DowntownOrangevale.com covers that story — the history, the plan, the timeline. This site, DowntownOV.com, covers what's alive right now: the restaurants, the events, the farmers market, the people running businesses in the community they call home.
Both matter. The vision of what OV could be, and appreciation for what it already is.