In 2021, Indio native Ejay Gomez had a dream that he was walking through a bustling town full of thriving businesses. Kids were playing, dogs were barking and all the storefronts were full.
“I thought it was like downtown Pasadena or something,” said Gomez, who had opened Indio’s first cafe, Everbloom Coffee, with his business partner, Matthew Ortega, just a few months before. “It was a communal space where people were hanging out in a ‘live, eat, work’ kind of place.”
In the dream, Gomez asked God where he was. God told him, he said, that this was the future of what was then a largely deserted stretch of downtown Indio, just a block away from where Gomez grew up.
“He said, ‘If you steward this well, I will make this place prosperous.’” Gomez said. “It was such a real dream that it became a core conviction.”
Gomez’s vision may not have come fully to fruition just yet, but with a host of new businesses opening in the past year and several more on the way, it no longer feels so far-fetched.
“It’s like Silver Lake before it became Silver Lake,” Gomez said, sitting outside his bright coffee shop — a favorite with visiting celebrities, influencers and local moms — on a recent afternoon. “We’re just on the precipice of something great.”
Hundreds of thousands of people descend on Indio each year for Goldenvoice’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach, but few venture beyond the festival grounds. In the past, there wasn’t much to do in the desert city besides grab chips and a decadent Tamale Boat from Arriola’s Tortilleria or shop at Yellow Mart for western wear or a crossbow. Now, that’s all changing. Thanks in part to a business-friendly city government that is investing in art and infrastructure, downtown Indio is growing at an unprecedented pace.
New restaurants like Marcel Ramirez’s Gabino’s Creperie East, Roman Whittaker and Skip Paige’s popular gastropub Indio Taphouse and elevated Italian speakeasy Italica are drawing more people to and around the single-street stripthan have been there in decades. Thrifters can shop for vintage goods at Daniel Mata’s Urban Donkey, and those looking for an alternative nightlife scene can check out Adrian Romero’s Rosemary HiFi to sip beer and natural wines while listening to records on high-end stereo equipment. Visitors and locals attending free outdoor concerts and films at the city-sponsored Center Stage — a recently built outdoor theater— line up for smashburgers and loaded fries from local vendor Papa Headz, who gives out free burgers to kids on family movie nights.
And there’s more on the way. On a recent tour of the classic downtown area dotted with freshly painted murals, Indio’s Economic Development Director Miguel Ramirez-Cornejo pointed out the locations where new businesses will soon be arriving. They include an art gallery, a music studio, a beer and pizza place, an ice cream parlor that will also serve grilled cheese, a restaurant from the Michelin-starred chef behind Palm Springs’ Bar Cecil and the second location of Gomez’s Everbloom Coffee, which will serve as the company’s flagship.
“We’re just at the beginning stages,” Ramirez-Cornejo said. “We’ve got so much to do. So much to grow.”
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Gomez has been doing his part. Determined to realize the bustling downtown Indio in his dream, he seeks out local business owners, offers whatever help they may need, ensures they are connected to other businesses for support and recruits friends and entrepreneurs to the area.
“The friendships are very unique here,” he said. “We’re each other’s council. It’s a whole ecosystem and it’s very beautiful.”
Indio may still be in the early stages of its transformation, but a visit here is already well worth your time. If you’re going to be in town for the festival or you happen to live nearby, here’s a list of seven cool businesses to check out now.