Olde Times

What’s new in Old Towne Orange? For starters, it was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places, taking its place alongside such sites as Gettysburg and the Golden Gate Bridge. And it’s already looking back to the future with a handful of new businesses.

LUNCH 1

If you arrive by train (or by bus), the first thing you may want to do is wet your whistle at the city’s newest whistle stop, the Old Towne Brewing Co. It opened in July, next to the train tracks at the old Santa Fe train depot on Atchison Street.

Brew master Tucker Fleming also happens to be the drummer for one of the county’s most highly regarded bands, Chris Gaffney & the Cold Hard Facts. Posters in the Brewing Co. bar honor several of Fleming’s nonmusical efforts: Mad Dog Magruder Extra Special Bitter, Preservation Porter and Fleming’s 80 Shilling Scottish Ale.

Another poster shows how beer is made, and you can easily trace the process by looking at the equipment behind a glass partition. Four huge vats, which the diagram refers to as “serving vessels,” can be seen behind the bar.

Hungry? Try Railroad Thai chicken salad in peanut dressing ($7.25). On the walls in the dining area are train paintings by Marinus Welman; an unpainted square of canvas in the center of his “Union Pacific” ($3,200), where the open doors of a freight car would be, indicate either cleverness or forgetfulness.

AFTERNOON 2 3

Roam the streets of Old Towne!

Welman’s paintings are also featured at Old Towne’s newest gallery, the Exchange, housed in a historic landmark on South Glassell Street. His series “Orange County Foothill and Coastal Landscapes” can be seen throughout November. Large-scale oil works include “The Bluffs at Back Bay No. 3,” “In Santiago Canyon” and “Transportation Corridor Cut No. 1.”

But the star of this show may be the gallery itself. The opening of the Exchange in October marked the 75th anniversary of the structure, completed in 1922 and long known as the Sunkist Orange County Fruit Exchange Building. Gallery owner Tom Porter renovated the building, maintaining the integrity of the architecture while adding columns and Italian Renaissance-style flourishes--including a most impressive trompe l’oeil ceiling painting.

On the other side of the Orange Plaza, on North Glassell Street in a beige house with orange and purple trim, Fandangle carries “useless trinkets that make life . . . fun.” Contemporary gifts and accessories include frames, jewelry, stationery and candlesticks, often with a whimsical touch. The shop opened in May.

Among useful trinkets are highly decorated martini glasses and mezuza (a small case with an inscribed parchment for a house’s door post) by Emily Cohen. Books include “How to Draw a Radish and Other Fun Things to Do at Work” by Joy Sikorski. Purely decorative are ceramics by Denise Ford, who makes an appearance at a Fandangle holiday preview party Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m., and raku pottery from South Africa of colorful hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses.

Diedrich Coffee opened a year ago in the circa-1920 Mediterranean-style Orange Daily News building (44 Plaza Square). Encore Presentations (144 N. Glassell St.) may soon close; the antique and collectible shop is for sale.

DINNER 4

A few doors down from the Knot Knew Shop (148A N. Glassell St.), opposite Orange Paint (143 N. Glassell St.), is the Citrus City Grille. You can’t miss it: It sticks out like a blissfully un-self-conscious postmodern thumb, and right now there’s a “happy first birthday” sign out front. On the menu: Southwestern corn bisque (Citrus City Soup, $4) and truffled Roquefort risotto topped with garlic orange shrimp ($17).

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1) Old Towne Brewing Co.

186 N. Atchison St., (714) 744-4181.

11 a.m.-midnight Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday.

2) The Exchange

195 S. Glassell St., (714) 997-8132.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday.

3) Fandangle

229 N. Glassell St., (714) 516-1291.

11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday, and 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday.

4) Citrus City Grille

122 Glassell St., (714) 639-9600.

11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Parking: Free street and city lot parking.

Buses: OCTA Bus Nos. 53, 54, 59 and 69 service the Orange train station and Park-and-Ride lot.