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It's a cute complex. Big area for the kiddies to play and a carousel even. They've got an assortment of stores ranging from yogurt, to pizza to even a Jelly Belly store. It's close to the strip mall complex of Best Buy, Border's, Wet Seal and adult food (Rubio's). The Fenton's here earns it extra points as do the small mechanical rides. I wedged my ass into a motorcycle sidecar much to the horror of the kids playing in the area. I don't remember ever being that small.
But my biggest gripe is that I came here with the intention of visiting a nut store. I had it all figured out in my head that I would get my parents some pistachio's and Fred was going to pick up some peanuts. But search we did and we did not find a tree of nuts ... or a store of nuts either. I guess we were the nuts.
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Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the Nut Tree.
This is not the Nut Tree. It is a travestree.
Sorry, make that a travesty.
Came here for the grand "re-opening". all the rides were free. it's a mini version of what they had inside. still have train, carousel, the free rocking chairs, and little stands of something or other for you to buy. it's really a fraction of the mini park of before. sad. but for free what can you really say? i think they'll start charging tomorrow.
you know, i don't ever remember paying for admission into the previous park. we just paid for the rides. not sure what the other reviewers are talking about when they had to pay for admission. maybe they were scammed... anyway, despite the heat, lines were short in the am, and even shorter in the pm.
there are more and more shops opening up around the area. more food choices too. that is really important when you're attracting kids... families with kids b/c who has to eat the most frequently?
yes, yes, i use to stop here also as a kid on the way to the bay, but now, i'm just glad, there's still something here... and that whoever is opening this up, kept some of the "momentos" of the past. but what it is now, is different. i'm not sure if it's better, but i do think it's more suited for today's society.
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If you got kids then it's not so bad. Otherwise, it's just like any other shopping plaza. It gets three stars because it's so close to Fentons Creamery.
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Some serious eating going on here.
It's a family tradition to stop here on the way back from lake tahoe.
My partner loves it, and so do here three kids from her failed marriage.
Beats the hell out of fast food. And there are things for the kiddies to do.
lots of parking.
You can scarf out here and then not make another stop til you get home to Santa Cruz. Prices are cool.
It was a 5 star classic in the days when I disovered it!! But these days the coporate jerks have made this place a pretty dissapointing 3 stars.
The Tamale Dinner was $17. Most people wouldn't spend that much for a meal in those days. But there was always enough to make a 2nd Meal for later And most people don't make the Connection between healthy Eating and Their Health!!
They'd rather spend the money on Hospital Bills later.
How Many Times Do YOu Discover a truly Gourmet Restaurant off the side of the highway (halfway between So Lake Tahoe & San Fran)???
Well that is Exactly what the Nut Tree was!! Nestled right on Highway 50 amongst Gorgeous Eucalytus trees. The Tamale Dinner there was to Die For. Every time you went there The Tamale Dinner was Exactly The Same! IThe Tamales and dinner were made by Mexican Ladies from Mexico.
But let it suffice to say that I on two Seperate Occasions drove all the way from South Lake Tahoe to Vacaville ( which is over a 2 hr drive) Just for thrill of The Tamale Dinner at the Nut Tree and then back home:
The Nut Restaurant was a truly Gourmet Restaurant. The Tamale Dinner at The Nut Tree was an absolutely Authentic Mexican meal made by Mexican ladies. The Tamale Dinner was Absolutely To Die For!! It was Always the Same: A Large Corn Husk Masa filled Turkey Tamale with a Turkey Gravy inside and a Green Oive with a seed inside (not pimento), There was Always a freshly baked little loaf of bread & a Lima Bean & Pickle Relish Stuffed Avocado. Generous slices of Beautiful Tomatoes and of Cheese. The Tamale was Never Spiced Hot as American/Mexican Always are. It was always the Same To Perfection. And Best of ALL there was Always Enough Left Over to Make A 2nd Meal of it for Later in the Day ! ! ! Towards the End when the Children had taken over the Restaurant they started putting Spice in the Tamale, soon afterwards the whole place closed down!
I grew up in Vacaville.
Please don't hold that against me. :)
In all seriousness, the Nut Tree will always hold a special place in my heart. I loved the pumpkin patch and the HUGE ass cookies that they used to have at the Nut Tree store across from the little gift shop and train station. I lived in Vacaville back in the day BEFORE the outlets, all the restaurants, Wal-Mart, Target, etc were even built......I love when people ask me, oh you must have practically lived at the outlets as a teenager huh?
I tell them, I remember when they started breaking ground on the outlets!
yeah that long ago :)
Anyhow, way off track here! I was so sad when the demolished the HUGE Nut Tree sign, a landmark for many, many years for travelers, but I loved what they have done with the area. I was there with my hubby and parents and was pleased to see what they have done with the area, but a little upset to know that they are charging to get into the actual theme park.
But I love that they put all these business in the updated Nut Tree area. Borders, Old Navy, See's Candy, Edible Arrangements, Fenton's Creamery, Best Buy, and much, much more!
No it's not the same old Nut Tree like back in the day, but they've done a major update on it, and at the same time (to me) have retained the old Nut Tree feel :)
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it was a 5 star classic growing up but these days the coprorate jerk had made this place a pretty dissapointing 3 stars.
after checking out the jelly belly tour we headed into vacaville to see whats new with the nut tree. i'm sorry to say the new isn't very good and i could pretty much go into any town usa if i wanted to go to jamba, borders, peets, best buy or baja fresh. they do have a very few small busineses still open but you can see the dissapointment the onwners have on what has become of this place. the place has surely lost it's magic so i think my days of the nut tree are pretty much over.
if you are head out that way i highly reccomend you stop in to try villa corona. this is some of the best mexican food i have in in a very long time and has very great prices. http://www.yelp.com/bi...
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the nut tree has always made those long driving trips so worth the stop. since i was little we would… Read more »
We made the unfortunate discovery that the Nut Tree is now charging admission! Let's get one thing clear, this is a mini-amusement park AT BEST--- it now sits in a mall. Do you really want to pay admission (on top of having to buy ride tickets) to take your child on a train ride as a reward for good behavior during a shopping excursion? You have to pay even if you're the adult in the group who isn't going on any of the rides. The employees are ready with their pat corporate-rehearsed answers when you complain too and let me tell you there were A LOT of people were voicing thier complaints--- including a party of eight who left and didn't drop a dime of their hard earned cash at the Nut Tree.
Here are the lines they fed us and my responses to them are in parentheses:
----"If you give your kids the four ride tickets that come with a standard admission, you've really only paid $1.55 to get in!' (Huh? This does not make those four ride tickets free, you know! A standard admission which includes four ride tickets is $4.95. Also, where does the Nut Tree get off assuming that I want my kids to have anymore tickets than the amount I distribute to them in the first place!)
---- "By charging admission and making it more difficult for just anyone to walk in, the park is now more family friendly. You won't find anyone without a child simply loitering around." (Are you telling me this place was rife for a "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" filming?)
----- "We did ths so we could lower our wrist band prices." (OK, that's nice. You've just told me that you did this to benefit people who either live in the area or intend to spend more than an hour at the Nut Tree on their way home from Tahoe, )
The classic old Nut Tree NEVER CHARGED ADMISSION and this place tries or has tried to claim the spirit of the old place still lives here. I say "NOT!", the classic Nut Tree wouldn't have gouged customers this way. For this ridiculous development I am knocking a star from my original 4-star review.
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I have fond childhood memories of the Nut Tree. A fun, cheesy stop on the way home from Lake Tahoe,… Read more »
Here is the problem with Nostalgia reviews. Places change. The location now known as the nut tree is a shopping mall with decoration to remind one of the magical place we all remember from our childhood. Ignore any reivews here that talk about what an awesome place this used to be. It's not that place anymore. I hear the train is the same, but everything else is different.
It is a shopping center. There are some fun stores and a little area for rides, though it will cost you $5 to walk into that little area. It is more Nut-Tree themed than Nut Tree.
If you visit this shopping center based ont he idealism of other people's nostalgia you will be sorely disappointed. If you go thinking you need to buy something at a particular story you know is there, you might be pleasantly surprised at the fun childhood-like theme of the shopping center.
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I barely remember the old Nut Tree but the new Nut Tree makes that area look a lot better than before. It's cool they have a Tilly's there. The new sports store is pretty nice and I can't argue with them having a BevMo. That's prolly the best thing about the new Nut Tree. Another Best Buy, even though there's another one about 5 exits away in Fairfield.
Other than a few other places like jamba juice, panera bread, and L&L Barbecue, there's still a lot of empty spaces. But if you need to do a lot of shopping, that whole area in vacaville is a good place to go.
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Nut Tree has closed. What do we do with our season passes? Sad.
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This review is for the Family Park inside of Nut Tree. I have a school age child and a toddler a… Read more »
Remember how lovely the Nut Tree used to be?
If you really cherish that memory, don't come back.
The Nut Tree now, is little more than a strip mall, with some rides, near an airport.
This place gets one star, because that's how yelp rolls, and I'm willing to give it one more for that corn swimming pool that they have for kids, when their pumpkin patch is open.
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I brought my godson here for some one on one time together. I think I enjoyed the atmosphere and rides more than he did. I love this place and look forward to coming back real soon. We paid $10.95 for entrance and unlimitied rides inside the small park. I made sure that we took advantage of it and we rode all the rides, well at least he did. Not all the rides are made for adults....Around the park there is plenty to do and its a lot cheaper compared to the larger amusment parks. This place doesn't charge a lot for there food, drinks or services. Its a great place for kids and aldults who are kids at heart.
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Plagerized and slightly modified from my review of Panera Bread at the NT:
First, minus 3-stars for the greedy, corporate, cock-sucking, son-of-a-bitch who did not reopen the Nut Tree as it used to be. The Nut Tree was the place my family would ALWAYS stop when driving from Chico to my Grandmother's in Sonoma. Because my family did not vacation much, stopping at the Nut Tree was not only a grand event, it was my window to life beyond the great, protective bubble that is Chico. It is were I got my first impressions of dreamy, inaccessible places by looking at bins full of Earl Thollandar prints of the Napa Valley backroads, the Mendocino coast and San Francisco. The smells--gingerbread cookies, the grease from the train, the yeasty smell of my dad's Heineken from the beer garden...I reel with nostalgia and loss along with many other generations who remember the Nut Tree as a grand icon of their childhood.
Ya, they tried to make something of "once was" by bringing back the train, small, scaled down versions of the rocking horses, and some kind of pavillion area where there, ostensibly, will be local wares, but it is very gratuitous and smacks of afterthought.
Mostly though, it is another one of these fucked-up, uber-strip mall places that looks like a Tuscan Villa collided, head-on, with a Junior College. Welcome to the new Nut Tree. Also, how come all these places are filled with the same clap-trap...yep, there's Old Navy, there's Starbucks, there's TGIF's, there's Border's/Barnes and Noble, there's Panera Bread wedged right in between a Panda Express and a fucking Jamba Juice.
This homogenization of everything is B-A-D. Soon, it won't even be meaningful to travel if all the same stuff is in every town.
Don't Go!
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I have a lot of memories coming here as a kid with my family, aunts, uncles, cousins everyone. It is not the same as it used to be. I would always get their pancakes but the most memorable thing was their cookies.
Paper thin crispy sweet drizzled with chocolate.
Their goody shop, and coloring placemats always entertained me during the wait, actually it was more entertaining than the food but we always brought home those cookies.
Cosco sells something similar but it is sometimes stale and not as good.
This review is for back in the day, I have no clue what its like now. I've been there once when we stopped there on the way home from a family reunion in Oroville (oh boy, good times :-/). It was '89 and all I remember is being 7 months pregnant and having one of the BEST Snickerdoodle cookies EVER!! God they were good!
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My boyfriend works in Vacaville, and on Sundays, I drive out from Davis to eat lunch with him. The Nut Tree makes lunch so much easier because of the variety of foods available. Whenever we finish early, we usually find ourselves wandering inside one of the stores to kill time. On days with good weather, the Village and Theme Park provide nice places to eat our bagged lunches or to just sit and relax. The Nut Tree has created a perfect blend of retail and park environments.
I can't speak for nut tree now, but I will speak for it 10 - 15 years ago. This was like a childhood playland. I bought my first set of sea monkey's here AND THEY LIVED (for about a month). I loved the train rides and there was a store that sold these muffins that were so huge, and so moist. Everything about nut tree had this country, home feeling to it. It was so welcoming.
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My Dad used to take me here every year! I loved all of the little rides and things to do. I had some things I had purchased in the gift shop for years. We always ate at that coffee tree place! The color orange was so overwhleming and for some reason I never found it to be too tacky.
The Nut Tree isn't anything like what it used to be. They saved the name, hobbyhorses, logos and a few original employees and that's about it. They saved these things because they were required to as part of the sale to the new owner/developer. To me it's very sad as it was a very special place when I was growing up. I have such great memories riding the train out to the airport, shopping at the store and dining at the restaurant. I remember the wonderful aviary inside the restaurant and all the unique foods the restaurant served like those mini loaves of bread. I remember the orchards and the open space. Does anyone remember their green olives? I've never found better olives. Now the Nut Tree is just a very small amusement park tucked away behind chain stores and suburban sprawl. If it wasn't for the few remaining eucalyptus trees I wouldn't have even found the place! I guess what the new Nut Tree does have to offer is a clean (but expensive) place for kids to go on fun rides and maybe have a birthday party. The game arcade there is the best I've ever seen; it doesn't have the normal bombardment of noise, lights and violence.
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