If you were looking for sunshine, fun shopping, good eating and plenty of wine, then downtown Clayton was the place to be last weekend for the 15th annual CBCA Art and Wine Festival. Booths selling everything from tattoos to teriyaki, jewelry to jambalaya and bonsai to “Lee and Larry’s Bad-ass BBQ” lined Main Street and filled the food court.

By mid-afternoon on Saturday, Keith Haydon, co-chairman of the two-day event, thought the weekend crowd might top 50,000 – a long way from the two or three thousand that attended the first festival in 1995.

“We had less than 50 vendors at the first one,” recalls event founder Don Fitzgerald, who serves as advisor to co-chairs Hayden and Ed Hartley. This year’s event drew 120 vendors from all over California.

The huge crowds are good for business, say the downtown merchants. The Clayton Club was packed and owner Steve Barton ran out of buns for his tri-tip sandwiches before 5 p.m. Cup ‘O Jo, Canesa’s deli and Johnnie’s International Deli reported a steady stream of business all day. At Ed’s Mudville Grill, there was an hour’s wait at dinner time.

“Maybe this is a signal that the economy is turning around,” noted Cup ‘O Jo owner, Priscilla Barbosa.

New to the event this year were the private security guards at festival exit points and the chain link fence between the Village Market and the park – measures designed to keep alcohol confined within the festival boundaries. These measures were in response to concerns raised by the Alcohol and Beverage Control at last fall’s Oktoberfest.

The Art and Wine Festival is one of three major fundraisers sponsored by the CBCA each year—the others being the Oktoberfest and the Clayton Classic Golf Tournament. Profits from these events fund donations to local schools and charities.

“If we do as well as we think,” says CBCA treasurer Jennifer Giantvalley, “we could net as much as $100,000.”

This is in stark contrast to last year’s Art and Wine when a sick economy and bad weather kept both vendors and their customers at home. That event netted barely $25,000.

The CBCA is a civic organization dedicated to “the good of the Clayton Community.” For membership information, go to www.claytoncbca.org or call 672-2272.