Chris Esparza fostered a culture of connection in San Jose

Longtime creative entrepreneur and restaurant owner died Aug. 4, leaving a legacy of community events and "third spaces."

In the days since I learned that Chris Esparza died of a heart attack at age 57 on Sunday, I’ve struggled to fully process what he meant to his hometown of San Jose and the impact he had on so many people, including me.

He founded an event company called Giant Creative, and those two words fit him perfectly. Sure, he was a big guy in stature, but his presence loomed even larger in San Jose, a city he loved that maybe didn’t always love him back to the same degree.

It’s been fascinating to hear when and where people’s lives intersected with Chris Esparza’s. Some people remember him working the door at One Step Beyond in Santa Clara; Fil Maresca recalls hiring him to do the same at F/X, an iconic nightclub in downtown San Jose’s SoFA before it was SoFA. Other people go even farther back with him to Gunderson High School.

Like many downtowners in the early ’90s, I frequented Ajax Lounge, the club that he and Chris Elliman opened above Eulipia restaurant on South First Street. But I didn’t meet Esparza until later in the decade at Fuel 44, the Chrises’ next club venture on the corner of Post and Almaden. Fuel 44 capitalized on the retro-swing, cocktail renaissance era and energized that block in a way that hasn’t happened since.

Many years later, when Esparza and Brendan Rawson opened Blackbird Tavern on Paseo de San Antonio, he had found the term that perfectly described the businesses he had been creating for two decades at that point: “third space” — a place where people could go besides work and home.

“It’s the gathering place for both the creative community and the people who want to see San Jose realize its urban creative potential,” he told me then.

Coming up with concepts for those spaces was Esparza’s innate talent. That’s why we had Blackbird Tavern, Fuel 44, Ajax and the Garage in Naglee Park. And he was always a welcome presence in those spaces, almost always wearing a fedora and a smile.

He had a knack of transforming spaces to bring people in, like when he planned a “Casablanca”-themed party at the Hotel De Anza to ring in the year 2000, held “underground” parties downtown before opening Ajax or even when he took over programming for the historic San Jose Woman’s Club on South 11th Street, practically willing people to see the potential in the ballroom for unique events.

He launched the trend in San Jose of screening movies outdoors — projecting classics like “Rear Window” onto blank walls and eventually switching to inflatable screens in parks. He started Winter Wonderland, the carnival-ride extravaganza that was resisted at first but is now an essential companion to Christmas in the Park every year. Not everything had as long of a life: Both the KraftBrew Beer Fest and the Left Coast Live music festival had short but enjoyable runs. While other people might have walked away from those attempts as “failures,” Esparza just looked for the next way to connect people to each other.

When COVID struck in 2020 and created the ultimate disconnect, Esparza responded by creating PorchFest. The outdoor, traveling music festival featured bands on flatbed trucks performing in front of houses in Naglee Park — the San Jose neighborhood where he lived with his wife, Pilar Agüero-Esparza and daughter, Olivia Esparza. Now produced by Annie Hermes — who took over Giant Creative from Esparza — PorchFest had its fifth edition this June with 10 stages dotted around the neighborhood.

With decades of experience behind him, Esparza took on the role of mentor to event organizers and promoters. The next generation of people with ideas to push San Jose forward got the benefit of learning from Esparza every time he ran up against government bureaucracy or economic reality.

Back in 2009, Esparza was part of the committee charged with reimagining the struggling Mexican Heritage Plaza and was instrumental in the creation of the School of Arts and Culture there, helping fill an arts education gap in the city’s East Side. He made SOAC the home of the city’s first Dia de los Muertos celebrations and was a driving force behind the Tres Vinos fundraiser, which coincidentally is Aug. 17.

As he pulled back from other activities, he put more of his energies into the expansion of SOAC, envisioning a massive cultural center that would lift up the surrounding Mayfair neighborhood. That plan continues on track, and when it is completed, it will be a great addition to Chris Esparza’s legacy of creating “third spaces” where we can connect as a community.