River Boulevard, an arterial road through East Bakersfield, dead-ends at Panorama Drive. Arrive at the intersection, walk across the street, and you’re reminded in many ways of what California once was, or could have been — and you can certainly see what it is now.
Standing with the bluff’s edge at your feet feels like wading at the lip of an infinity pool but not the kind you see in the brochure. On the horizon is an expanse like nothing else — a landscape that, not long ago, was overgrown meadows bisected by a mighty river and, in the near distance, the sloping, beckoning range of the southern Sierra Nevada.
Before the place fell to the whims of industry, before the rows of giant hobby horse oil rigs cropped up and churned fossil sludge from the ground, before the lingering hint of pesticides took hold in the air, before the expanse below was fatefully named Oildale, a place so snakebitten that only the likes of Merle Haggard, a crooning dust devil made of rock, dirt and train track, could rise up from it — it was paradise.
Some still see it that way, and there’s a way you can too, with a little bit of help.
The exterior of Panorama Liquors in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 15, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEThere to provide that service is Panorama Liquors, a classically drawn independent liquor store perched on the cliff, a true Central Valley bodega, as one employee described it.
Today, the angular, midcentury gem stationed at the literal edge of town, lit up on the outside, all wood paneling and tidy displays inside, is well-trafficked by workers — landscapers, cement contractors, drywallers — moving across town on their daily routes. They stop in for a morning cup of coffee or a giant soda and swing by once more in the late afternoon for a 12-pack and a lottery ticket. On weekends especially, there might be a line out the door; this time, it’s mourners and visitors to Greenlawn Cemetery across the street, the permanent home to some of the town’s most revered since 1931.
One by one, they file in, wearing off-the-rack black suits and creased shirts or dresses that only emerge from the back of the closet for such somber trips. Some might buy a little liquor store flower to leave at a headstone, but most look for a pint of alcohol or a pack of smokes to take the edge off.
In between the mourners, regulars make their way in. Some cash checks, some stop just to talk, and some grab a bag of ice. The store’s owners, former bartenders, often spotted customers, especially those en route to the cemetery or making their way down the bluff to dip their toes into the Kern River, buying ingredients for cocktails. But were they doing it right? Not often. So, they decided to help out.
A customer walks into Panorama Liquors in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 15, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEThe concept wasn’t new. A pandemic-era phenomenon of buying drink kits at liquor stores in the Bay Area and Los Angeles had spread throughout the state, but something about Panorama Liquors’ concoctions was different: the quality of the ingredients, the care with which they were prepared and the setting in which to consume them.
Locals started to know all about the store's offerings, but then came the first TikTok.
On Sept. 13, 2022, Panorama Liquors posted its first video on the social media site. The opening notes of Harry Styles’ “As It Was” scored a hand opening a refrigerator door.
The hand reaches in and grabs a plastic cup that contains minibar shots of top-shelf vodka and rum, along with a couple of cans of Dole pineapple juice. Cut to the same hand scooping crushed ice, a key ingredient, into the cup until it's about three-quarters full. Cut once more to a park bench across the street from the store out on the bluff. Styles is now leaning into the chorus as the concoction is quickly mixed. First half the vodka shot, then the juice, then the rum, and then more juice and the other half of the vodka. The hand places a lid on top and stirs it up with a straw. Easy. Cheers to the sunset over Panorama Drive.
Bam, 3.4 million views and the beginning of a conversation.
Cocktail kits to go are available in a display refrigerator at Panorama Liquors in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 15, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEPosts featuring new drinks, at the frequency of about one every other week, draw anywhere from hundreds of thousands of views to tens of millions. With 378,000 followers and more than 11 million likes over the past 11 months, the store has become a must-stop for people making their way up and down the state — and has fashioned itself as a destination and celebrity in its own right.
“It’s crazy,” Nick Lancaster, a Panorama Liquors employee whose niece by marriage, Michelle, is co-owner and co-creator of the phenomenon, told SFGATE on a recent trip there in July. “They come from San Francisco to San Diego. We have people from Texas who, they’re already out here, but they go, ‘We drove an hour out of our way off the freeway. We gotta check this out.’”
Lancaster said one woman had recently driven down from San Francisco. “She said that we’re the only place that does it like this. [The drive was] no big deal,” he recalled. “‘It’s cool, it’s different, and you guys are pretty big on social media,’ she said. She thought she’d just drive down and see.”
Did she say it was worth it after sampling her drink? “I don’t think anyone leaves disappointed,” Lancaster said. “In fact, I know they don’t.”
The customers are a mix, he said. Some want to try the cocktail out and taste it on the very bluffs they’re mixed on, taking in the drink and the views at the same time, and others are just there for notoriety.
“Some even get here, post that they are, tag us — and by the time they leave, they show me their phone; they say, ‘I have 50,000 views because I did my video walking in here,’” he said.
Has the store’s viral phenomenon translated into sales? “Absolutely,” Lancaster said. On a recent hot day, he sold 300 premade drinks in a shift. This past spring, the store was averaging about 8,000 drinks a month. It got to the point where the store's distributors were having a hard time keeping the store stocked with mini bottles.
“We use high-end alcohol,” he said. “Our liquor guys are like, ‘You gotta slow down.’ We stopped making the Don Julio drink for three months because they said, ‘We can’t give you 200 cases of the Don Julio shots.’ We went three months without it. That’s a lot of little shots. It’s a lot of ordering.
“But in one night, we can go through all of them — it’s insane.”
An employee shows off the cocktail kits available at Panorama Liquors in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 15, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATERight now, the store is fully stocked and providing a thirsty public with all the drinks it can handle. “A couple weeks ago, I asked for one that would f—k me up and my buddy right. We wanted to have fun, and it worked,” said Chris Stepter, a Bakersfield local. He noted that often the regular crowd that files in for the drinks is joined by out-of-towners, lots of them. “One time not long ago, I came out here. The whole parking lot was full, and they were parked down the street.”
“They’re viral. TikTok is a big influencer page,” Kayla Mcham, another Bakersfield resident and Panorama Liquors regular, said. “It’s about the experience, too. It’s about coming in and being a part of something.”
Stepter pointed out that the drinks aren’t cheap. He’s right, though for about $12 to $17 each, you can get one with top-shelf alcohol, and the vistas don’t cost extra. “It’s probably more than you’d get at a bar, and honestly, it’s better surroundings,” he said.
A panoramic view of the Kern River is across the street from Panorama Liquors in Bakersfield, Calif., on April 15, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEBefore leaving, I selected a drink featuring a can of Squirt, shots of Patron Silver and Sauza Tequila (the miniature Patron bottles were about the most precious things ever), and a small packet of lime salt. I mixed it just as the video viewed 570,000 times, featuring “Miss You” by Southstar, told me to — and took that first sip standing out on the very edge of this part of California.
Replicating something I had watched over and over while actually being there felt nearly perfect.
“I have to give credit to the girls who run this place,” Lancaster concluded. “They orchestrate everything, they spend hours and hours, trying mixers, making drinks — what cup’s going to work with which and how it’s going to look good. Packaging, making the videos, down to the music and the name.
“At first, I thought this was a kid thing, but there’s families who come here, and they range from 60 on down — you name it. I guess I see now why they love it.”