The Future of Bamboo is Here

Always at the cutting edge of sustainable natural materials, Bambu Batu is delighted to announce the arrival of solid, Hardwood Bamboo Furniture.

This is bamboo furniture like you've never seen before, nothing like the traditional rustic furniture fashioned from hollow poles strapped together. Just like the bamboo flooring and cutting boards, these pieces use layers of compressed bamboo to maximize the plant's natural strength and resilience. The result is an incredibly smooth, dense wood, harder than oak, with a stunningly attractive grain.

Come in today and see for yourself the future of bamboo, sleek and modern designs from the world's fastest growing plant. Or visit us online at http://www.bambubatu.com.

Solid Hardwood Bamboo Furniture

Bamboo for the Road

While on tour through Arizona last week (see the "Refreshing" entry below), we put our Bamboo Sporks to the test. Not surprisingly, they passed with flying colors. No need for plastic utensils at our road side picnics. Everything edible, from granola in the morning to thai noodles in the evening, with one handy spork.

Come in and check them out for yourself, or order them online www.BambuBatu.com

Refreshing

Because there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, we took a few days away from Bambu Batu last week to explore the scenery of neighboring Arizona. Last Friday, as we charged from the California Coast to Kingman, AZ, the Grand Canyon area was buried by its biggest snowfall in years. The next day, we drove into Flagstaff with clear blue skies and a thick blanket of fresh powder covering everything.
Much of Arizona sits on the Colorado Plateau, at around 7000 ft. altitude, so snow is common there, but this was an unusually heavy fall. About an hour south of the Grand Canyon, the world's largest contiguous stand of Ponderosa Pines surrounds Flagstaff, AZ, and for the 3 days we spent there, it was the quintessential winter wonderland. Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon, ordinarily swamped with visitors from around the globe, glistened in icy silence. A dearth of tourists at each overlook and on every trail punctuated the vast scope of the canyon itself.
Starved as we were for snow, not having seen a single flake since my expulsion from Germany in March 2004, we reveled in it, building snow men and pummeling each other with snow balls. But as the snow melts and the wild flowers open, so the season of our adventure came to a close, and we trekked across the Mojave through Quartzsite and past the windmills of Palm Springs, back to our little parcel of paradise in Grover Beach.

Winter Savings!

Back in Germany, they call it Winter-schlußverkauf, but in America it's just a President's Day white sale. In other words: our BAMBOO SHEETS are now on SALE!

Stop in before the end of Winter and you can save 20% on a set of 100% bamboo sheets from Dreamsacks, the very same sheets that were featured on the Today Show in January. These ultra soft sheets will make you feel like you're sleeping on a cloud. And more importantly, they are completely free of pesticides and are not treated with formaldehyde like conventional sheets. (Disgusting but true — this toxic chemical is typically used to prevent wrinkling.)

Come see us, or order your sheets online: www.BambuBatu.com
And for the month of March, we're also offering our Blog Readers a very special 25% off on a set of bamboo towels, that's $29.95 instead of $39.95. Mention the blog in our store to redeem your discount.

Standing Firm in San Luis

I shudder to guess how many species of megafauna and microflora have gone extinct since my last Bambu Blog entry, but let's just say it's been far too long. On the brighter side of natural selection, it's my great pleasure to report on Bambu Batu's upward evolution from south county to the NEW LOCATION in downtown SLO. In the first week of November '07, we carted a caravan of bamboo treasures on the Silk Road of the Central Coast and relocated our storefront to 1127-A Broad St., SLO. That's right downtown between Big Sky Café and Boston Bagel, not so far afield from the HempShak.

On November 25, our Grand Opening celebration went off like fireworks at Chinese New Year, with deep discounts throughout the store, tray after tray of fresh sushi rolls from next door, and enough rice wine to sedate a Giant Panda.

Bamboo products proved more popular than ever over the Christmas Season, especially the shirts, socks and dresses from spun bamboo, which sold like fortune cookies. And of course, our bamboo towels remain a perennial favorite. The selection of bamboo clothing grows constantly, and every week we see new styles and fashions. Come in today and check out our luxurious new bamboo bathrobes and scrumptious pajama sets.

Moving to SLO!

Bambu Batu is moving out of Grover Beach and up to downtown SLO. As of Nov. 1st we will be at 1127 Broad St., right next to Big Sky Cafe.
And to prove that moving up can be just as much fun as getting down, I've written this little Limerick:

Rednecks rush out to the sand dunes of Grover
Breaking their limbs when their buggies roll over
                An egregious offense
                With no common sense
They might as well bulldoze the White Cliffs of Dover


On a more serious note, I also sent this letter to the Grover Beach Dept of Community Development, kindly encouraging them to change their ways in order to sooner realize the immense potential of this quirky little beach town we call Grover:

To whom it may concern:

As a homeowner and business owner in the offbeat community of Grover Beach, I admire the city's efforts to bring about a badly needed facelift. In recent years they have striven to revitalize commerce by adding stop lights and erecting traffic medians along West Grand Avenue. And again this month there has been great talk of mixed use projects at the corners of Grand and 4th Street and Grand and Highway One, including ambitious plans for hotels, retail, and residential development.

Despite their good intentions, however, all of these big ideas will be in vain so long as Grover Beach remains the only city in California to continue allowing off-road vehicles on its pristine dunes and beaches. As long as Oceano and Grover Beach condone and support this activity, which is detrimental both to the environment and to human life (such as the 4-year-old boy who was run over and killed this summer and barely made the news), the Grand Avenue corridor will never be anything but an extension of this off-road playground, and the only businesses that will thrive will be those which cater to the dune buggie crowd, namely ATV rentals and fast food chains. Any other businesses which try to offer something thoughtful or eclectic will be as doomed as the endangered plover, and local residents will remain inundated with fried cheeseburgers, monster truck exhaust and t-shirts emblazoned with "Grover Bee-atch."

It is for this precise reason that I am terminating my commercial lease on West Grand Avenue and relocating my specialty shop to downtown San Luis Obispo on the first of November.