Fresno Chaffee Zoo ends Roar and Pour season with dogs, drinks, mini golf

Fresno Chaffee Zoo wrapped up its Roar and Pour season Friday with an after-hours crowd that could bring dogs, sip local drinks and play mini golf in one of Fresno’s most unusual night-out settings.

The event ran from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and was limited to guests 21 and older with a valid ID. Along with beer, wine and spirits from across the Central Valley, the zoo paired the evening with live entertainment and food trucks curated by Fresno Street Eats, giving the final Roar and Pour of the season a more social, festival-like feel than a standard tasting event.

The dog-friendly twist helped set it apart. Instead of making the zoo only a daytime destination for families, Roar and Pour turned the grounds into an after-hours hangout for adults looking for a different kind of local outing, especially one that included pets. For Fresno institutions, that kind of programming matters: it keeps the zoo in front of new audiences and gives the venue another way to draw spending between larger exhibit and conservation-related attractions.

Roar and Pour has been part of that strategy since 2018, when Fresno Chaffee Zoo introduced it as a 21-and-older beer event with unlimited tasting, local craft breweries and food for sale at Kopje Lodge. By 2022, the format had expanded to include beer and wine sampling, live music, zoo photo opportunities and a commemorative pilsner glass. That version was priced at $45 for non-members, $40 for members and $25 for designated drivers or non-drinkers.

The zoo has leaned on events like this because of its scale. Fresno Chaffee Zoo describes itself as a 39-acre, Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institution with more than 200 species and more than 800,000 visitors a year. It is also backed by Fresno County’s Measure Z sales tax, first approved on Nov. 2, 2004 and extended on Nov. 4, 2014, underscoring the public investment behind a venue that serves both as a community attraction and a revenue-generating operation.

For anyone deciding whether to go next time, the appeal is straightforward: Roar and Pour offered drinks, food, mini golf, live music and a chance to walk the zoo after hours, with the added novelty of bringing a dog along. In a county full of conventional bar nights and family outings, Fresno Chaffee Zoo made its final season closer feel like both.