The River: An outdoor mall of artificial significance in greater Palm Springs

If you’re looking for a place in the Palm Springs area devoid of any trace of local color, The River is your hangout.

The River is an immensely popular outdoor mall/restaurant row that could have been lifted straight from Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas or Connecticut. If you’re golfing in greater Palm Springs, somebody’s going to recommend that you eat there. Probably several somebodies.

It’s not necessarily a bad recommendation to take.

There’s the requiste Cheesecake Factory, a big Border’s and nice-sized movie theater. Almost all the restaurants and shops are national chains. The best of the bunch - unless you’re one of those people convinced that the Cheesecake Factory is fine dining - is the Yardhouse.

This is a chain too, but the beer list is impressively long, there are tons of TVs turned to the game and food’s less pricey than Cheesecake with the same chain quality.

Then after dining you can step outside and gawk at the 1.7 million gallon man-made “river” that runs, or sits still, all around the restaurants and shops. It sounds like a lot of water, but it’s actually a decent sized pond to most folks. In spots, it could be mistaken for a large puddle.

It’s impressive if you’ve grown up in the desert apparently though. The city leaders of Rancho Mirage are still patting themselves on the back for this one. On the bright side, our own Jennifer Mario
could probably find a cute T-shirt there.

For where to run across actual local color and a host of articles on Palm Springs area golf, stay tuned to GolfCalifornia.com.