FOOD
Jim-Denny ’ s and has most of the menu old regulars will remember , with the addition of some Burning Oak signatures like smoked brisket , wood-fired pizza and tacos . He also plans to reprise some of the retro dishes he found on Depression-era menus from the original Jim-Denny ’ s ( think veal cutlets and liver and onions ) as specials .
Downtown has been a ghost town through most of the pandemic due to the rise in remote work and the temporary closure of the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center , which was under renovation until June 3 . But Pearcy is used to working through crises — he transitioned Burning Oak from a catering service to an Instagram-based , underground food business during the pandemic — and is confident that he ’ ll be able to draw a crowd .
“ I ’ m optimistic because everything that I ’ ve done up to this point is growing ,” he says . “ I ’ m hoping that with the momentum that I have going right now from Burning Oak ... combined with people knowing the name Jim-Denny ’ s and it being a sort of historical landmark , things will really go forward .”
A bar runs dry
When the coronavirus shutdowns began last year , bars were dealt an especially bad hand . Gov . Gavin Newsom directed all bars , wineries , nightclubs and brewpubs to close March 15 , 2020 , four days ahead of the statewide stay-at-home order . Two months later , in May , when local health departments began to lift restrictions against on-site dining , these businesses weren ’ t allowed to reopen unless they served food . Some rebranded themselves as takeout restaurants and managed to stay afloat on a lifeboat of nachos and buffalo wings . Others closed their doors March 15 and never opened again .
The Hideaway Bar & Grill in Curtis Park was one of the latter . The bar opened in 2010 with a vague tiki-pinup theme that drew the rockabillies and ska punks who were then in vogue . By 2020 most of the rockabillies had put away their pompadours and petticoats , but cues still clicked at the pool tables every night . That wasn ’ t enough to keep it open after months with no business , and in June 2020 owner Mariah York-Carr quietly closed shop .
In February 2021 , a sign of life appeared outside the boarded-up building : a red double-decker bus that looked straight out of 1960s London . The bus is a harbinger for Lucky ’ s Drive-In , a retro burger joint with roots in Tacoma , Washington , that is soon to open in the space .
Co-owners Willow Eskridge and Michael Feagins opened their first Lucky ’ s Drive-In in Parkland , a suburb of Tacoma , in 2015 and considered locations around the country before deciding on Sacramento for their second . “ We just kind of looked around , and Sacramento had a lot of things ,” Eskridge says . “ It has a good population , it has a pretty good density right around there , the building was cool , it had a parking lot . … We just really liked it here , and we ’ re like , OK , right on , we ’ re gonna get some sunshine .”
The bus , which Eskridge found on Craigslist in Redding , has been parked outside since winter to drum up interest ahead of the projected August opening . It ’ s having the intended effect , though some former regulars are disappointed to hear that the longtime bar space is going dry . “ We had a couple of people that came up and weren ’ t too happy that we weren ’ t going to be serving alcohol ,” Eskridge says . “ But all we really need to do is have people try our fries . We have the best fries .”
A struggle to survive
Not all restaurateurs waited to open until they reached the end of the 2020 tunnel . One of the brave ones was Sandy Borrivong , who is a partner at several local Thai restaurants , including Thai Princess in Natomas and Chandara Thai in Grass Valley . In August 2020 , she opened her first restaurant as a sole owner , Grub Thai , in an Alkali Flat space most recently occupied by Culinerdy Kitchen .
The owners of Culinerdy Kitchen , Keith and Amy Breedlove , opened their restaurant in July 2019 after five years running a food truck called the Culinerdy Cruzer . They closed days before the stay-at-home order was issued in March 2020 . The looming pandemic was the deciding factor , but the Breedloves were already on the brink of giving up the location . “ Rent is high , very high in that spot , so good luck to anybody that ’ s going to be in that spot ,” Amy told Comstock ’ s in September 2020 , soon before the Breedloves moved to a suburb of Oklahoma City to restart the Culinerdy brand .
Borrivong says that rent is reasonable and the landlords are easy to work with . Her restaurant maintains a perfect five-star rating on Yelp after nearly a year in business . ( The New York steak , served rare with grilled sticky rice , gets especially high marks .) But the pandemic affected sales more than she expected , and she is plagued by other issues that the Breedloves had with the location , a fraying edge of downtown with a large unhoused population and a reputation for being unsafe . “ We just keep moving , even though there ’ s a pandemic ,” she says , “ but actually , it ’ s very hard .”
She says she has been physically threatened in her restaurant multiple times by the same handful of people , including one occasion in which a man cornered her in the kitchen . The police have never responded to her requests for help . “ Maybe the city has a better plan to handle this , but if they don ’ t , I don ’ t know if we ’ re going to survive ,” Borrivong says . She is already considering moving .
The end of the pandemic won ’ t solve Borrivong ’ s location issues or any of the other problems that make it difficult to run an independent restaurant . It won ’ t smooth the course for Mattone Ristorante , Lucky ’ s Drive-In or the rest of the crop of businesses that opened this year . If Sacramento wants to back up its title as America ’ s Farmto-Fork Capital , it will have to take stock of the complaints that led restaurant owners to close , both before and after the shelterin-place order .
But the latest batch of restaurateurs is as optimistic as new business owners usually are . Mattone has already booked events through Christmas , Chang says , and he looks forward to running the restaurant for at least 10 years . “ People I ’ m working with right now , they can ’ t tell if I ’ m nervous or excited ,” he says . “ Some people ask me once in a while , ‘ Are you excited about it ?’ Yeah , at one point I was , but there ’ s a lot of things to do before opening . … I can ’ t just sit down and say I ’ m excited .”
Jennifer Fergesen is digital managing editor of Comstock ’ s . Online at jcfrgsn . journoportfolio . com and on Twitter @ jenniferferges1 .
62 comstocksmag . com | July 2021