A good restaurant feels more personal than most businesses. It’s a place to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, to show off your city when visitors come to town, to fall back on when cooking at home just ain’t gonna happen.
When such a place closes, it hurts. And for all the excitement and growth throughout Sacramento’s restaurant scene in 2022, painful shutdowns marred many months.
When a fried chicken hotspot got caught in a custody battle, a West Sacramento institution served its last bowl of pasta or an ice cream emporium melted under the weight of its bills, it hurt customers as well as business owners.
These were the most unfortunate and sad-to-see-them-go restaurant closures of 2022, in my opinion.
South (2005 11th Street, Sacramento): The demise of N’Gina Guyton and Ian Kavookjian’s Southside Park restaurant, which served some of Sacramento’s best soul food, was as ugly as it was unfortunate. Guyton operated the restaurant, but effectively shut it down in June rather than pay her ex-husband a $1 million dollar buyout. She’s now working to open her own place, Miss N’Gina.
Yang’s Noodles (5860 Stockton Blvd., Sacramento): An affordable south Sacramento gem for nine years, Yang’s Noodles quietly shut down in April. The Taiwanese beef noodle soup was always a must-order item, while Uyghur-inspired cumin lamb rolls caught on toward the end.
Célestin’s Restaurant (3610 McKinley Blvd., Sacramento): Phoebe and Patrick Célestin’s Creole restaurant survived three moves over 39 years, but the owners were ready to retire by late 2022 and no feasible successor could be found. I’ll miss dishes such as griot (Haitian marinated and fried pork chunks) and moqueca (Brazilian snapper stew) that were only available in the region at Célestin’s.
Club Pheasant (2525 Jefferson Blvd., West Sacramento): The Palamidessi family kept its landmark Italian American restaurant (originally named the Hideaway Cafe) running for 87 years before closing on Dec. 10. The city of West Sacramento bought the property for $3.4 million, and plans to eventually sell to a developer that would offer some sort of food option.
Taylor’s Kitchen (2924 Freeport Blvd., Sacramento): Land Park’s favorite grocery store (Taylor’s Market) opened an adjoined date night restaurant in 2009, and former Ella Dining Room & Bar chef Rob Lind gave the kitchen a jolt earlier this year. But persistent staffing issues and an unreliable business model prompted owners Danny and Kathy Johnson to close Taylor’s Kitchen in July.
The Shack (5201 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento): A beloved East Sacramento burger joint since 1931, The Shack had been run by Gary and Jen Sleppy for 17 years prior to its July closing. Local beer mavens Peter Hoey and Rob Archie took over the space and paid tribute to their predecessor with their new Cali-Mex concept, Cerveceria at The Shack, which opened in October.
Devil May Care Ice Cream & Frozen Treats (710 K St., Sacramento): Before Salt & Straw came to Sacramento, Jess Milbourn’s downtown ice cream parlor was the go-to spot for rare flavors such as saffron mango or cornbread with honey. But expenses piled up during the pandemic, causing Milbourn first to shut down the original West Sacramento location before pulling the plug downtown in August.
What I’m Eating
After getting snowed off the mountain on a recent ski trip, my friends and I took refuge in Placerville. We grabbed sandwiches from Timmy’s Brown Bag’s to-go window, as there’s no indoor seating, and demolished them with a few beers inside Liars’ Bench, a wonderfully-named local dive bar just down Main Street.
Northern California — heck, maybe the entire U.S. — has no other sandwich shop like Timmy’s Brown Bag, where nearly every sandwich would be the weirdest one on a normal restaurant’s menu. Some of Timothy Swischuk’s creations are a little too out-there even for me. Corned beef with pickled blueberry slaw, gouda and popping fro-yo boba, anyone?
Several others caught my attention, and delivered.
Take the chicken satay (all sandwiches are $14.25) with harissa cucumber slaw, sweet chili sauce and masala borugulu (spiced puffed rice) on ciabatta. It was nutty, then tangy, then sugary, all in the same bite as the ingredients wonderfully wove together.
Placerville’s iconic dish is the Hangtown Fry, an omelet allegedly commissioned by a suddenly rich Gold Rush miner and served only at Buttercup Pantry diner today. Timmy’s Brown Bag did its own twist called the smoked oyster, stacking the requisite bacon and namesake shellfish alongside dill pickle chips, a Thai-inspired mignonette and mixed greens between toasted brioche slices.
Vegetarian sandwiches are harder to find, but a decent one is the towering vada pav, a thoroughly Americanized take on a a Mumbai street staple. A veggie medley including olives, pickled jalapeños, heirloom tomatoes and fried shallots encircled a hash brown-like potato patty, with Indian influence coming from masala boondi (fried gram flour puffs) and a pea mayonnaise meant to taste like pani puri.
Address: 451 Main St., Suite 10, Placerville.
Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. six days a week, closed Wednesday.
Phone Number: (530) 303-3203.
Website: https://timmysbrownbag.com.
Drinks: Sodas and juices.
Animal-free options: A few, including the vada pav.
Accessibility: Walk-up window with no seating and few accommodations; bathroom is inside another building.
Noise level: Open-air.
Openings & Closings
Indian-Mexican fusion spot Taco Twist opened in Roseville on Dec. 22, its second location following the Yuba City original that opened earlier in 2022. Look for items such as malai chicken tikka nachos, vegetable Manchurian burritos and naan tacos at 7441 Foothills Blvd., Suite 170.
Another Roseville restaurant, Daniello’s Steakhouse, made its hotly-anticipated debut on Dec. 29 at 229 Vernon St. The steakhouse and speakeasy is the newest concept from Michael McDermott, who also owns neighboring Italian spot The Place.
Downtown Sacramento nightclub El Santo Restaurant & Ultralounge has permanently closed after three years. It was a beacon for Latin American music and nightlife at 1000 K St., but also ran into code violations and concerns about violence, and the city of Sacramento denied its request for an entertainment permit renewal in November.
This story was originally published January 06, 2023 5:00 AM.
