Sacramento's burgeoning craft beer movement is picking up steam.
The latest development: Midtown's Tex Mex Bar & Grill is being converted next month to a beer lover's hangout, with 40 craft brews on tap, along with a menu of sandwiches, salads and appetizers.
The new River Rock Tap House is based on a business that opened in Citrus Heights with a novel beer-and-coffee concept in 1993. Owners sold the business, then located in Roseville, in late 2004.
The idea will be to highlight the products of small craft breweries with an emphasis on regional and West Coast beers, says Anthony Priley, who is partnering in the business with Tex Mex owner Michael Keolanui.
"We were early to the (craft beer) trend," says Priley, who was an owner of the original River Rock. "Now, it's really cresting."
Keolanui says Tex Mex was doing OK but suffered identity problems after relocating from downtown after 19 years. A new "beverage-driven" concept made sense.
The coffee side of the old River Rock also could be making a comeback.
Priley reports that he and his father, Steve, are in talks with the owners of the former Cornerstone Cafe site at 24th and J – just east of Tex Mex – to open a roasting operation and restaurant there.
Rising from ashes
Back on the market is one of Sacramento's more notorious pieces of real estate: an Arden Oaks lot that was the site of an arson-for-profit scheme nearly 20 years ago.
A 10,000-square-foot mansion was burned to the ground there in 1992. Owners Constantine and Katherine Pappadopoulos were convicted of arranging the fire. Constantine fled to Greece. His wife served seven years in prison and died in 2008.
Local businessman Larry Cassidy bought the 1.3-acre lot in 1994 and kept up the grounds, which sport a pool, fruit trees – and the foundation of the mansion.
He offered it for sale two years ago for $1.7 million.
No takers. It's back on the market now for $1.5 million.
Listing agent Kim Pacini-Hauch says she sees "verve" returning to the high-end market and suspects buyers will recognize the value in this place.
Despite its infamous past.
"It's been so many years," she says, "that nobody really cares about the (home's) history."
Food fight
A showdown is nearing over a proposed McDonald's in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood.
Within a few months the city's Planning Commission will likely take up a make-or-break issue for the eatery targeted for the northwest corner of Stockton Boulevard and Second Avenue: whether to permit drive-through service there.
A committee of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association recently evaluated the project using a new matrix designed for such purposes. It got a score of 1.2 out of a possible 4, largely because of the drive-through element.
City officials also have some concerns. It would be better, says principal planner Greg Bitter, if the proposed eatery fronted the street and "engaged" pedestrians instead of having drive-through lanes between the building and sidewalks on Second and Stockton, as currently proposed.
Corner lots, he adds, "offer a chance to do something fantastic and you don't want to waste that."
John D'Anna, a McDonald's regional development director, says the company is intent on having drive-through service but is eager to work with neighbors, revise plans and mitigate negative impacts.
The eatery would create jobs, D'Anna says, and "enhance the neighborhood."
Reach Bob Shallit at (916) 321-1049.
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