Dave and Amy Gull haunted Broadway during their teen years at C.K. McClatchy High School, drawn to the landmark Tower Theatre district.

"I grew up going to Tower Records and Tower Books, and Broadway has always been part of my blood," said Dave Gull.

High school was 20 years ago. Now, Gull and his wife, an anesthesiologist with CASE Medical Group, hope to make their mark on Broadway with the New Helvetia Brewing Co. They plan to start renovation of the former Casa Grande tortilla factory, 1730 Broadway, in a week or two, then open this summer.

New Helvetia will serve several varieties of beer, but the Gulls say the flagship adult beverage will be a lager with the Buffalo brand. Tool around Sactown, and you'll see references to this name. Its history here dates back to 1889, and The Bee building sits on the brewery's old site. The brand was last available here in the 1970s.

"You go to Dad's Kitchen on Freeport, and they have a big Buffalo Beer sign right as you walk through the entrance," Dave Gull said. "You go to Fanny Ann's in Old Sac, and there's an old Buffalo Beer poster hanging up, and even the newer Shady Lady, has an old image of Buffalo."

Gull said he expects to produce 400 barrels of beer in the first year – and to work plenty of 12-hour days. Initially, he said, New Helvetia will be a tasting room but will evolve into a brewpub.

Can you guess where the Gulls met? Nope, it wasn't McClatchy. It was a brewery – the long-gone Sudwerk on Exposition Boulevard.

Help for heartburn

Corporate recruiter Christopher Johnson already has made a name for himself as an emerging leader, landing a spot alongside celebrity Nick Cannon on Black Enterprise magazine's list of 40 African Americans under age 35 who are changing the business world.

Now he's trying to upend the way recruitment firms do business. These firms have long billed clients when they place a job candidate, charging fees equal to 20-25 percent of a new hire's salary.

Paid in a lump sum, the fees were causing heartburn among Johnson's clients, so he rethought how he billed.

"The economy forces you into innovation," the 33-year-old CEO and Florin High School graduate said. "I … am changing the way the recruiting model has looked for the last 50 years."

He instituted an annual retainer. Paid biweekly, it entitles clients to unlimited services at a discount.

"We learn their culture. We become an extension of that company, and we're finding a huge need," he said.

Human resources manager Angela Dravland of ACCO Engineered Systems in San Leandro said the service already has been fruitful.

"We confirmed the hire of one high-profile candidate," she said. "At this candidate's level of employment, it … usually takes six months to find someone. Chris was able to bring me someone in three."

A high-class orange

Gallery owner Elliott Fouts doesn't employ subtlety when describing the color of the facade of his new space on P Street at 19th in midtown Sacramento.

The paint company describes it as terra cotta. Fouts calls it orange.

He has his reasons for the bolder descriptive: "We had a sign up saying that we were going to be moving, and people would ask, 'Where you going?' And we'd say, 'Corner of 19th and P,' and a blank look would descend on everyone's face. It's a relatively good-sized building, but it's so nondescript, so we fixed that."

Fouts grew up working in his dad's picture-framing store in Fresno. Later, he worked for Shirley Solomon Dubnick at Tower Gallery (not on Broadway, by the way) and then in 1999 went out on his own.

For seven years, he has sold vibrant still-life paintings and landscapes from tight quarters in east Sacramento. The new Elliott Fouts Gallery will open June 1 (at the latest) in almost double the space.

Fouts will have a sale before the May 20-22 move – offering as much as 50 percent off – to lighten the load.

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