Iconic Sacramento diner emerging from bankruptcy with plans to grow
To the casual observer, much has remained the same in Rick’s Dessert Diner since it opened in the 1980s.
The floors are still a black-and-white checkerboard. The walls sport trim of pastel pink and aqua. The faces of classic Hollywood stars line the walls, and time is told on neon clocks. Recipes created by the eponymous baker who managed Rick’s in its early years are still on the menu, with some ingredients adjusted here and there.
In its nearly 40 years of existence, the midtown diner survived two relocations and three changes of ownership to become a stalwart on the corner of 24th and J streets.
In the evenings, especially, it hums with customers. Some order wedding cakes, said owner Randy Sutton, and report that they also had their first dates at Rick’s.
The business has emerged from a recent series of setbacks with solidly rising sales, on surer financial footing. And Sutton, a veteran bakery operator, now has an eye on future growth.
A national search
Rick’s original owners put the diner together with just $40,000 by visiting scrapyards, buying large, cheap black-and-white floor tiles and cutting each one to size, and wrapping theatrical gels around fluorescent lights to mimic more expensive neon lights, The Bee reported at the time.
They opened the diner in 1986, one block south of its current location.
Richard “Rick” Bryant Whitnah, the baker whose name still headlines the business, managed the diner until 1990. He was bought out by his co-owners, who sold it the following year to Ahmad Abu Eita. Eita owned Rick’s for the next three decades, and in 2014 moved the diner one block north, to the corner of 24th and J streets, doubling its footprint.
Sutton had started in the industry in Dallas, as a 6-year-old, lining up candies in his father’s bakery. Eventually, he started managing the day shifts, and then he took over ownership.
He expanded the business, Stein’s Bakery, beyond its retail store. He secured contracts with convenience stores across the South to provide their baked goods, and at one point, he said, he produced a million donuts per day.
After Sutton left Stein’s, he searched the country for a new bakery to acquire. He was watching most struggle, financially, largely because they must pay retail rent payments, when a large portion of the footprint is used for production.
“The numbers just don’t work out,” Sutton said. “You see fewer and fewer mom-and-pop operations.”
His search brought him to California, a state he’d never visited, and to Rick’s.
It was one of just a few bakeries that were managing to grow, and seeing sales rise each year. Roberta Anderson, Sutton’s significant other, recalled his glowing descriptions of the atmosphere at Rick’s Dessert Diner, after his first visit to Sacramento.
“People are happy when they come in here,” Sutton said.
Chocolate, eggs and interest rates
Sutton bought the diner in September 2022. The early months were trying, and he struggled to keep up with demand. At one point, he said, he was baking almost 24 hours a day.
About a year later, the day-to-day operations were falling into place, and Sutton was able to focus on making improvements. But a confluence of financial challenges were also taking shape.
Interest rates climbed. The diner’s rent increased. Avian flu drove egg prices abnormally high, and cocoa crops suffered, driving up global chocolate prices, he and Anderson said. A claim from before Sutton bought the business boosted the price of his worker’s compensation insurance. All the while, he had to make investments in the diner, like buying larger mixers to accommodate rising demand.
Sales were still growing, as they have continued to do since Sutton took over the business. But his expenses were growing faster. On the last day of 2024, the diner filed for bankruptcy.
Sutton, with Anderson’s help, spent the first half of the year working through the proceedings and assembling detailed financial reports. They reorganized one of the diner’s main loans with more favorable terms, which they described as a crucial step for the business.
In June, a judge approved the bankruptcy plan, a key milestone for the diner to emerge from the proceedings.
The business is now in better financial shape, Sutton and Anderson said, and though they have no immediate plans to expand, that’s likely in the diner’s future.
On a recent afternoon in the back of the diner, a handful of Sutton’s 35 employees worked amid industrial-sized mixers, and racks and racks of baked goods. One decorated bento cakes while another brushed an egg wash on a tray of peach pies, and another coated a cake in mint-green frosting.
“We’re really cramped on space, due to the growth we’ve already had,” Sutton said. “And we don’t want to stop growing.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
