Go nuts at Blue Diamond this winter. Sacramento gift shop to close in April
The Blue Diamond store in midtown, a local staple for gift baskets, snacks and stocking stuffers, will close in April, according to a company official.
The gift shop and visitors center opened 42 years ago at 1701 C Street in Sacramento, just outside the entrance to Blue Diamond’s sprawling almond processing plant and offices. It sells Blue Diamond classics, like the cooperative’s smokehouse almonds, a wide range of spicy offerings, and offbeat varieties like the blueberry-flavored almonds whose scent is known to occasionally waft out of the plant, into northern midtown.
The store’s fate was unclear when the 115-year almond cooperative announced this summer that its manufacturing facility would gradually wind down over the course of two years. At the time, officials said the store would remain open for the time being. Chief Government and Public Affairs Officer Alicia Rockwell confirmed in a recent interview that it would close next year.
Blue Diamond will likely hold pop-up sales with its products in the Sacramento area after the shop closes, Rockwell said, and its gift shop products will remain available online through the cooperative’s website or on Amazon. The cooperative also has a gift shop about 70 miles south of Sacramento, visible from Highway 99 and adjacent to its manufacturing plant in Salida.
The Sacramento gift shop and visitor’s center opened in November 1983, on the site of the former Del Monte fruit cannery. The almond cooperative acquired the 12.5-acre Del Monte site for $3.5 million and spent millions more remodeling it, but maintained the factory’s original red brick, the Bee reported at the time. Leadership believed the visitor’s center could become a local tourist attraction on par with Sutter’s Fort or the California State Railroad Museum.
The almond factory’s gradual closure will eliminate 600 jobs over the course of two years. Officials said this summer that the cooperative’s longtime processing facilities here had become outdated and inefficient. Consolidating into other manufacturing facilities in Turlock and Salida, they said, was the most prudent financial decision for the thousands of almond farmers who collectively own and make their livelihoods through Blue Diamond.
The property has been the subject of speculation, and it’s unclear whether it will be redeveloped together, or divided up for several different uses. The cooperative has been vetting brokers for the real estate.
This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
