Paesanos Italian restaurant in Midtown is gearing up to celebrate 15 years in business with two weeks of specials starting Saturday and a hint to possible expansion to a third location. Director of Operations Dana Scarpulla said a new location is in the works – probably getting under way within a year – but she couldn’t comment further on the location. She added that business has continued to grow in the past five years. “We opened on April 18, 1996, and it’s been great,” Scarpulla said. “There wasn’t much on this corner back then, and we’ve seen Midtown really transition since.” The spot at 1806 Capitol Ave. had seen a string of restaurants come and go before Paesanos moved in. In the

When the new B Street Theatre is completed, Sacramento will have something rare in regional theater – a full-size professional theater for children. “We’re building the region’s only professional theater for kids,” said Productions Artistic Director Buck Busfield. “The next-closest one is in Los Angeles.” The current theater, located at 2711 B Street, will move to a new complex at 27th Street and Capital Avenue, but will retain the current name. Both the adult’s and children’s theaters will be at that site, but the adult’s theater will remain an intimate space, with a gain of 50 seats to bring the total to 250. The children’s theater – officially dubbed the Sutter Children’s Theatre –

When I wrote Sacramento: Then and Now I wanted to show some images that were missed in other local history books, but were immediately recognizable by people who lived in the neighborhoods portrayed. I chose the image of the grocery store at 17th and Capitol because it was just this sort of place: ordinary, but recognizable and essential. At the time, it was still Rick's Uptown Market--one of the hazards of a book titled "Then and Now" is that the date of publication immediately becomes a new "Then." The building is about 100 years old--I am pretty sure, but not positive, that it was constructed in about 1910. It was constructed as the Perkins and Company grocery store, selling food as we

Sacramento restaurateur Ernesto Jimenez was excited, yet afraid to take on the challenge of creating a restaurant in a 6,000-square-foot corner space in the old Arnold Brothers Motor Cars building. He already was the owner of the colorful Mexican restaurant Ernesto's when he and partners bought the 77-year-old building in 2001. And he'd been dreaming about his next restaurant for years. He wanted it to be something special. "It was a beautiful old building, so the restaurant had to match the exterior," he said. "I didn't want it to be just another restaurant. It had to be something beyond that." His visits to the new space at 18th Street and Capitol Avenue told him there was a lot of wo

It remains to be seen what will become of Mike Heller and Paul Thiebaud's lauded Tribute Building, a monument to their fathers soon to be erected at the corner of 20th and Capitol Avenue, according to Bob Shallit's column in The Bee. But before we stride forward into the future, he's a photo of the old "livery stable" (its actual use is more familiar to us as home of Steve Rex Cycles) that once sat on the site, before Heller's crew got to it.   Then there's the question of the old trees that potentially stand in the way of views of the new building...