The Naked Lounge, at 11th and H, opened its music venue last month with a bang. Since February, the locally-owned coffee shop has been serving joe from it's newest downtown location in the Retrolodge. But after fitting a stage and about 50 seats into the space next door and adding beer and music to the menu, it's now turned into Sacramento's newest late night destination. The Golden Cadillacs rocked a packed house on Oct. 15, and has since earned a spot as the venue's house band, a regularly appearing act. Saturday, Oct. 24, Chicago singer-songwriter Joe Pug and Davis musician Katie Jane performed. About 8 p.m., beer bottles began clanking in the darkened room as 25 people settled in f

The name sounds misleading, eliciting imagery of "Little Orphan Annie," or playful puns from Charles Dickens' novel "Oliver Twist". But the food served at Orphan is absolutely no joke.  Chris Pendarvis, owner of Naked Lounge and Naked Coffee in Sacramento, opened his new restaurant on Sept 28.  "Coffee is very competitive," Pendarvis said. "I wanted to move forward on a different level, and round out the Naked Coffee business. We certainly now have all morning needs covered." Orphan is located across the Cannery Business Park in East Sacramento. The space has already been used as a restaurant over the years, Moxie Jr. initially, then the more recent Sapor and Soprattutto Salumeria & Ris

The Naked Lounge is ready to turn it up a notch. On Oct. 15 at their Downtown location on the corner of H and 11th streets, the coffee shop will roll-up their garage doors for an all ages music venue.   "We opened this coffee house in February," said Jenn Fox, General Manager.  "We never wanted music inside the coffeehouse, we focus just on coffee. But then we got to thinking ... it's already next door, it's a great space, let's do a venue."  Over the next few months, the Naked Lounge music venue quickly started to form. The rented space, known as "Retrolodge," is aptly named after the Astro and Elroy motels. The style for both motels was modeled after the 1950s and 60s Palm Springs loo

It's that time of year again - time for "Best Restaurants," brought to you by Sacramento Magazine. After reading the readers' picks for each category, it made me wonder whether the results would be different for readers of The Sacramento Press. Our focus has been primarily on events and coverage of things in the Grid, whereas Sacramento Magazine covers a larger demographic including the suburbs. There were four categories that stood out to me in Sacramento Magazine's Best Restaurants: Best Burrito, Best Pizza, Best Burger and Best Coffeehouse. I live in the Grid and therefore have my own biases about restaurants that live in Downtown and Midtown. I prefer restaurants in this area to tho

One of the most well-known hotspots in midtown Sacramento is undoubtedly the Naked Lounge on Q Street. Now, as of last week, downtowners can enjoy the same Naked proximity with the newly opened Naked Lounge located at the corner of 11th and H. True to its name, Naked Lounge on H Street also gets its coffee from Naked Roasting on 36th and Broadway. "We roast all of our coffee and espresso; whatever coffee, we only serve one particular coffee at a time, and then our decaf," says Naked Lounge barista Justin Short. "We do it all at 36th and Broadway." "We work really hard to keep the coffee consistent, so that people know they're getting good coffee no matter what," he adds. But that's wher