One of Sacramento’s favorite food trucks is expanding to a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the River District north of downtown.
Krush Burger – formerly the MiniBurger truck – is expected to open in the new California Lottery Headquarters at 700 North 10th St. sometime in December, owner Davin Vculek said.
“It’s going to be our first restaurant,” he said. “That’s why we started this company: to build a quick-service restaurant.”
The menu will be similar in content and pricing to that of the Krush Burger truck, but it will be expanded to include more as-yet-unnamed burgers, entrée salads and breakfast.
The Krush Burger truck serves about 1,000 burgers per day, including the Ninja, which is made with short ribs, Asian slaw, radish sprouts, sesame ginger vinaigrette, Sriracha aioli and fried scallions. Another popular burger is the Cowbell, with a fried onion stack, applewood-smoked bacon, sweet barbecue sauce, smoked gouda cheese, and ground beef.
Vculek said the area doesn’t have much in the way of eateries, but with hundreds of office workers for the lottery, the California Highway Patrol, the city of Sacramento and the upcoming Township 9 development, he sees a need for quick, good food in a permanent location.
Beer and wine will be offered as well, with about three or four tap handles for beer and possibly some bottled brews.
The building is about 2,500 square feet, and Vculek said he expects it to be able to seat 60-65 people at a time.
“It’s a cold shell right now,” he said. “It’s just concrete. From the beginning stages, we’ve designed the whole thing with a local architectural firm. It’s our design, our initiative and our concept.”
He added that the plumbing work is currently being completed, and construction is slightly ahead of schedule.
Environmentally friendly materials such as reclaimed wood are being used, and a 7-foot ceiling fan by Big Ass Fans will be a feature in the ceiling – all designed to help the building achieve LEED certification.
Eight tables along the walls will have USB and electrical outlets for charging mobile devices and laptops, and wifi will be available, encouraging local workers to relax and get some work done in the building.
“Additionally to all that, we’ll have five 50-inch flatscreen TVs and one large one from 70-80 inches, and we’ll be opening in the hot part of football season, so that will probably help us out,” he said.
While the River District isn’t as frequented as downtown and Midtown, Vculek said the newly opened light rail Green Line stops one block from the restaurant, and it’s accessible to freeways.
“We’re excited about all the energy in that area right now,” he said. “We might have to go the extra mile in marketing, but I think people will be happy to come down, and I expect our lunch crowd to be strong.”
“I bet they’re going to be a nice retail location,” said Steve Goodwin, president of Township 9 and the River District. “All that kind of stuff is great. That’s what you work for. It’s the type of thing that starts happening in the neighborhood, and you start redeveloping.”
He added that the area has been evolving for several years, but food and retail locations haven’t been coming in because there aren’t very many small spaces, while warehouses dominate the area.
“There just are not the places for those little businesses to go as of yet,” he said, “but as they get build, they’ll get filled, and I think they’ll get filled quickly.”
Daniel Conway, spokesman for California Restaurant Association, said that Krush Burger’s opening doesn’t come as a surprise.
“That’s absolutely kind of a trend that we’re seeing – from mobile to stationary restaurants,” he said. “Thats something we see locally with Drewski and Coast to Coast.”
Another local food truck expanding to a brick-and-mortar location is Wicked ‘wich, which is opening a restaurant called Broderick in West Sacramento.
“Always from the beginning there was the word on the street that MiniBurger and Krush Burger was going to the be precursor to brick-and-mortar restaurant,” Conway said. “Outside Sacramento we see the trend too.”
He added that trucks are a great way to start a business in the current economy and build a customer base and a cash base while banks aren’t lending like they were in the past.
Krush Burger will open at 7 a.m. for breakfast and close sometime around 8 or 9 p.m., Vculek said, adding that he will likely be open seven days per week, but possibly later close on the weekends if business doesn’t warrant staying open.
He said he sees multiple locations in the future, hinting at a future restaurant in Roseville, but Sacramento had to be first.
“We’re very excited to open our first one in Sacramento because the people in Sacramento have shows us nothing but wonderful support,” he said. “We’re very thankful for that.”
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Brandon Darnell is Associate Editor of The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
