After decades in thrall to the car, local developers and legislators are beginning to rethink parking and the role it should play in the city. 

The first sip of Pila Kava hits like a low dose of novocaine, numbness spreading across the surface of the tongue. This soon fades into a background hum as the flavors bloom. The first note is the earth and spice of the kava itself — the root of a pepper variety native to the South Pacific.

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to identify excess state-owned property that could be converted into affordable housing. Few local examples exist, leaving architects and developers to wonder if they are financially feasible and what, if any, kinds of funding are available.

As many as 25 percent of America’s roughly 1,000 malls will close within three to five years, according to a recent study by Coresight Research. Migration patterns, a shift towards online retail and the pandemic are all cited as factors in the struggle of retail centers.

Just as meat alternatives have expanded, so have the eating patterns of people interested in plant-based food. A diverse set of diners are embracing plant-based restaurants, thanks to the proliferation of less restrictive plant-based diets.

In the span of a year, a single cow burps up 220 pounds of methane, a powerful driver of global warming. UC Davis scientists are experimenting with a red seaweed that can dramatically reduce the methane, but the solution has a few caveats.

In 2007, genetic researchers in Madrid used new DNA techniques to identify the origin-point of mission vines. What they found was that the mission grape’s backstory involved more travel, travail and endurance than anyone guessed.  

PODCAST: Contributor Kate Gonzales reads her Taste column about inflation’s impact on farmers markets, and shares her insights researching the story.

In a year of rising costs, farmers have quality as an advantage. Still, farmers market vendors and shoppers are struggling to stretch their dollars.

While repurposing old warehouses for new use comes with technical and financial challenges, it also presents great benefits, and is one way to build green and sustainable.

Midtown Association’s Street Food Sacramento grant is helping to better represent the city’s diversity in the business district and the thriving Midtown Farmers Market.

These Capital Region butcher shops are family-owned businesses that offer meat from high-caliber livestock and the magic of housemade marinades.

For these chefs, cult followings are built through next-level broth, experimentation and a healthy dose of nostalgia.

Several local nonprofits are leading women to self-sufficiency through a holistic approach, with culinary training programs that arm them with transferable skills.

A Q&A with a restauranteur committed to offering employment training for women in need.

Capital Region restaurant owners with mixed backgrounds are channeling their points of view into creative dishes.

Amador County food trucks are expanding the meaning of fast food by combining seasonality, convenience and relationships with wineries.

A dedication to the past allows some family restaurants in the Capital Region to survive through the decades.

Social media can grow a business’s audience — but only if it’s done right.

The Capital Region craft distillery scene is starting to catch up with the rest of the country.

Capital Region restaurant owners weigh the future of curbside pickup, which kept many businesses afloat during the pandemic.

More than a few downtown eateries have become casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those that remain are embracing long-term survival strategies.

Small businesses continue to open, and some longtimers — like Tess’ Kitchen & Culinary — have found ways to thrive under new owners.

Sacramento has been invaded by Nashville-style hot chicken.

As farmers and event organizers adapt to climate change and the ongoing spread of the pandemic, mandarin oranges have offered a bright taste of normalcy during grim times.

In the Capital Region, there’s an emerging market among boutique vineyards and wineries focused on low-intervention farming and production methods.

Many Sacramento entrepreneurs, when forced to consider what it means to launch a business during a time of crisis, realized there could be plant-based opportunities.

West Sacramento’s Washington District has transformed in the past decade, due to efforts by the City of West Sacramento, developers and food entrepreneurs.

Folsom’s Sutter Street banks on its dining options to draw foot traffic. Now, the community is working to lift restaurants out of record-breaking lows. 

While the shelter-in-place measures have helped slow the spread of COVID-19, they have taken a huge economic toll and have been devastating for breweries, especially small breweries that once relied on sales for consumption in their taprooms.

In the Capital Region, a homegrown meal prep market has been thriving for years. There are more than a dozen meal prep services in the region, ranging from the home-based and dubiously legal to nationally distributed brands. 

Though restaurants are among the businesses hit hardest by the coronavirus, local restaurateurs have pooled their resources to help seniors, low-income families and others access food. 

Based in Auburn, the Common Cider Company produces around 75,000 gallons of hard cider monthly. Owner Fran Toves began brewing cider on a dare in 2012.

The Sacramento food scene is often defined more by its restaurateurs than its restaurants. Some culinary titans roll out an array of unique concepts throughout their careers. However, microcelebrity status doesn’t come without challenges.

Comstock’s spoke with Paul Towers, executive director of Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a Davis-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting family farmers and community-based agriculture, to find out how small farmers in the Capital Region are faring during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The coronavirus quarantine has devastated the Sacramento restaurant scene. We talked to several prominent local restaurateurs to see how they are handling the situation. 

Tonja Wilcox has created a lot of watercolor paintings of trees, mainly birch and aspen, but the exact number is unknown. “I stopped counting after 600,” says the Sacramento-based artist.

In May 2019, the Davis City Council approved the “Food and Economic Development (FED) in Davis” report that urges the city to rethink its relationship with food.

While the general American drinking public prefers lagers over ales, craft breweries often give these cold-fermented brews the cold shoulder. Yet some area brewers believe the balance is starting to shift.

The famed Buckhorn empire stretches across the country, with 12 restaurants from the Bay Area and Capital Region to New York City.

Unlike a typical orchard with rows of olive trees, Coldani Olive Ranch’s olives are grown on trellises, resulting in dense, long walls of olives for its oil label, Calivirgin. 

Operated by a local nonprofit, the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy is a business training course geared toward food entrepreneurs from underserved communities.

Merle Axelrad says she fell into the medium of fabric collage 27 years ago when she was nine months pregnant, on maternity leave from her job as an architect, and made a baby quilt. Now, most of her works are public art, corporate and private commissions.

With as much as 10 percent of all food products sold around the world mislabeled, experts at UC Davis and elsewhere are working hard to ensure what’s on the label accurately represents what’s in the food.

“We are flower nerds to the max here,” Melissa Cowan, owner of Placerville Flowers on Main says. “We squeal on the daily when new products come in or when seasons change.” 

Colonized in the late 1800s, Fair Oaks Village is the quaint, charming center of town. It is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely driven by a burgeoning dining scene.

Outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento, tower cranes rise above the skyline, harbingers of the city’s burgeoning building boom. Inside, the designers who are determining the new face of our city took to the runway to envision our future through fashion. 

Though Legado Whiskey is a dark American rye, the company is as unaged as moonshine. The owners have leveraged their story — homegrown, women-owned — to reach consumers around the Capital Region, a key strategy in the crowded craft beverage market.