When Off the Beaten Track debuted in early 2021, the Capital Region was tenuously crawling back from the worst pandemic in more than a hundred years. As we poked our heads outside, we wondered which businesses made it out OK, and how did they do it? Their compelling tales were the overriding storylines of those early post-pandemic days, while impacts from COVID-19 stretched throughout OTBT’s run.

Behind a nearly obscured sign on Highway 99 is a 95-year-old bastion of Italian American food and heritage that still offers Spaghetti Monday every week. 

Not quite two years old, the Amador line of Rail Explorers in Ione is a unique, self-motorized way to experience the countryside of Amador County’s historic Mother Lode region.

This isn’t just any park. The McKinley Park rose garden is the setting for countless al fresco weddings, confirmations, quinceañeras and private soirees. It also provided a stunning backdrop for the scene in Sacramento native and filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” in which the two young lovers own up to their emotions.

Beautiful natural resources like this make Northern California a popular destination for recreation lovers. In fact, in California in 2023, some $81.5 billion was generated from outdoor recreation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Let’s head outdoors.

In a city that lacks a jazz club, where does one go to hear live jazz? For many local music fans, the unlikely answer lies in a quaint Thai restaurant located off the beaten path in a strip mall in the College-Glen neighborhood, a stone’s throw from Sac State.

After more than 10 years of planning, Sacramento’s cherry blossom park, Hanami Line, officially opened June 20 of last year — making this spring the park’s first bloom.

Teneral Cellars winery in Plymouth is an award-winning, women-owned and self-proclaimed disrupter in the industry. It’s also an oasis in the Shenandoah Valley that’s less than an hour’s drive from Sacramento, though reminiscent of a picturesque wine region in Italy.

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Comstock’s followed four downtown Sacramento businesses and their broader sectors for a six-part series. On the fifth anniversary of the shutdowns, we checked in to see how they are faring.

Ahead of his annual bash, we caught up with the host of one of the Capital Region’s biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations — and the keeper of a vault holding 500 different whiskeys from across the world.