Neighborhood Favorite is a new monthly web column that profiles independent restaurants around the Capital Region to showcase the diversity and resilience of our local food entrepreneurs. In the first installment, we visit one of Sacramento’s longest-standing Lao restaurants.

In a world where travel is suddenly not only difficult but also potentially dangerous, a group dedicated to increasing tourism in the Capital Region has to be creative. 

Comstock’s has been following four businesses in Sacramento since March to see how they’re faring amid the pandemic. Here’s how they stand now.

The pandemic hurt the small businesses that make up Little Saigon’s microeconomy, but business owners and their customers are hanging on. 

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.

The Sacramento events planning firm pivoted to open the NeighborGood Market in central Elk Grove, a certified farmers market, in September.

A Stockton-based mobile pizza oven serves customers across the Central Valley and uses cross collaboration between small businesses to support local entrepreneurs. 

“Half of what you’re coming in for is the experience, not just the food,” says Brick House Restaurant & Lounge co-owner Franco Cassella.

While large companies often have shareholders and untold numbers of employees to satisfy, family businesses can maneuver more deftly and swiftly, powering through as best they can.

Culinerdy Cruzer, which was part of Sacramento’s first wave of gourmet food trucks when it opened in 2014, is hitting the highway next month.