This Saturday night, the 2012 Trash Film Orgy season will close with a showing of Roger Corman's "Rock 'N' Roll High School," the end of a six-week series of the finest trash cinema seen on the screen of the beautiful Crest Theatre. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 11:00 PM! Admission $10 ($1 off for those in awesome costumes), 18+ only. At the Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street, Sacramento. "Rock 'N' Roll High School," released in 1979, stars PJ Soles, Vince Van Patten, Clint Howard, Mary Woronov, and The Ramones. PJ Soles stars as Riff Randall, biggest Ramones fan at Vince Lombardi High. The soundtrack is a veritable who's who of late 1970s rock, most prominently featuring The Ramones, legendary three-c

Downtown & Vine – an urban wine tasting room – is seeking to bring the best of California wine country to K Street downtown, with a scheduled opening date of mid-October. Co-owner Gregg Lamer said Friday that he and co-owner Kate Chomko think Sacramento needs a varied selection of wines from Sonoma, Napa, the foothills and other wine regions across the state, and the 1200 K St. location is the perfect fit. “We’ll have 12 wineries, and we’ll feature three wines from each one,” Lamer said, adding that wine will be poured in 2-ounce tastes, 5-ounce glasses or flights of three 2-ounce tastes. Of the 12 wineries, 11 will be the backbone of the business, while the 12th will rotate – likely br

For the next two weeks at Site 2, the contractor will be laying out and beginning to install plumbing, laying out the mechanical system, laying out and framing the third floor walls, floor joists, and laying out and framing fourth floor walls. At Site3, the contractor will be laying out walls on the newly-poured concrete deck above the first floor, removing the shoring that supported this floor during concrete pouring, begin framing the second floor, and install the plywood decking for the third floor. Work to lay out the building’s mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems will begin. Work began on this project at both the SW and NW corners of 16th and O Streets January 12th and i

With just a few more bricks to lay, “Seventh & H” looks pretty sharp for an affordable housing project. The eight-story, $47.4 million, 150-unit building by Mercy Housing is the first new structure going up in the railyards redevelopment project area. The project expected to be compleated in the Fall of this year. This project below at 626 I Steet will consist of 108 units for occupancy by extremely low income elderly persons in September 2012. This rehabilitation project project cost $19.4 million and was funded by grants to modernize the vacate building. Most of the funding came from the Federal Government, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). See before

The final touches are being taken care of at the new La Valentine apartments and judging by their Facebook page, they have a steady flow of new tenants moving in too.  This $27 million project has 81 units of affordable housing adjacent to the Alkali Flat/La Valentina light rail station. La Valentina Apartments - 429 12th Street, Sacramento, California 95814

The tasting room for Sacramento urban winery Rail Bridge Cellars is an intimate, two-level venue at the top of the Elks Tower – a spot managing partner Michael Gelber said is the highest place in the city where you can eat and drink – and it will begin hosting live blues and jazz Aug. 11. After being open for about six weeks, Gelber said, the tasting room has attracted a following, and Rail Bridge Cellars’ selection has grown from two varietals to about 12. “We want to bring a speakeasy-style place,” Gelber said. “Sacramento has lots of great nightlife, but this is a different take.” He said the two-level penthouse was called The Top of the Town shortly after the building’s construction

Decadent. Provocative. Orgasmic. Not words normally found in cupcake lexicon, but when we're talking about the creations of Drizzle owner and pastry chef Rob Porter, they seem to fit. Midtown will be able to judge for itself when Porter brings his cupcakes – works of art, to some – to the central city. Cupcakes have been all the rage recently, but Drizzle’s Porter says he has something completely different in mind for his shop: a new kind of late-night hangout to complement the bars and restaurants in Midtown and downtown. “I don’t want to open your everyday, average cupcakery,” Porter, 43, said Tuesday. “I want it to be one of the destination shops that Food Network focuses on. It will

Sacramento Bee reporter Ryan Lillis and I discussed a number of city issues including the City Hall credit card scandal and the McKinley Park fire with host Beth Ruyak on Capital Public Radio’s “Insight” program Tuesday.   The show began with Ruyak asking Lillis about Lisa Serna-Mayorga, an aide to Mayor Kevin Johnson who resigned after an alleged $9,000 were put on her city credit card for personal issues, including a trip to Disneyland. An investigation has been launched, and the city is looking at its policies for credit cards. Lillis will chat with The Sacramento Press on Wednesday at noon. To view that chat, click here for the Sac Press Live link. Ruyak and I discussed the after

Café Roma owner Abe Saadeh said his goal is to take you to Italy without having to leave Sacramento, and now he’s expanding his nearly 2-year-old resturant at 1013 L St. to add seating, beer and wine, and more dining options. “When I first conceived the cafe, I wanted to bring what I saw on my trips to Italy to Sacramento,” Saadeh said Thursday. “I thought it was great to be able to go in and feel the excitement that’s going on in the cafes.” From the window display of gelato to the walk-up espresso bar and premade panninis in the deli case, the small details in Café Roma evoke the feel of being in an Italian cafe, and Saadeh said the expansion will add other elements – beer and wine, fu

Trio Restaurant, Bakery and Market opened July 1, bringing a Dean and Delucca-style restaurant to downtown Sacramento with a mix of farm-to-table and imported foods. Chef and owner Gönül Blum said Thursday that details are still being finalized – with a liquor license effective Friday and glass coverings for the fresh meats section coming soon. “So much of the food comes from my garden and is served in the restaurant,” Blum said. “And I have certificates from the farmers to show that the food is farm-to-table.” Blum said she likes to focus on local ingredients to create Mediterranean-themed dishes, including some from her homeland of Turkey. A small retail space in the front of the res

I go into every production with an open mind — given that we all have biases of some kind, regardless of how we try to tamp them down. I go into every situation with the intention of assessing its overall quality, and taking back to readers enough of an overview to let them make up their own minds about whether or not the event might appeal to them. But I would be lying if I said that when I entered the lobby of Cosmopolitan Cabaret and read the words “comedy,” “farce,” “magic” and “music” in the promotional material for “Triple Espresso,” my first reaction wasn’t dread. I was not much encouraged when, immediately upon opening, the audience was included in the show. Audience participati

The Ultimate Road Trip Across America Comes To Sacramento What makes for the best travel and hotel experience?  The hospitality industry wants to know and that's the information they will seek from tourists and locals alike on Thursday, July 26th.  Beginning at 11:00 a.m., the DoubleTree by Hilton “Little Things Project” will visit Old Sacramento's waterfront area for a unique pop-up event experience. The object is to offer tourists and locals alike a welcome break from a hectic day. Visitors to the Power Up Bar will enjoy a free famous DoubleTree by Hilton chocolate chip cookie and can plug in to the Power Bar WiFi hotspot to connect and charge their phone or other technology before head

The City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee mulled several new restrictions on medical marijuana on Tuesday, but chose only to act one one of them – recommending increasing the distance any new dispensaries must be from a school from 600 feet to 1,000 feet. It will now be up to the full City Council to decide whether that should be a law. The committee also considered: Whether to allow any of the 34 dispensaries in Sacramento to relocate within 300 feet of a residential zone A ban on outdoor growing of medical marijuana by residents 600 OR 1000? Medical marijuana advocate Lynette Davies asked the committee not to change its 600-foot ordinance to 1,000 feet during the meeting’

The City Council Law and Legislation Committee postponed a discussion on whether there will be restrictions on the ability to hold protests on the City Hall property after the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union staged a protest and said its lawyers were closely following the issue City Councilmen Darrell Fong and Jay Schenirer saying they wanted the language of the ordinance to be made clearer. “I believe people should have access to City Hall,” Fong said Tuesday. “We do have some other concerns we have to address. We will meet soon and get language out there, and we will bring it back.” The issue will be brought up again at the City Council’s Law and Legislation Commit

Sacramento will consider more guidelines for medical marijuana dispensaries Tuesday, as a city committee will look at how far the dispensaries should be from parks and schools, even as federal court cases determining their legality are still under way. The City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee will discuss medical marijuana dispensaries at 3 p.m. on Tuesday at City Hall, 915 I St., so the city is prepared to act at the end of the court proceedings, Law and Legislation Committee Chairman Jay Schenirer said Monday. “We need to work this out so we can move forward once those cases are resolved,” he said. “I think we have a model policy, and we want to be moving in the right direction

After a two years of on-again, off-again talks, the dispute between food truck and restaurants in Sacramento might be drawing to a close – a new food truck ordinance is in the final steps of negotiation before being put to the City Council after a meeting between food truck operators, traditional restaurateurs and city officials on Friday. “Basically, the only things that are really left to negotiate are how far a truck can park from a restaurant and for how long,” KrushBurger food truck owner Davin Vculek said. He added that the current 30-minute time limit will likely be extended to a limit that allows a food truck to serve for a whole shift – be it lunch or dinner – in one spot. Righ

One of Sacramento's newest coffee bars has hit its stride in the last months by turning its small back area into a mini kitchen – or a "kitchenette." The change has helped Broadacre Coffee, which opened near 10th and J streets last October in the old Temple Coffee location, draw a new crowd and improve its bottom line. "We've been trying since October to kind of carve out our niche in downtown, where there are two or three other competing coffee shops, and food definitely hit the mark on that," said Justin Kerr, a barista and co-owner. For about a month now, Broadacre has been serving a selection of pressed and croissant sandwiches with eggs and cheese that cost $5 to $6, as well as yog

On July 19, the United States Conference of Mayors released a report entitled “Metro Economies Report: Outlook-Gross Metropolitan Product, and Critical Role of Transportation Infrastructure.” From this snooze-worthy title, the Sacramento Bee produced an article titled “New report says Sacramento’s economy was among worst in U.S. last year.” (http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/19/4642197/new-report-says-sacramentos-economy.html ) The Bee article also includes a quote from Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, second vice chair of the US Conference of Mayors: "The quality of this nation's workforce and its economic growth is directly tied to the quality of education. We must focus on ensuring our chil

One woman’s views of the issues plaguing downtown created a stir on The Sacramento Press yesterday, so we decided to look a little deeper. Emily Gerber was featured in a Sacramento Business Journal blog post Monday discussing how the lack of parking and grocery stores diminishes the appeal of living, working and visiting the downtown core. The main issues she brought up in the blog post, and the followup yesterday related to transit, food and music. Parking and transit How to manage parking and transit issues is a key debate among people who live and work downtown. As local historian William Burg sees it, parking is a matter of supply and demand, and challenges are unavoidable. “More

Here’s the scenario: It’s lunchtime and you live and work downtown. You’ve been craving Indian food from that little place 12 blocks away from the office – too far to walk, but you don’t want to drive because street parking is expensive and there’s never enough of it. What do you do? It’s a common frustration for city-dwellers and, as Ed Goldman writes in the Sacramento Business Journal, some people say it’s killing downtown. “Have you ever tried to drive to lunch around here?” downtown resident Emily Gerber asks Goldman in the article. “You pull up to a restaurant and there’s only one-hour parking, which means you either have to interrupt your lunch to go out and re-park your car or get