Sacramento’s best-known art museum now has a craft coffee program to match

The Abridged version:

• Midtown Sacramento-based Anchor & Tree Coffee Roasting Co. recently opened a second location inside the Crocker Art Museum.
• This café serves food, in contrast to the Midtown space, with names that riff on those of famous artists (think avo-Kahlo tartine, BL-Thiebaud and banh Monet).
• While most of the café’s patrons are museum visitors, it’s open to everyone — no admission tickets required.

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Are top chefs artists? It’s been heavily debated, particularly as audiences have paid increased attention to restaurant kitchens and food media over the past 10-15 years.

The Crocker Art Museum’s new café operator, Anchor & Tree Coffee Roasting Co., set out to nourish more than innovate with its food. Its coffee, roasted at Anchor & Tree’s home base in Midtown Sacramento, is a different story. To Casey Albert, who owns Anchor & Tree with his husband, Donovan, it matches up with the paintings and statues in Sacramento’s premier art museum.

“We’ve always loved the artistic side of the business,” Albert said. “Coffee roasting is, I would say, kind of an art of its own. So when we found out that the Crocker was looking for new café partner, we were like, ‘That would be amazing.'”

Palettes and palates

Anchor & Tree opened in October in Teel Family Pavilion on the museum’s first floor, which more than 200,000 people walk through each year. While most customers are museum attendees, the café is open to all — admission ticket or not — with cheeky dish names meant to instill a sense of place.

A BL-Thiebaud chicken sandwich honors the region’s most famous painter, Wayne Thiebaud, with green goddess spread, arugula and pickled onions on focaccia in addition to the obligatory bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and chicken. The banh Monet slaps Sriracha-lime aioli on focaccia with chicken, pickled onions and the carrots, cilantro and jalapeños one typically sees on a bánh mì.

The Crocker displayed a Frida Kahlo original painting until Sunday, so the café added an avo-Kahlo tartine as a special. Its base: a Boichik bagel from Berkeley, which continues to be available all day with cream cheese.

Anchor & Tree’s Midtown hub doesn’t have a kitchen. It also tends to attract more coffee-focused customers compared to the wider range perusing the Crocker. In a typical day, the Crocker café might encounter children on a field trip, young professionals on breaks from nearby office jobs and organized artistic groups attending monthly meetups.

“It’s more of an organized gathering spot where groups will come and have their meetings,” Albert said. “We definitely see a lot more families compared to the Midtown café, especially on weekends.”

Let the beans talk

That has pushed Casey Albert, the more introverted of the ownership couple, into an ambassador role. He implores guests, many of whom don’t plan on drinking caffeine after 11 a.m., to try Anchor & Tree’s coffee and to try it black.

Donovan Albert sources beans via distributor Ally Coffee from farms with recommended labor and environmental practices. He and Casey then visit those farms on one origin trip per year, most recently going to Colombia.

They roast the beans in 6-pound batches, considerably smaller than most commercial roasters, using an electric roaster from Berkeley-based Bellwether Coffee. Each machine produces 87% fewer carbon emissions than a traditional gas roaster, Bellwether claims, and allows for more precise heat application throughout the drum, Casey Albert said, avoiding “hot spots.”

Many customers accustomed to dark roasts want cream and sugar to offset their bitterness. But when applied to lighter brews, they can drown out subtle flavors such as pineapple, plum and nougat, Albert said.

Even Anchor & Tree’s syrupy espresso drinks stop short of, say, Dutch Bros Coffee levels. In drinks such as the salted pistachio caramel latte or vanilla latte with bourbon-infused maple syrup, those sweeteners are measured in grams, not pumps. The sweetest of the bunch is the cinnamon vanilla mocha, though baristas can add more sugar to any drink upon request.

“It makes coffee more of an experience. It makes each cup more distinctive and allows you to see ‘What is a light roast bean? What is a medium roast bean? And what does it mean for a bean to be washed?'” Albert said. “There’s so much distinction between beans and regions, and you don’t get that when you’re loading it with cream and sugar.”

Nights at the museum

The Crocker Art Museum has cycled through several café tenants since launching with Mulvaney’s B&L in 2010. It was closed from March 2020 through October 2023, when Majka Pizzeria & Bakery’s owners took over the space.

They were there until December 2024, according to Crocker director of marketing and communications Kat Haro. Then Anchor & Tree moved in, first as a pop-up before claiming a more permanent residency.

“In Anchor and Tree, we found a compatible partner with a mutual desire and commitment to providing excellent service to our visitors,” Haro wrote in an email. “What started as a short-term pop-up coffee shop has since turned into lunch service with both hot and grab & go options, and we look forward to strengthening this partnership in the future.”

Anchor & Tree now anchors the museum’s food program, from daytime visitors to after-dark events. During jazz nights, classical concerts or ArtMix, the museum’s popular monthly series, the cafe’s pizza oven keeps firing square pies.

For the Alberts, frequent visitors of the Crocker even before the working relationship, being part of the Western U.S.’ oldest art museum is worth the occasional late hours.

“We love the Crocker’s mission. It’s an amazing, world-class museum. I think it’s right up there with a lot of the top museums in a lot bigger cities than Sacramento,” Albert said. “What an awesome way to not only partner with a great organization and support their mission, but also be able to showcase our brand in front of a new set of customers.”

Anchor & Tree in the Crocker Art Museum

Address: 216 O St., Sacramento

Phone: 916-808-7000

Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Website: anchorandtree.com

Vegetarian/vegan options: More than half the menu is meatless, including a pesto breakfast sandwich, cheesy Cubist pizza squares and a fresco caprese sandwich.

Drinks: Environmentally conscious craft coffee program, plus Pressed Juicery juices, tea from Folsom-based K&K Chai, kava and kombucha.

Reservations: None

Benjy Egel is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged’s weekly food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.