The Abridged Version:
- Irish Hospitality Group, the team behind Ro Sham Beaux, The Snug and The Butterscotch Den, has opened Day Tripper at 1820 17th St. in Midtown Sacramento.
- Drinks span frozen slushies, caipirinhas and pisco sours alongside an array of spirits from Oaxaca, Martinique, Brazil and Peru, with cocktails mostly landing around $12.
- The room, designed by co-founder Trevor Easter and Soda Back founder Tina Ross, centers on a tiled stone fountain, bougainvillea cascading overhead and a floor-to-ceiling wall of mezcal, tequila, rum, cachaça and pisco bottles.
Trevor Easter and Russell Martin II have carried agaves down a hillside in Oaxaca, baled hay on a farm for a Zapotec mezcal producer who correctly identified them as free labor and watched a little kid in a small mountain town yell “Godzilla” at Martin for being tall. They have done these things because every bottle behind the bar at Day Tripper has a story, and they believe the person behind the bar is the final piece of that storytelling.
Day Tripper opened this past weekend at 1820 17th St. in Midtown Sacramento, on the ground floor of The Richmond building next to the Ice Blocks. It’s the latest project from Irish Hospitality Group, which also operates Ro Sham Beaux in Midtown, The Snug in the R Street Corridor and The Butterscotch Den in North Oak Park.
Easter and his wife and co-founder Lindsay Nader built the bar program alongside Martin. The influences pull from trips Easter and Martin took through Oaxaca, Belize, Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, though they intentionally avoided tying the concept too closely to any one place.
Martin is quick to note Day Tripper is not a tiki bar, while Nader likened it to a hotel lobby crossed with the square of a town or that moment when you set your bag down and exhale.
“It’s more of a place that honors tequila, rum, the people who make it, the stories behind it, and taking that vacation drink and elevating it,” said Martin, whose hospitality career began as a barback at The Snug. “I want guests to feel like they are no longer in Sacramento. … I want them to be transported to someplace outside of the country that’s warm.”
Day Tripper’s interior, designed by Easter and Soda Back interior design firm founder Tina Ross, stops one at the door. The bar wall rises in stacked adobe-toned arches packed floor-to-ceiling with mezcal, tequila, rum, cachaça and pisco, with warm wood beams running overhead.
The main room opens around a large tiled stone fountain, bougainvillea cascading from a wood pergola above, velvet banquettes lining the stone walls and terrazzo floors underfoot. The menu arrives in a jungle green booklet stamped with a jaguar medallion. It says “Get Lost” on the back cover.
The team wanted to create an immersive cocktail bar that still felt affordable enough to become part of someone’s regular rotation. Cocktails mostly land around $12, slushies closer to $10 and pony beers go for just $2.
“If we can give someone a three-hour vacation for 20 or 30 bucks, I think that’s a really awesome thing that we can do for our community,” Nader said. “We made a beautiful space, but we also tried to make it affordable and accessible for everyone.”
Day Tripper’s philosophy becomes most apparent in its spirits list, which draws from years of travel and deliberate sourcing. Easter and Martin prioritize brands owned by the people producing the alcohol, rather than celebrity-backed labels or mass-market companies. Staff training was 50% cultural storytelling before anyone stepped behind the bar, with history lessons for spirits such as pisco, tequila and rum.
“These stories are important and they’re culturally meaningful,” Easter said. “They need a bartender to tell them.”
The cocktail program includes “Vacation Drinks.” Think caipirinhas, Ti’ punches and Pisco sours, alongside spirits like rhum agricole, the grassy, complex spirit of the French Caribbean, cachaça and Mexican rum, a fresh sugarcane spirit that started as a bootleg regional staple and is only now finding its way onto American bars.
The cocktails reflect a good balance between fun and genuine craft. The El Guapo slushie is tequila, cucumber, Cholula and tajin. The Carajillo with tequila, Liquor 43 and fresh espresso pulled to order is finished with orange zest and drinks like an orange chocolate ball. A tequila shot comes with a pico de gallo water chaser — a playful riff on the pickleback.
Amid a slew of restaurants in the Ice Blocks and on S Street, Day Tripper offers no food. The idea is that Day Tripper is the next stop, not the only stop — dinner somewhere nearby and then a few hours here after.
“Good Neighbor and Chu Mai are right there and you are welcome to bring anything in,” Nader said. “If Chu Mai has a waitlist, pop over. They’ll text you when your table is ready.”
Day Tripper’s genesis traces back to the COVID-19 lockdowns. While trying to reopen The Snug amid outdoor dining restrictions, Irish Hospitality Group transformed its parking lot into a tropical pop-up called The Doobie Bar. It was lined with palm trees, yacht rock, frozen drinks and a makeshift lifeguard tower built from a children’s playhouse.
What started as a temporary outdoor escape eventually became the seed for Day Tripper. Now, the bar is open seven days a week at 4 p.m., with weekend hours extending to 2 a.m.
Keyla Vasconcellos is a Sacramento-based freelance journalist.