A bookstore speakeasy with drinks through the decades opens Friday in Old Sacramento

The 1920s Bookstore sits below Pioneer Square on ground that predates the city's modern street level.

Published on August 12, 2026

by Keyla Vasconcellos

The interior of The 1920s Bookstore, a new speakeasy in Old Sacramento.

Keyla Vasconcellos

The Abridged version:

The 1920s Bookstore, a new Prohibition-style speakeasy from owner San Bao, opens Friday below Pioneer Square in Old Sacramento.
The drink menu moves decade by decade, opening on Prohibition-era classics made to their original recipes and closing with a disco-era section.
After its grand opening Friday at noon, the speakeasy will open daily at 4 p.m., with cocktails running $16–$20 and seating capped at about 28.

Nothing outside the building below Pioneer Square in Old Sacramento hints at what’s inside, except for a small clock mounted above the brick courtyard. Behind that clock is a new speakeasy, The 1920s Bookstore, which will have its grand opening Friday at noon.

The bar is the first venture from owner San Bao, who worked at bars in Houston for about a decade before moving back to his hometown of Sacramento. He’d always dreamed of opening a speakeasy inspired by the Prohibition era.

“It’s a really interesting period of U.S. history that we want to honor and celebrate,” he said.

Sign Up for the City of Treats Newsletter

Get the latest Sacramento food news from Benjy Egel in City of Treats — delivered every Tuesday.

Although the name states “bookstore,” the room behind the door feels more like a study. A bookcase lines one wall, the wallpaper is patterned and a small writing desk holds an old typewriter and a rotary phone beneath warm sconce lighting. From there, the bar opens up in true speakeasy fashion, and figuring out how is half the fun.

As for the space itself, landing it came down to luck rather than a plan, Bao explained. He found the listing online and reached out to the landlord, who told him the building sits below where Sacramento’s streets are today. Sacramento raised its Downtown 10 to 15 feet after the Great Flood of 1862, leaving the original street level, along with its old storefronts and sidewalks, intact beneath the new one.

Once you’re inside the bar, the ambiance feels quaint and moody. Brick lines one wall of the bar and a pressed tin ceiling runs overhead. A row of green velvet booths faces a scalloped teal tile bar. Small tables are lit with single oil lamps instead of overhead lighting. In one corner sits an upright piano. In another, a freestanding phonograph cabinet.

Bao wants guests to walk into the room and sense one thing. “It should feel illegal,” he said, the same thrill of stepping into a hidden bar during Prohibition. The bookstore can only fit about 28 people, so admittance is by reservation only.

“We want people to feel intimate and cozy and exclusive down here, like they’re back in an earlier time,” he said.

Clock — A small clock mounted above a brick courtyard shows people where to find The 1920s Bookstore, a new speakeasy in Old Sacramento. (Keyla Vasconcellos)

The drink menu itself is bound like a small hardback and set on each table, its opening page setting the tone before anyone orders a drink: “Every cocktail is a time machine.”

It opens on Prohibition, with an old fashioned, a Negroni, a Manhattan, a Last Word and a Clover Club, a gin cocktail dating to the early 1900s built with lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg whites. According to Bao, most bars today build their old fashioned with bourbon instead of rye, but not at his bar.

“The original recipe calls for rye, and that’s what we use here,” he adds.

From Prohibition, the book moves forward by decade. It runs through the Depression, a tiki-heavy stretch tied to World War II, a martini-lunch chapter built around the 1950s, and a run of internationally sourced classics that made their way to the U.S. from Paris, Havana and London, before closing with a disco-era section that carries the story through 1980.

One drink breaks from that structure entirely, and it might be one of the most interesting pours on the menu. Hương Xưa, which translates to “fragrance of old times,” is built on a Vietnamese spiced gin and a Vietnamese herbal amaro, sweetened with palm sugar and brightened with lime and lemongrass. It’s Bao’s own creation, drawing on his Vietnamese background rather than the era the rest of the menu pulls from.

A cocktail at a speakeasy — The drink menu at The 1920s Bookstore with a Hương Xưa cocktail. (Keyla Vasconcellos)

Kerensa Uyeta-Buckley attended a preview night ahead of the opening and said it’s the best entrance of any local speakeasy she’s been to.

“The attention to detail, from the gorgeous ceiling to the menus, which are books, made it a memorable experience,” she said.

Live music isn’t part of the bar yet, though Bao is working on a permit. Once he has it, he plans to bring in local musicians, likely something simple, maybe a vocalist and a guitar or a small trio.

But how does one get in, and what other surprises hide behind the doors? Some things you just need to experience for yourself, Bao said.

“Most people should not know anything before coming here,” he said. “They find out when they are in here. That’s what we want.”