What happens to Sacramento restaurants when their owners retire?

The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged senior food editor Benjy Egel. Want it sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here.

Sacramento’s most talked-about food news of the last week was the announcement of Freeport Bakery’s sale to Ettore’s Bakery & Café owner Lisa Calk. Marlene and Walter Goetzeler, who have owned Freeport since 1987, will retire later this week and fully pass their bakery off to Calk and her daughter Veronica, with whom they’ve had a symbiotic relationship for years.

The new owners fully understand Freeport, Marlene said, and plan to keep the recipes and staff in place. A few salads and sandwiches are the only planned additions being discussed right now. Really, it’s a best-case scenario for the Land Park bakery’s loyal tribe of longtime fans — even if not all of them seem to grasp that.

Comments bemoaning the sale flooded social media posts announcing the ownership transition, to the point where Marlene felt compelled to hop in and defend her and Walter’s business decision. They had turned down multiple offers over the years from people outside the Sacramento region, choosing instead to sell to friends they trusted to protect their legacy.

The Goetzelers had reached retirement age, and as in many family businesses, there wasn’t a clear, natural succession plan. Much more often, the end result is what happened to Burr’s Fountain or Pennisi’s Deli or, a day after Freeport’s announcement, Delta of Venus in Davis: the owner retires, the business shuts down and the community loses part of its fabric.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Another bakery, this one in Carmichael, is cooking up Armenian dishes, European desserts and sourdough sliced for sandwiches. A trio of food festivals will light up Labor Day Weekend from Downtown Sacramento to Roseville. And a new Italian restaurant fully opens in East Sacramento today, taking its name from a nearby park.

Let’s dig in.

Benjy’s Bites

Elite Bakery Cafe | 5150 Fair Oaks Blvd., Suite 107, Carmichael | 916-515-9223

In a small slice of a strip mall along Fair Oaks Boulevard, Elite Bakery Cafe has found its home. Opened in 2018 by Armenian immigrant Donara Matsoyan, who works alongside her daughter Genie Pokitko, its dessert cases pop with eye-catching cakes and pastries served alongside Temple Coffee in a quaint dining room. Seniors and cyclists comprised most of the customers on my visit last week, digging into Western European and classic American lunches along with select Armenian dishes.

Those Caucasus-born items include blinchik ($9), a pair of blini pancakes rolled around spiced ground beef and served with a side of sour cream. The spicy chicken sandwich ($15) is a hard pivot with pepper jack cheese, jalapeños, chipotle sauce and juicy, black pepper-coated meat, served on housemade sourdough sold by the loaf on weekends. Cannoli, éclairs and cheesecake all beckoned from the dessert cases, but I opted for gata ($4), a flaky Armenian pastry filled with layers of the butter-sugar-flour paste khoriz.

Egel’s Nest

I live, play and cook in this community just like you. This recurring section is a window into my life outside of restaurants and bars, always with a food and/or drink angle.

I’ve spent the past two weekends celebrating weddings in Washington, stopping back in Sacramento for a few days in between. First up was a union at the bride’s family’s cabin along the Hood Canal, where the happy couple got married with their feet in the water and dove in together after. A lunchtime celebration of steak in chimichurri and roasted potatoes with romesco sauce led into wood-fired pizzas around dinnertime and late-night Kettle Chips in the hot tub, with a waterside taco stand the next morning.

We were in Olympia the following weekend for a family affair, as my partner Abbey’s cousin tied the knot in his parents’ backyard. A local Mediterranean restaurant provided the appetizers and buffet line to fuel a sweet evening of poetry, live music and dancing under conifer trees. The groom’s mom baked about a dozen fruit pies for dessert (adding to the hundreds of cookies she made for the previous night’s welcome party), and an area gelato cart showed up with a specialty flavor made from the hosting family’s home-grown plums.

In the news

Bocce Ristorante is hosting its grand opening Tuesday in East Sacramento, Keyla Vasconcellos wrote. Owned and run by longtime Sacramento chef Joe Pruner, the neighborhood Italian restaurant is a ball’s throw from East Portal Park, home to the region’s best-known bocce courts.

Freeport Bakery’s owners are retiring and selling the Land Park business to Lisa Calk, the owner of Ettore’s Bakery & Café. The two bakeries have shared ingredients and loaned each other equipment in times of need for years, and Calk and her daughter Veronica (Ettore’s general manager) plan to keep the same recipes and staff in place at Freeport.

Downtown Davis café, restaurant and local music space Delta of Venus has closed after 33 years as its owner retires. Lee Walthall bought the student- and vegetarian-friendly business in 2001 after previously playing music there.

Happening this week

• Our Street Night Market returns to Sacramento’s R Street Corridor on Saturday evening. Inspired by Asian night markets and stretching across six blocks, it’ll be packed with local food vendors surrounded by silent disco spaces, mahjong instruction, dance groups and other entertainment. Tickets are $15 plus fees.
• The annual St. George Middle Eastern Food Festival begins at noon Saturday and Sunday at St. George Melkite-Greek Catholic Church in La Riviera. Admission is $3; expect kebabs, falafel, shawarma and Arab sweets once inside.
• The Roseville Greek Food Festival also falls this Saturday and Sunday at Saint Anna Greek Orthodox Church. An online menu advertises souvlaki, pastitsio and a wealth of pastries, with The Blue Aegaen (ouzo, blue curaçao and lemonade) as the featured cocktail. Entry is $5 for adults, and kids get in free.