Food and fun for $25? Here’s where I found affordable entertainment in Sacramento
About the Writer
Brianna Taylor covers affordability on The Bee’s service journalism team.
There’s fun to be had here — even more if you’re willing to explore.
I started this job — service journalism reporter at The Sacramento Bee — two and half years ago from my New York City apartment as a pandemic kept us home. Virtually, I began to pick up the feel of Sacramento before my big move. But it was a slow process making this city feel like home and a large part of that was me.
With your help, I embarked on a new project to gain a stronger sense of belonging to this rich city.
My only ask: Keep it affordable. In return, I’d show you where I’d been.
This month marks one year since I started “Sacramento on a Budget” — where I try an activity once a month per a reader’s suggestion with $25 — and I’ve had an absolute blast discovering this city through the eyes of the people who know it best and newbies just like me.
I’ve gotten nearly 100 suggestions, from eateries off the beaten path to activities suited for the entire family.
I ate hot water cornbread from a soul food shack in Del Paso Heights and waited 45 minutes in the summer heat for shaven ice from a Sacramento dessert shop with ties to old Japantown (well worth it).
I ice skated and went wine tasting for the first time, sipped cocktails near a bonfire with a stray cat, got a sugar rush from delicious caramel popcorn, tried an unbeatable sandwich, watched a movie the old-fashioned way, saw a peacock up close and ate authentic Lao food off the trunk of my car.
If you missed any of it — or you want to walk down memory lane with me — here’s a list of 11 cheap eats and activities I discovered around Sacramento with your help, from December 2022 to November 2023.
Thank you for an incredible year.
Drinks at Drake’s: The Barn
Location: 985 Riverfront St, West Sacramento
Is it affordable? Food and drinks can get pricey but parking and admission are free.
I did what most people do before going somewhere new and scrolled through Drake’s: The Barn Google reviews.
Expectations were high. That, mixed with the idea of not being able to find parking or being turned away without a reservation started to make me queasy as I drove into West Sacramento, thinking back to what an old colleague told me about Drake’s.
It’s totally your vibe and you don’t even know it.
Skating at Downtown Sacramento Ice Rink
Location: 701 K St., Sacramento
Is it affordable? It depends on how many people are in your group.
Pro tip: Ice skating is nothing like rolling skating.
In my life, I have never put on a pair of ice skates — which is laughable because one of the most popular ice rinks in the world, Rockefeller Center in New York City, sits less than five miles away from my old apartment.
Downtown Sacramento Ice Rink was a good place to start.
Soul food at Tori’s Place
Location: 1525 Grand Ave, Sacramento
Is it affordable? Stick to the low-cost items. The portions are large.
A blue shack with weathered seats and brown beaded curtains serves some of the best gumbo in Sacramento — it doesn’t look like much, but it’s rooted, intentional and the food is delicious.
The cliche “don’t judge a book by its cover” certainly applies to Tori’s Place.
When I started this affordability challenge, I was hoping for experiences like this one. A place you’d probably never stumble across on a Yelp list or a quick “places near me” Google search.
READ MORE: I ate at a Sacramento soul food spot you were ‘too scared to try.’ Here’s what I got with $25
Movies at West Wind Drive-in
Location: 9616 Oates Drive
Is it affordable? Admission is affordable but concessions can add up.
I could feel the history of Sacramento’s only drive-in theater from the moment I drove up to the weathered ticket booths sandwiched between Highway 50 and Folsom Boulevard.
Built in the 1970s, West Wind is not only the last drive-in movie theater in the area — but one of the few left in California.
The first drive-in theater opened in the United States in 1933, but the concept didn’t reach its heyday until mid century. I know I’m too young to truly understand the influence drive-in theaters had on American cinema, but is it possible to feel nostalgia for something you’ve never experienced?
Turns out, it is.
READ MORE: You asked for an old-fashioned Sacramento movie night on a budget. Here’s what I got for $16
Animal watching at Folsom Zoo Sanctuary
Location: 403 Stafford St., Folsom
Is it affordable? A group of three would spend less than $25 on tickets alone.
The Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary flips the original idea on its head.
Zoos were created to house animals for public display — the emphasis typically on spectacle, rather than preservation. Folsom’s animal sanctuary intrigued me because of its mission not to breed, sell or trade animals, but instead, enrich their lives.
Established in 1963, the then Folsom Zoo started with an orphaned cub who was burned in a forest fire, several deer and a coyote. The park eventually grew to what people know it to be today: A haven for animals that cannot be released back into the wild.
READ MORE: This family-friendly activity in Folsom costs less than $25. How I spent my day at the zoo
The Corti Special at Corti Brothers
Location: 5810 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento
Is it affordable? You can get a sandwich, chips and a drink for under $15
One of the most popular sandwiches in Sacramento is crafted behind a deli counter in a specialty grocery store on Folsom Boulevard.
The venerable Corti Brothers in East Sacramento was established in 1947 to bring high-quality food and wine from around the world to Northern California. It’s perhaps most well known for its $8.49 Corti Special: customers pick the bread and condiments and the sandwich-makers choose the meat.
READ MORE: Famous East Sacramento market sells a sandwich ‘you can’t beat.’ Here’s what I got under $15
Wine tasting at Old Sugar Mill
Location: 35265 Willow Ave, Clarksburg
Is it affordable? You can do it on a budget but winery hopping can get pricey.
Affordable wine tastings in California are possible.
You just have to be willing to go to wineries beyond the Napa Valley.
Roughly a 15-minute drive from downtown Sacramento in Clarksburg sits what used to be a beet sugar refinery. Now, more than 80 years later, Old Sugar Mill houses 14 wineries stocked with zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, barbera, tempranillo, chardonnay, chenin blanc and sangiovese.
Sweet confections at Osaka-Ya
Location: 2215 10th St., Sacramento
Is it affordable? You can do it on a budget. The portions are large.
On a quiet block in Southside Park sits one of the oldest remnants of Sacramento’s Japantown, a destination for shaved ice and authentic Japanese confections.
Osaka-Ya Wagashi — or just Osaka-Ya — was established in 1963. A statue of a black bear dressed in a vest, pants and belt held a “welcome” sign over its head and miscellaneous sticky notes line a wall behind the dessert counter.
The small Japanese storefront on 10th Street sells homemade manju and mochi, but it’s probably most well known for its seasonal snowcones.
Lao food at South Area Market
Location: 5220 Fruitridge Road, Sacramento
Is it affordable? You can get a drink, an appetizer and an entree for less than $25.
Past rows of crispy pig ears and imported bath soap, a kitchen in the back of an Asian market in Sacramento is cooking up authentic Lao food you can’t find on Doordash.
South Area Market near the intersection of Stockton Boulevard and Fruitridge Road is unpretentious and personable, from the handwritten menu scribbled on a dry erase board to the minimal decor on the bright yellow cinder-block walls. But don’t let its looks fool you.
The food coming out of this market is some of the best I’ve had in Sacramento.
Caramel corn at Carmazzi
Location: 520 La Sierra Drive, Sacramento
Is it affordable? You could walk away with something on a tight budget.
Just off the intersection of Watt Avenue and Fair Oaks Boulevard sits a Sacramento-based popcorn company that uses a secret family recipe — passed down from generation to generation — to make delicious caramel corn.
Carmazzi Caramel Corn moved its machines to a storefront in Arden Arcade over the summer after operating as a home business for several years. This isn’t your regular ol’ caramel corn, and the customers that shuffled in and out of the store during my visit in November made that clear.
READ MORE: This Sacramento caramel corn shop took on Tesla in a competition. I visited with a $25 budget
Books at A Seat at The Table
Location: 9257 Laguna Springs Drive Suite 130, Elk Grove
Is it affordable? There are a lot of bargains.
Elk Grove has one bookstore and it’s not Barnes and Noble.
A Seat At The Table Books — located off of Highway 99 inside the Laguna Pointe shopping center — makes its mission of inclusivity clear with its queer rights and shop local messaging. It isn’t just a place to snag the Internet’s latest book obsession.
The family-owned bookstore and coffee shop hosts events and panel discussions, poetry and open mic nights, book drives, children’s music classes, story times, book clubs and boozy fairs.
READ MORE: I visited the only bookstore in Elk Grove, and it’s a vibe. What I sipped and read for $25
Where should I go next year?
Big or small — let me hear it.
If you were given $25 to spend in Sacramento, where would you go?
