Few San Joaquin success stories can rival that of Lodi grape growers, winemakers and tasting room hosts whose efforts have propelled an unheralded wine region to prominence.

Emile “Whitey” Boisclair was 47 years old in 1963 when he quit his job as a sheet-metal worker and bought a struggling West Sacramento burger joint called Jolly Kone.

He had no experience in the restaurant business, and friends worried he’d fail.

Emile “Whitey” Boisclair was 47 years old in 1963 when he quit his job as a sheet-metal worker and bought a struggling West Sacramento burger joint called Jolly Kone.

He had no experience in the restaurant business, and friends worried he’d fail.

“I arrived in the City of Saloons,” wrote Mark Twain upon arriving here in 1866. “You can shut your eyes and march into the first door you come to and call for a drink, and the chances are that you will get it.”

Fewer than two miles from a fraternity scene marked by late-night keg stands, chugging contests and beer pong rallies is a quiet UC Davis classroom above Sudwerk Restaurant & Brewery where the next generation of brewers learn the chemistry behind the craft.

With a new Vacaville store and six locations poised to open in the Sacramento area, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Inc. is revving up competition in the already-crowded Northern California grocery scene.

If you want to talk sides, Mike Brown is your man. As the owner of midtown’s Capitol Dawg, Brown knows his various hot dogs draw in the crowds, but it’s the side dishes that complete the meal.

The next time you dine at Burgers and Brew, Crepeville or Chops Steak, Seafood & Bar, you’ll likely eat something purchased from Restaurant Depot. Those popular eateries are among the regular customers of the privately owned food-service wholesaler at 1275 Vine St. in the River District.

Inside a concrete warehouse a few miles past Sacramento International Airport, an 80-pound white sturgeon is hauled onto a table, sliced throat to tail and relieved of its egg-stuffed ovaries. Workers at Sterling Caviar LLC pack the meat on ice, ship the roe elsewhere and repeat the process.

If there’s anyone more excited than a kid in a candy shop, it’s a middle-aged woman in a cupcake shop. The national cupcake craze also has hit all regions and demographics, according to those in the bakery industry.

When Gay Callan left her Bay Area sales job to grow grapes in the Sierra foothills in the early 1980s, people told her that she — a city slicker and a woman to boot — was crazy.