These days, the Sacramento region’s beer scene is so large and bustling that a consumer may find it hard to keep tabs on it without a scorecard and roadmap.

The famed Buckhorn empire stretches across the country, with 12 restaurants from the Bay Area and Capital Region to New York City.

Unlike a typical orchard with rows of olive trees, Coldani Olive Ranch’s olives are grown on trellises, resulting in dense, long walls of olives for its oil label, Calivirgin. 

Operated by a local nonprofit, the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy is a business training course geared toward food entrepreneurs from underserved communities.

Even the founders of Kiki’s Chicken Place, Sacramento’s latest temple to the twin gods of tenders and wings, are surprised by how fast their chain has spread. 

Colonized in the late 1800s, Fair Oaks Village is the quaint, charming center of town. It is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely driven by a burgeoning dining scene.

Though Legado Whiskey is a dark American rye, the company is as unaged as moonshine. The owners have leveraged their story — homegrown, women-owned — to reach consumers around the Capital Region, a key strategy in the crowded craft beverage market.

Across the Sacramento region, food truck owners are riding their mobile success into more stationary ventures, from sit-down restaurants like Culinerdy Kitchen to food-court outposts and drive-through kiosks.

Brad Squires and Matt Brunner wondered what would happen to the agricultural land that housed Tom Tomich Orchards — the sole remaining commercial fruit operation in Orangevale — when the business shuttered in 2017. Would that really be the end of an era?

It’s around 1992, and a long-haired dude in his early 20s is sitting with his friend at Taco Loco, a popular Mexican eatery on J Street in Sacramento. They’re eyeballing the customers, waiting to pounce.