Sometimes to go out, you need to go off.
Off the Grid:Friday Nights at The Barn
When: 5 -10 p.m. Fridays through October
Where: 985 Riverfront St., West Sacramento
Cost: Free
Info: offthegrid.com/Sacramento
Off the Grid, the San Francisco-based company behind Friday Nights at The Barn, got started in June 2010 in the Bay Area. However, the public events company soon found that it wasn’t only local residents attending their events: People from the Sacramento area were making the trek, as well.
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“We were seeing this and feeling like there was a space for us to actually go to Sacramento and to provide what we’re doing down here for Sacramentans in their own community, and really make it unique and special,” says Sinead Kennedy, director of marketing for Off the Grid. Friday Nights at The Barn has joined Off the Grid’s other events in the area, including one in West Sacramento, one in Rancho Cordova, and at the Sacramento Zoo, the Folsom Premium Outlets and the Crocker Art Museum.
Friday Nights at The Barn brings together food trucks; music, in conjunction with Capital Public Radio’s Blue Dog Jam; and Rye on the Road, an event cocktail service. The event runs Friday nights through October at The Barn in West Sacramento.
“We wanted to play off the structure of The Barn itself,” Kennedy says, later adding, “It’s a really beautiful architectural masterpiece in that it takes old reclaimed wood and turns it into something sleek and modern. And we wanted to do that with the style and the theme and the music of the event as well, in taking older barn dance and country music and putting a modern twist on to it.”
An employee works at Off the Grid: Friday Nights at The Barn in
September. (Photo by Willie Clark)
The event has drawn an estimated “several thousand” people each week since launching Aug. 5, according to Kennedy, and Off the Grid is “incredibly happy” with the turnout so far. In fact, based on attendee feedback, Off the Grid had already made some logistical tweaks, including additional bars and bathrooms.
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Auri Hinson attended the first Barn event and returned a few weeks later in early September. “I live right across the street,” Hinson says, adding, “and I love to eat, so I heard there was going to be food trucks, so that’s my favorite.” Two sets of 12 food trucks alternate each week, and include Dojo Burger, It’s Nacho Truck, El Matador and Culinerdy Cruzer. Hinson appreciates that the event is close to her home, and that it provides a “lively and fun” family-friendly event.
One evening in early September, Arnold Stephens checked out The Barn for the first time. “I guess it’s a little bit too early,” he says. “I thought it would be a little bit more packed, but you know, it’s fine.”
David Ticknor, who recently moved to the area, decided to stop by on the recommendation of friends. “It’s pretty cool,” he says. “I mean, it’s still picking up obviously, but … good beer, good food, I can’t complain.”