SACRAMENTO – In less than two weeks, three new businesses opened in downtown Sacramento, while a popular restaurant closed permanently.
It’s a grand opening for the newest store in old Sacramento.
“It’s exciting, it’s so wonderful, it’s a dream come true,” said Hope Menefee, owner of Ecojoyous.
Ecojoyous is a shop that sells locally made crafts and upcycled goods.
But this new store in Old Sacramento is within sight of another family business that is currently closed last weekend.
The Rio City Café was located on Sacramento’s waterfront for 30 years.
It was permanently closed after the city of Sacramento, which owns the building, refused to repair the dilapidated outdoor dining patio.
“It definitely impacts the entire community,” said Andrew LaFrance of Downtown Sacramento Partnership.
It is the latest up and down of the business economy in the city center.
“It will change and things will certainly get better,” Menefee said.
Further down K Street, the Starbucks at the entrance to Downtown Commons has also closed.
But in the last ten days, two new stores have opened in DOCO: Cabana Club and Lucky Gold Jewelry.
“I think there is so much going on and we need to keep pushing this forward and creating fun places for locals and tourists,” said Paula Thompson, owner of the Cabana Club.
For more than a decade, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership has run the Calling All Dreamers competition, a program to encourage the creation of more local businesses.
This enabled Menefee to open her store.
“She was able to sit down and think about financial projections, marketing, personnel, human resources, all of that and kind of round out her business concept,” LaFrance said.
Another successful participant is Capital Tuk-Tuk, which now provides rides to people in a three-wheeled electric vehicle.
“There are a lot of small businesses you can support, and there are great restaurants and attractions too,” said Manushi Weerasinghe, owner of Capital Tuk Tuk.
Small business owners like Menefee now hope that more people will come downtown and check out the new developments.
“It’s very promising,” Menefee said.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg says he is working to revive a $40 million plan to modernize Old Sacramento’s waterfront that was postponed during the pandemic.
