Hitting the Dive Bar and Pizza Joint on a Saturday Night

The Crest Theater, K Street Sacramento

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see Javier Bardem in Biutiful at the classic Crest Theater on K Street in Sacramento with one of our very good friends. (Check out the upcoming line-up on the marquee!) Biutiful was beautiful, but also tragic...no matter how hard Javier tries to change the inevitable.

After this poignant film, we needed a little lightening up. As luck would have it, K Street has been experiencing a revival.

"The powers that be" in Sacramento have been working hard to encourage new businesses along K Street, one of the prominent downtown streets in the city. The plans are to make it a premier entertainment district for downtown Sacramento. I was lucky to be involved with this process when I designed a restaurant called Cosmopolitan Cafe, which I wrote about HERE and HERE a few years ago. On the same block, right across from the Crest, a couple of new places have opened that we had to check out. San Francisco nightclub operator, George Karpaty decided Sacramento was an excellent bet for two new ventures. The first one we checked out was the Dive Bar:

It is not what you might expect from a regular dive bar. This one features a 40 foot long, 7,500 gallon salt water fish tank above the bar. There are lots of fish....but it also is home to Sacramento's mermaid and merman population. Sacramento is known, after all, to have one of the most diverse populations in the country.....ahem.

Here's a little peek at the Dive Bar's beautiful mermaids with the in house DJ:

Mermaids in their natural habitat at the Dive Bar.
Photo via the Dive Bar Website

Mermaids swimming at the Dive Bar.
Photo via The Dive Bar Website

And here is the the bar crowd the night we were there:

The place was jammed with those imbibing cocktails all heads turned toward the mermaid in residence. We were no exception. Time for one quick cocktail before heading next door to check out the second of Karpaty's ventures, Pizza Rock. I had heard a bit about the interiors at this newest of "pizza joints", but words do not do it justice.

Pizza Rock has to be experienced first hand to really feel the "impact". A Sistine Chapel-esque mural graces the ceiling where angelic beings float about hanging onto electric guitars, while a Peterbilt truck crashes through the brick wall right over the patrons. (I am not sure I would want that table!)

Pizza Rock partner, Tony Gemignani, is the first American ever to win first place for his Neapolitan Pizza in The World Pizza Cup competition in Naples, Italy. The pizza is "divine", the atmosphere "electric", and we can't wait to take the girls back with us next time!

As the evening was winding down, we realized we had one more place to see. Time was too short, so we made a plan to come back. We will be checking out District 30, a high end modern bar and dance club next door to Pizza Rock next time we head over to K Street. Here's a peek: