A Food Lover’s R.I.P.

There have been a few passings recently that I wish to note with great regret.  First, when driving to an art event this past Saturday, I noticed that The Plantation, the fantastic soul food restaurant on Del Paso Blvd. and Arden Way, was closed for business.  The Plantation was a gem on the culinary landscape.  It was true soul food, like green beans with ham hocks, smothered steak, red beans and rice, fried catfish and okra served with a smile and a “Come back real soon.”  I was greatly saddened to see it go.

Another passing I was not made aware of until after I published the local Foodie Roundtable, wherein I listed Everett & Jones BBQ as one of my favorite restaurants.  Turns out that E&J closed the doors on its Sacramento outlet for good recently.  No more hot links in medium sauce with a side of potato salad and “sock-it-to-me” cake for me.  Not unless I want to drive to their Oakland or Berkeley restaurants.  I was informed of this tragic and untimely passing by Melly over at the Sacramento Food Forums, which brings me to item #3.

I am sad to say that the Sacramento Food Forums are shutting down.   I have greatly enjoyed the Sac Food Forums as a place to share ideas, schedule meet-ups for culinary adventures and share opinions.  Melly and Dave did an exemplary job of piloting the forums and putting together events for the last few years.  What you may not realize is that it takes time, effort, and in some cases money to keep these websites up and running.  They don’t just run themselves.

So do what you can to keep the places you love around.  Whether they be “brick and mortar” or online locales, frequent the places you cherish, spread the word, extoll their virtues, get other people excited.  Don’t be the one who bemoans the closing of the “mom ‘n’ pop” shop  even though you haven’t shopped there for twelve years.  If you want places to stay in business, do more business there.

Of course, word of mouth and passionate fans didn’t save “Arrested Development,” the greatest TV comedy series of all time.  So who am I kidding?

12 thoughts on “A Food Lover’s R.I.P.”

  2. P.S. and a real job. i thought my site would eventually become profitable..but it just wasn’t working out. Onward and upward. M

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  3. i think the plantation was closed because of their night life shinanigans. it was a hip hop night club on the weekends from the ads i saw on TV. i dunno, it kinda bothered me that it was called the plantation and featured a southern plantation home as the logo on the commercial too. i saw this about the owner on the sac news and review http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A200712

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  4. Well. well, well…It’s my birthday…I was happy…until now. What a bummer about Sac Food Group.

    Also, The Plantation had the BEST oxtails.

    Good luck, Melly and Dave.
    -jennyfur

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  5. Yes, I totally agree with the sadness on two counts. E & J was great. While their location was “interesting” their ribs were the best in town. And I am also sad about the Forum. We need venues like that to share thoughts, events, etc. I still hold hope that they will change their mind… The Plantation was not on my list of sadness. From everything that I read and experienced the owner had some issues and it was just a matter of time before they closed. Another venue I wont miss is Mother India. They finally stopped stretching the digestive possibilities of their patrons and moved on.

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  6. I have lots of hosting space and if I could figure out how to add a self-moderating forum to it I’d take the site, but I doubt I’m technically adept enough to.

    Sorry to see the site go, Melly. At least we had a fun going away party for you!

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  8. hey “epicurean paul,” go fuck yourself. MI was one of the best restaurants in that shitty hole you clowns call a city. if you can’t handle indian food, the BEST food on earth, you need to change your idiotic and pompous nickname and then also go die in a ditch, BITCH.

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  9. We prefer that if you’re going to go on a profanity laden rant that you try to insert the words “palate” or “flavor-forward” just to keep us sounding respectable. Just a note for next time. Thanks for dropping by…bitch.

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  10. Can’t say that I will miss E&J. The couple of times I was there, the attitude of the staff seemed to be that they really wished that any and all of the customers hadn’t come.

    Food was decent, but the service was killing them.

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  12. I am so sad now! I had just found the forums and was planning on eating at the Plantation soon. I love soul food!

    It’s tough out there…and as the owner of a small espresso bar, I speak from experience. We hands down have the best coffee around. Like seriously. The best. And everyday we watch the lines queue up at the Charbucks up the street. Lately, I’ve had two friends who also owned coffee shops give up and sell. Another just shut his doors last year. So thank you for the thought Greg, it’s absolutely true. Us Mom n’ Pops appreciate it.

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