In-N-Out restaurant to open on Alta Arden

Map of Alta Arden Expressway
A new dead zone?

From sacbee.com…

Irvine-based In-N-Out Burger plans to open an outlet at the site of the former Romano’s Macaroni Grill at 2001 Alta Arden Expressway. The plan calls for the Macaroni Grill building to be torn down and a new In-N-Out restaurant to be built on the site.

That’s great and all, I love a good burger, but I don’t get this particular location for any sort of business. How did Macaroni Grill fail, while Mimi’s Cafe is still up and running? Not to mention Chick-fil-A. It seems like every time I am in that part of town I can’t turn right, or have to make a u-turn, or risk jumping three lanes at once to get where I need to go.

So, should this area be added to our dead zone list? Or, is it just a matter of hitting a consumer price point just so?

Kickstart Colin Hanks’s Tower Records doc

Better days

Sacramento’s own Colin Hanks hopes to produce “All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records” and is asking for your help to do it.

From a cultural standpoint, Tower Records had a monumental impact on millions of people, worldwide. It was “the place” to escape for a few hours; a sanctuary, a haven. Tower Records was a place to meet your friends, your co-workers or a place to meet new friends who shared a common love of music, literature and all things cultural.

Yet, in 2004 the company filed for bankruptcy and by the end of 2006, Russ Solomon’s Tower Records had shut the doors to nearly every one of its worldwide outlets.

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We are approaching this as a passion project, and as such are dedicated to making this film as cost effective as we can. In other words, we are trying to do this grassroots.

SacTweetup is Trending

I logged into the Twitter pages this morning to find that #sactweetup was one of the top “Trends” along side #gleefinale, Hines Ward, Lebron, and Vancouver.

From alejandroreyes.com…

Last night we hosted our 23rd SacTweetup and this by far has been the most successful one hands down. With over 200 people at the Blue Cue, the place was en fuego and people were connecting like crazy.

I’ve never been completely sold on the Tweetup idea, but this is a cool thing for Sacramento and for the folks that put the event together.

River Cats History

I missed my chance to witness Sacramento history Saturday night, when the River Cats played the longest game in River Cats history - 16 innings to break a stalemate, well past midnight, to defeat Oklahoma City’s Redhawks.

After enjoying a good 9 innings, and sitting through an additional 5, my crew and I finally succumbed to dropping temperatures, high winds, and Dinger Dog stupor. And packed it up and went home.

Continue reading “River Cats History”

The true cost of an arena

This is my excerpt.

Sprint Center 3-10-07
Sprint Center 3-10-07 by ChrisM70 on Flickr

This week you’re going to hear lots of discussion about arena financing, and piece in the Bee today calls attention to the Sprint Center in Kansas City, which is acting as the new model of an arena plan that worked without costing taxpayers anything.

So you might hear a lot about the Sprint Center this week from various groups, and one thing to take into account is that the touted $200 million price tag for that arena is about far less than half ($470 million what folks thought a new Sacto arena would cost back in 2006 in recommending the failed arena tax. Just keep that in mind throughout the week.

UPDATE: KCRA reports that the cost could actually be closer to $370 million.