The Abridged version:
Chris Barnum-Dann, the chef and owner of Michelin-starred Localis, plans to open another iteration of his Betty Wine Bar + Bistro — this one in East Sacramento.
Barnum-Dann also plans to open a tapas/pintxos bar, a high-end wine shop and a market on Broadway to supply his restaurants as well as home cooks.
Betty on J will open in about six months, while the three Broadway businesses will debut in about a year.
Chris Barnum-Dann built Localis into one of Sacramento’s premier fine dining restaurants, then developed Betty Wine Bar + Bistro into a comparatively affordable fan favorite.
Now he’s expanding.
Barnum-Dann plans to open a second Betty, this one at 3815 J St., in about six months. He’s also developing a tapas bar, a market and a fine wine shop on the ground floor of a five-story apartment building at 16th and Broadway, which opened for pre-leasing earlier this month.
In expanding Betty to East Sacramento, Barnum-Dann will move into a building he’s been tied to since before the COVID-19 pandemic. In building out on Broadway, he’s betting the oft-challenged vein between two of Sacramento’s most desirable neighborhoods — Midtown and Land Park — will yield a customer base to support not just one but three of his own businesses.
Betty will expand from Southside Park to East Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)
Expansion envisioned since 2020
The chef, owner and wine selector at Michelin-starred Localis, Barnum-Dann had sought to move his Midtown fine dining restaurant to the East Sacramento building before the pandemic. He had planned to open a tapas and pintxos bar called Sacasta in the Midtown space it would leave behind, testing the concept with pop-ups in early 2020.
Localis ended up staying put on 21st Street, but Barnum-Dann didn’t forget about Sacasta. He’ll open the restaurant at 16th and Broadway in about a year, along with Giadanno’s European Market, which will supply his restaurants as well as home cooks, and a high-end bottle shop called 4B Wine Cellar.
Sign Up for the City of Treats Newsletter
Get the latest Sacramento food news from Benjy Egel in City of Treats — delivered every Tuesday.
Three Broadway businesses take flight
Sacasta will be modeled, always in spirit and sometimes in flavor, after similar businesses in Spain’s Basque Country, where Barnum-Dann has ethnic ties. Up to 85 people at a time will crowd long central tables with pintxos (one to three bites apiece with 10-12 items per order) and tapas (four to eight bites, same quantity).
There’ll be large shareables as well, such as whole fried fish or Fogline Farm chickens roasted in the open kitchen’s hearth. Simple cocktails such as red vermouth with olive and orange will accompany a Basque cider program from noon to midnight.
“(It’s) just those dishes that I love that are super shareable and should be shared,” Barnum-Dann said. “… But we’re not doing, like, sides and entrees and all that kind of stuff. And then big tables in the middle, just like a Basque hall, but then a beautiful bar that has an open kitchen.”
‘We’ll sell what we have’
Sacasta will share a covered patio with Giadanno’s. The market will include a butcher shop, a bakery spearheaded by Holly Lee and a creamery (Kindred Creamery), along with jars of Localis’ Thai chili crunch or red curry paste.
While the market’s primary function will be to serve restaurants in Barnum-Dann’s fledgling hospitality group Celebrate Together, it’ll also fill a display case with European-inspired sandwiches such as Spanish bocadillos, French jambon-beurre or Italian mortadella on focaccia. Kindred will always have scoops of ice cream and affogatos, but other items may be chancier.
“You can come in and get fresh-baked bread — if we have it. We’re not going to try to be always stocked all the time,” Barnum-Dann said. “We’ll sell what we have, every single day. That is what it is.”
A wine connoisseur’s destination
In 4B, Barnum-Dann (California’s lone 2025 Michelin Sommelier Award winner) aims for nothing less than Sacramento’s finest wine shop. Inspired by David Berkley Fine Wines & Specialty Foods, a connoisseur’s destination for 25 years in Arden Arcade, it will sell bottles from around $150 up into five figures. For those seeking more budget-conscious bottles, the original Betty is less than a mile away.
Sacasta, 4B and Giadanno’s will fill out the ground floor of the 68-unit Tower Broadway apartment building across from Land Park institution Tower Cafe. Tower Broadway developer Jon Gianulias is Barnum-Dann’s partner in the businesses.
The Tower Broadway apartments at 1600 Broadway in Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)
Building on Betty’s success
January is often the slowest month of the year for restaurants. But in early 2026, Betty recorded its second-highest grossing month since opening in 2022, Barnum-Dann said.
That gave him extra confidence to expand Betty into the J Street space once home to a Starbucks. It will sit close to The Green Room, another popular spot for drinks and bites, but operate without a hard liquor license and focus more on all-day fare. General manager Sam Han’s coffee program and Lee’s pastries will feed nearby hospital workers in the morning before couples drop by for wine and oysters at night.
Southside Park favorites such as green curry ceviche, bucatini all’amatriciana and Thai beef carpaccio will still be on the menu. But Betty on J, as it will be known, will operate in a slightly bigger space, and Barnum-Dann plans to install a kitchen hood to facilitate a house burger and moules-frites.
“I feel like it’s absolutely a home run for East Sacramento,” Barnum-Dann said. “We feel like it just fits in so nicely to everything around us.”
Betty’s green curry ceviche. (Cameron Clark)
More Bettys on the drawing board
He has eyes on additional Betty locations down the road, too. Like Betty on J, they will be a Sacramento version of a Parisian bistro, open morning through night with food, wine and coffee.
“It’s the European aura that we’re after, not the look, not the food,” Barnum-Dann said. “It’s that being, it’s that style, it’s a lifestyle of Europe that we’re bringing to our city of Sacramento, and all of our concepts are kind of falling in line with that.”
Betty will expand from Southside Park to East Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)
Benjy Egel is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged’s weekly food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.