{"id":324931,"date":"2026-05-20T18:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/324931\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T18:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:41:15","slug":"inside-day-tripper-the-sacramento-regions-hot-new-cocktail-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/324931\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Day Tripper, the Sacramento region’s hot new cocktail bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Abridged Version:<\/p>\n

Irish Hospitality Group, the team behind Ro Sham Beaux, The Snug and The Butterscotch Den, has opened Day Tripper at 1820 17th St. in Midtown Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Drinks span frozen slushies, caipirinhas and pisco sours alongside an array of spirits from Oaxaca, Martinique, Brazil and Peru, with cocktails mostly landing around $12.<\/p>\n

The room, designed by co-founder Trevor Easter and Soda Back founder Tina Ross, centers on a tiled stone fountain, bougainvillea cascading overhead and a floor-to-ceiling wall of mezcal, tequila, rum, cacha\u00e7a and pisco bottles.<\/p>\n

Trevor Easter and Russell Martin II have carried agaves down a hillside in Oaxaca, baled hay on a farm for a Zapotec mezcal producer who correctly identified them as free labor and watched a little kid in a small mountain town yell \u201cGodzilla\u201d at Martin for being tall. They have done these things because every bottle behind the bar at Day Tripper has a story, and they believe the person behind the bar is the final piece of that storytelling.<\/p>\n

Day Tripper opened this past weekend at 1820 17th St. in Midtown Sacramento, on the ground floor of The Richmond building next to the Ice Blocks. It\u2019s the latest project from Irish Hospitality Group, which also operates Ro Sham Beaux<\/a> in Midtown, The Snug<\/a> in the R Street Corridor and The Butterscotch Den<\/a> in North Oak Park.<\/p>\n

Easter and his wife and co-founder Lindsay Nader built the bar program alongside Martin. The influences pull from trips Easter and Martin took through Oaxaca, Belize, Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, though they intentionally avoided tying the concept too closely to any one place.<\/p>\n

Martin is quick to note Day Tripper is not a tiki bar, while Nader likened it to a hotel lobby crossed with the square of a town or that moment when you set your bag down and exhale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more of a place that honors tequila, rum, the people who make it, the stories behind it, and taking that vacation drink and elevating it,\u201d said Martin, whose hospitality career began as a barback at The Snug. \u201cI want guests to feel like they are no longer in Sacramento. \u2026 I want them to be transported to someplace outside of the country that\u2019s warm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Owner\"Russell Martin II co-owns Day Tripper in Midtown Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

Day Tripper\u2019s interior, designed by Easter and Soda Back<\/a> interior design firm founder Tina Ross, stops one at the door. The bar wall rises in stacked adobe-toned arches packed floor-to-ceiling with mezcal, tequila, rum, cacha\u00e7a and pisco, with warm wood beams running overhead.<\/p>\n

The main room opens around a large tiled stone fountain, bougainvillea cascading from a wood pergola above, velvet banquettes lining the stone walls and terrazzo floors underfoot. The menu arrives in a jungle green booklet stamped with a jaguar medallion. It says \u201cGet Lost\u201d on the back cover.<\/p>\n

\"Bar\"Day Tripper is located at 1820 17th St. in Midtown Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

The team wanted to create an immersive cocktail bar that still felt affordable enough to become part of someone\u2019s regular rotation. Cocktails mostly land around $12, slushies closer to $10 and pony beers go for just $2.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can give someone a three-hour vacation for 20 or 30 bucks, I think that\u2019s a really awesome thing that we can do for our community,\u201d Nader said. \u201cWe made a beautiful space, but we also tried to make it affordable and accessible for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Day Tripper\u2019s philosophy becomes most apparent in its spirits list, which draws from years of travel and deliberate sourcing. Easter and Martin prioritize brands owned by the people producing the alcohol, rather than celebrity-backed labels or mass-market companies. Staff training was 50% cultural storytelling before anyone stepped behind the bar, with history lessons for spirits such as pisco, tequila and rum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese stories are important and they\u2019re culturally meaningful,\u201d Easter said. \u201cThey need a bartender to tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cocktail program includes \u201cVacation Drinks.\u201d Think caipirinhas, Ti\u2019 punches and Pisco sours, alongside spirits like rhum agricole, the grassy, complex spirit of the French Caribbean, cacha\u00e7a and Mexican rum, a fresh sugarcane spirit that started as a bootleg regional staple and is only now finding its way onto American bars.<\/p>\n

The cocktails reflect a good balance between fun and genuine craft. The El Guapo slushie is tequila, cucumber, Cholula and tajin. The Carajillo with tequila, Liquor 43 and fresh espresso pulled to order is finished with orange zest and drinks like an orange chocolate ball. A tequila shot comes with a pico de gallo water chaser \u2014 a playful riff on the pickleback.<\/p>\n

\"cocktail\"The El Guapo slush at Day Tripper. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

Amid a slew of restaurants in the Ice Blocks and on S Street, Day Tripper offers no food. The idea is that Day Tripper is the next stop, not the only stop \u2014 dinner somewhere nearby and then a few hours here after.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Neighbor<\/a> and Chu Mai<\/a> are right there and you are welcome to bring anything in,\u201d Nader said. \u201cIf Chu Mai has a waitlist, pop over. They\u2019ll text you when your table is ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Day Tripper\u2019s genesis traces back to the COVID-19 lockdowns. While trying to reopen The Snug amid outdoor dining restrictions, Irish Hospitality Group transformed its parking lot into a tropical pop-up called The Doobie Bar. It was lined with palm trees, yacht rock, frozen drinks and a makeshift lifeguard tower built from a children\u2019s playhouse.<\/p>\n

What started as a temporary outdoor escape eventually became the seed for Day Tripper. Now, the bar is open seven days a week at 4 p.m., with weekend hours extending to 2 a.m.<\/p>\n

\"Bar\"Day Tripper is located at 1820 17th St. in Sacramento. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

Keyla Vasconcellos\u00a0is a Sacramento-based freelance journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged Version: Irish Hospitality Group, the team behind Ro Sham Beaux, The Snug and The Butterscotch Den,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-324931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}