{"id":355788,"date":"2026-06-11T05:03:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/355788\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T05:03:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:03:45","slug":"taking-over-the-family-restaurant-in-west-sacramento-and-starting-a-new-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/355788\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking over the family restaurant in West Sacramento, and starting a new one"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged senior food editor Benjy Egel. Want it sent directly to your inbox?\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I was growing up in Davis, my family often went to a downtown restaurant called Thai Recipes \u2014 or, as we called it, Bryan\u2019s Restaurant. Bryan was my first-grade classmate, and after ordering chicken satay or pad Thai, I\u2019d disappear into the backroom to play Nintendo with him and his brothers until my family\u2019s food was ready. And nearly every day at school, Bryan\u2019s parents brought him \u2026 McDonald\u2019s. He was sick of Thai Recipes\u2019 food, he told us, an overexposure that turned him away from the family business as a kid.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always easy to be born into a restaurant family. Thai Recipes closed a long time ago, but many kids who grow up in restaurants that last are eventually faced with a choice. Do they spread their wings, go off to college or a new city, follow their degree or interests down an uncharted path? Because if they do, there might be no one left to keep the \u201cbonus family member\u201d running as their parents age.<\/p>\n

Jen Havson and Kevin Ericson seem to have struck the right balance for themselves. Their grandfather founded Whitey\u2019s Jolly Kone, an old-timey West Sacramento fast food joint, and their parents kept it running into the 21st century. Havson and Ericson moved away to Utah and Los Angeles, met their spouses and eventually moved back to take over the family business, which they\u2019ve kept nearly the same as when it was founded in 1963. Yet Havson, Ericson and their partners also fed their ambitions with Emile\u2019s Cafe, their charming new hangout a few miles away. It\u2019s a completely different vibe than Whitey\u2019s, and that\u2019s good for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in today\u2019s newsletter: an unfortunately light apricot season is upon us. A new brewery is replacing Device Brewing in southeastern Sacramento, and a new brunch spot is hitting downtown Roseville. And if you\u2019re drinking this summer, consider\u00a0Clarksburg chenin blanc<\/a>, a recent darling of the Northern California wine scene.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s eat (and drink)!<\/p>\n

\t\tSign Up for the City of Treats Newsletter<\/p>\n

Get the latest Sacramento food news from Benjy Egel in City of Treats \u2014 delivered every Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Benjy\u2019s Bites<\/p>\n

Emile\u2019s Cafe<\/a> | 1300 Lake Washington Blvd., West Sacramento<\/p>\n

Peach milkshakes<\/a> from Whitey\u2019s Jolly Kone<\/a> are a quintessential sign of summer around these parts; I\u2019m told they\u2019ll return to the West Sacramento fast-food stand on July 7. In the meantime, check out Emile\u2019s Cafe, opened last year by the late Emile \u201cWhitey\u201d Boisclair\u2019s grandchildren and their partners (who also took over the burger joint). Located amid the construction of Heritage Oaks Park, which is scheduled to complete a $7.8 million buildout this fall, it\u2019s the modern counterpart to Whitey\u2019s, with a house Temple Coffee Roasters<\/a> blend and bottles of local wine as active decoration.<\/p>\n

A small indoor space gives way to a spacious, covered patio with herbs in planters, a lovely setting for sandwiches such as the grandfather ($17), an Italian classic with prosciutto, salami, pepperoncini and grated Parmesan on ciabatta (with crusty sourdough or gluten-free bread available upon request). The spring pasta salad ($14) is worth ordering as long as it\u2019s on the menu: a cold mix of asparagus, snap peas, pickled watermelon radish slices, goat cheese, arugula and curling strozzapreti pasta, with a caramelized lemon vinaigrette and half a beet-dyed soft-boiled egg. Pastries, like bread, are baked in-house; I recommend the wide, thin oatmeal raisin cookie ($3).<\/p>\n

Egel\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

I live, play and cook in this community just like you. This recurring section is a window into my life outside of restaurants and bars, always with a food and\/or drink angle.<\/p>\n

Early-to-mid June means apricots in the Sacramento region. In years past, I\u2019ve downed as many as five a day in an effort to disarm my parents\u2019 tree, which booms suddenly and heavily.<\/p>\n

This year, though, it\u2019s been a down crop between the same late-season rains that curbed cherries<\/a> and a couple of particularly audacious squirrels. I\u2019ve treasured the few apricots my parents were willing to spare, and gotten my fix in other ways. The apricot jam we made from the last crop was still good enough to spread over crackers with goat cheese, and an old bottle of apricot liqueur has felt like a seasonal choice for a nightcap.<\/p>\n

In the news<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorThe Golden Pineapple at 2800 G St. in Sacramento. (Keyla Vasconcellos)<\/p>\n

Kupros Craft House<\/a> owners Keegan Currey and Steve Tokuhama have finally opened The Golden Pineapple<\/a>, their Midtown-adjacent restaurant that\u2019s been five years in the making. One side of the building serves deli sandwiches, while the other serves the kind of Hawaiian plate lunches Tokuhama ate as a kid on Oahu. There\u2019s even some overlap between the concepts: try the ahi poke sandwich in lieu of a tuna sub. Keyla Vasconcellos has the story.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"wine\"Three bottles of Haarmeyer Wine Cellars chenin blanc. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

Winemakers bought chenin blanc grapes grown in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for decades \u2014 to throw into jug wines. Now they\u2019ve become a choice commodity for producers in the Clarksburg region and beyond. This white wine, adaptable to the winemaker\u2019s preference, is perfect for Sacramento summers, Mike Dunne writes.<\/a><\/p>\n

Happening this week<\/p>\n

Roseville\u2019s Downtown Tuesday Nights<\/a> began last week and are set to run through the end of July. The free weekly street fair has live music, classic car shows, a kids\u2019 zone and food trucks stationed around the Vernon Street Town Square.<\/p>\n

Live in Roseville, but want to beat the heat indoors? The Daily Nosh will begin its soft opening Friday at 105 Vernon St. Owned by local catering magnates Lisa and Randy Peters<\/a>, it\u2019ll serve hefty breakfast and lunch plates out of a former Pontiac dealership.<\/p>\n

Balance Beerworks<\/a> is celebrating its grand opening all day Saturday and Sunday. Bruce and Katie McPhee\u2019s craft brewery at 8166 Ave., Suite A in southeastern Sacramento (formerly home to Device Brewing) has a roster of mostly lagers and IPAs, with seltzers to come.<\/p>\n

Benjy Egel\u00a0is 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\u2019s weekly\u00a0food and drink newsletter,\u00a0City of Treats.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged senior food editor Benjy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-355788","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\/355788","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=355788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}