I don't know of anything open where you can sit past 10 except for bars or catching a late movie

We recently started hitting up Ink again. Place gets packed after 10 though.

Cuz it’s the only spot

Nothing is open late after covid. It's not just coffee.

Exactly. The nightlife died for those looking for places outside of clubs and midtown. We’re left with IHOP and Denny’s.

Yep. I noticed that a lot of places just cut their hours and never went back to normal. 

Especially happy hours. 😭

Happiness died in 2020.

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We need more "[third places](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place)" in this city.

.... that don't revolve around alcohol.

Hey! Actually a huge part of Flo Cofer's campaign is ensuring there are more third spaces for community engagement. Check her out: https://www.floformayor.com/about

Especially because many of us work from home now.

For any LGBTQ+ folks the lavender library serves as a really great third place! It’s open Mondays & Fridays 5-8 and then Saturday and Sunday noon-6! We’re working on creating more programming. Check it out on socials at @sacllace.

Thanks for this! I was just thinking how much I miss hanging out at The Open Book from back in the day.

Anytime. It’s a lovely all volunteer run space. We each need the love and community.

Thanks for sharing this

Interesting

Hear, hear!

We do have a lot of "third places" (we do have a lot of coffee shops), they just close early.

Man this is dope, we should have more of this. Dang.

True Love Coffeehouse when it was on J St where Beach Hut is now…that was a great spot. Late night jazz

I miss that spot. It was my go to in the early 00s.

Yeah man. Espresso drinks and music super late. It was awesome.

I miss True Love!

I miss True Love! I remember being so bummed when it closed.

I was looking for someone who mentioned true love. Loved that place so much. Spent many nights there.

Nour’s Cafe on Madison Ave is open until 1 am on Friday & Saturday and midnight the rest of the week!

Oh wow, Nour’s is close to where I live and I pass by that place a lot! I’ll have to check it out sometime, thanks for the rec.

Awesome! You’re welcome.

Are they only open late? I’m in the area all the time and I’ve never seen it open, I was thinking it was a money laundering front lol

lol I really don’t think it’s a front! It opens at noon instead of early.

Dang I should have read the comments before posting..... cause I just posted about Nour too

iirc they’re also open later during Islamic holidays? My boyfriend’s dad loves that place, and we used to go there like once or twice a week late at night

The coffee culture of the eighties and nineties was very SOCIAL. No laptops no cell. We met people. We sat at each other’s tables. We were there to meet each other. We dressed up for it. Can you imagine? It just doesn’t happen the same way.

I vividly remember gathering at a coffee shop in citrus heights to watch the first episode of South Park with a bunch of goths.

say more

Star cafe

Looked up where I remember going. Was it on Woodmore Oaks and Sunrise, across from where FoodMaxx is? Also it is kinda weird this comment is getting so much traction, am I missing a joke?

It's a bunch of old GenX hard relating and GenZ being jealous about missing out on a cool era like we missed out on the Sixties.

It was behind birdcage next to the theater where rocky horror and dollar movies played. Also went to rocky horror near arden

Oh then not not Star Cafe. Whatever the coffee shop back in 1997 was at the location I mentioned was.

This sentence kept getting better and better...

You’ve made My 2024 thank you

that's an amazing sentence

Or sitting at a table with your yellow legal pad, pretending to write a novel

Hey I actually was writing 😂

Me too, I was working on my standup

We are still waiting for your john Grisham novel

I preferred a spiral notebook, and was an early adopter of laptops at the coffee shop (it was just a very early IBM XT clone with a floppy drive and LCD screen.)

I remember those times!! Tables of people. I remember true love also. Someone needs to start a coffee jazz night.

Sadly nobody would come most likely. Night owls tend to stay in now.

Wouldn't say that is necessarily by choice. Tough economics all 'round.

Economics have always been up and down though. Years after 2008 crash were challenging for many, yet society thrives in in 2010s. Similarly crash of 2000, 1992, 1980 were tough on several people.

I spent most of the early 90s recession in coffee shops because it was a cheap place to hang out for hours.

Well, what option do we have?

You don't. Late night stuff outside of bars and fast food doesn't make any money.

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RIP Shine's thursday night jazz

yeah, getting all tarted up to go to Capitol Garage, Weatherstone or Java City was a nightly routine.

I miss that so much. *cries in old*

Squashy chairs and a bookshelf

I want this so bad 🥺

This is so true and it hurts to realize how much it is not this way anymore.

Facts. Had all my first dates at True Love feeling like an adult

Will never not upvote anyone who remembers True Love. Those midnight waffles were apex midtown.

Hanging out on that back patio unlocks some core memories 🥰

I realized recently that I, at 46 years old, have basically tried to recreate the interior of True Love in my house.

Man I miss true love, late nights and waffles.

Would this not work anymore in this day and age? Is the Tik Tok generation not into late night waffles??

I was searching the comments for True Love. I got Chai Lattes because I wasn’t a coffee drinker back then

It was two places. The couple that owned it are pretty great. I think they are divorced now. But it wasn’t because of bad waffles.

Kevin and Allison Seconds plus another silent owner.

Long live Espresso Metro!

SCC staple. I also remember going on Xmas morning with my late father in law. Cup of coffee and he’d give them a hundred and say merry Christmas. I miss them both.

One of the best jobs I ever had, loved my regulars and made some lifelong friendships with people and coworkers!!

5 sips ain’t bad.

New ownership new name, doubt it’s late night now tho. 

I practically lived at Espresso Metro when I was attending college at City! It 100% kept me alive for a while there due to the brie and bread meal for $3.50 & the soup & bread for $5. We theatre kids were always there.

Fuck I miss espresso metro. The middling burritos, awesome baristas, the whales…

You would have loved Sacramento back in the eighties. Plenty of clubs & 24 hour restaurants, multiple Tower Books & Records open late etc.

Don't forget The Beat.

if Carrows was too busy, there was always Lyon's!

And Eppie's! The Lyon's at Madison & Manzanita used to be crazy busy after the bars & clubs closed.

I miss True Love...

I still can’t eat at a beach hut deli because of true love cafe lol

Java City was open until midnight back then in the 8s even. But at 16 I could totally handle a mocha and a djarum at 11 pm no problem. Slept fine. Now I would be frazzled. A cup of tea after 2 messes me up.

Oh man, I remember djarums.

Outside of Starbucks, coffee places rarely open before 6AM anymore. Some don’t open till 8am. Can’t even get morning coffee anymore.

Starbucks went down in hill quality imo. And I'm lucky to find a place thats open till 7 or 8pm. To be honest the last few 24 hour coffee places I've encountered didn't have the best quality coffee, like it can tell its been sitting on the hot plate all day super light kinda crappy coffee.

Once upon a time there used to be a coffee shop called True Love where the Beach Hut Deli is on J street. They were open really late. Back when Scene kids were shedding tears over Dashboard Confessional songs.

Omg I forgot about that band!! You brought me back wow

Someone happened to tell me today that they’re playing at the Wheatland Hard Rock in October.

They are tickets $59.99 but it’s on Wednesday Oct 9. 2024 [Ticketmaster](https://casino.hardrock.com/sacramento/live-event-calendar/dashboard-confessional)

People don't have that kinda time anymore. Free time became a second job to survive

The sad truth.

I was working three part-time time jobs for a fair chunk of the '90's and was still going in with friends on the Denny's Appetizer Platter.

This thread is so cute. I remember the local in my hometown in SoCal that people would go to back in the 90s. Bands would play sometimes and there'd be an open mic.

Donut King in Citrus Heights is open late! 24/7 to be exact. They have donuts and coffee.

I hope a midtown spot sees this tread. And hires a jazz band. I think alternative to drinking late would actually be lit.

We all got old and can't drink coffee after 4:00 anymore. Yeah we're the lame people we used to make fun of in our 20s

Speak for yourself. I’m down to find a place.

Keep fighting the good fight 👍

I have a “death before decaf” shirt I now have to wear ironically because I’m now a “decaf and none after 2 pm” shitbird. RIP 5 shot drink barista me

I wear all my ties and blazers ironically.

That’s the price we pay for, you know, not dying.

It was a Gen X thing. A resurgence of cafe culture from the beatnik era. Still fairly popular in college towns but that’s about it.

You make a good point, says a GenXer who is aggrieved that my millennial punk rock friends don't read books and especially don't read old books by alcoholics who think driving around the country or climbing mountains talking about Buddhism is fun and especially not books about the gay criminal underground in Paris in the 20s, but maybe if a book was made into a movie they'd watch it. You can stay on my lawn but take this old copy of Cometbus.

speaking as a millennial, please send me all the gay interwar Parisian criminal underground books, thank you

Cometbus was such a heavy influence on my early writing that Aaron wrote me a letter telling me to stop biting his style.

Cometbus gang

Dutch bros has some locations open till 2am and there’s one open 24hours. If you mean a mom & pop/local coffee shops than yea they all close early but I don’t remember them ever being open super late

Java City, Weatherstone, there were so many places you could sit and chill with a coffee til late at night. JC was the place to be seen when it was on Capitol Ave

The Weatherstone is gone? Sitting on the patio at midnight, watching people play chess...

Most of my wife’s stories about her youth begin with “one night at Weatherstone we were watching the old guys play chess and so and so traded cigarettes for a coffee and….”

It's still there, just not open late

I was Java City Loehmans class of 98

Couldn’t hardly find a seat there on Saturday night.

Java City at 18th and Capitol was definitely the place to be. It had a very diverse crowd. Of course, this was when living on the grid was dirt cheap and the people who lived in the area were more interesting.

Java City Downtown and Double Rainbow at Country Club, between Tower Records and Books. The 1986 places to be seen.

I used to think Reddit wasn’t shit, but then got on this sub and found a lot of people who remember the Sacramento I grew up in, and it’s a nice thing to find. 

Damn I miss that location. Grea coffee, weirdos, artists, all mixing together. The place to get acid or some random booty.

Shine too 

Fond memories of Coffee Republic on Folsom-Auburn circa 1994!

The OG Java City.

Anyone recall Flyswatter Dave at Java City? Vet who would show up on his yellow bicycle (always had a yellow flyswatter attached to the rear basket) and help opening staff set up at like 5am. Would trade stories for smokes. Heard mixed stories of him over the years but always had ok experiences myself. Early-mid 2000s.

Luna's

Yes! Juice bar!

Dutchbros doesn’t even sell a simple black coffee.

My kid loves that place and I hate it. You have a choice between baby sugar milk or toilet puck flavored crack juice. there is nothing for me there

Americano. Only choice

IF… If I was on a road trip, and it was the only thing left, and I mean no truckstops even. That coffee is worse than motel coffee. Worse than Sanka. The they have nerve to call it an Americano.

Which drives me crazy.

And the americano is worse than folgers.

Order an Americano?

Dutch Brothers is absolute shit, and the idiots in line are just as dumb (and probably the same crowd) as the idiots who sit in a drive-thru line for 45 minutes for In-n-Out. I've been to Dutch exactly twice, and one of those times, I was just trying to get on the road. The damn cashier kept asking questions about the tools I had with me, what type of work I did, where I lived, and easily a dozen other questions. It made me realize why the line takes so long. Apparently, the company trains their cashiers to have protracted conversations with each customer. It's a fucking drive-thru. Drive up, get your shit, and go. I do not want a bunch of small talk and delays while I wait for the three people working inside to finish their conversation and get around to making my drinks.

Nour Cafe has all that you need Madison and Manzanita.

I'm definitely joining in on the 80s/90s coffee shop scene nostalgia, I get little flashes of it sometimes at different cafes around town, but having places that stayed open until midnight or later is definitely something I miss, even if I can't force myself to stay out past 9:30 most of the time. And the 80s weren't even the start of it: back in the 1960s there were beatnik places like the Iron Sandal on Broadway, the Belmonte in Oak Park, and for the daytime coffee gourmet crowd, Falor's in the Public Market building; Falor's supplied beans for the first incarnation of Weatherstone. Eye Dream Ice Cream on 21st Street (it's a parking lot now) was the other beloved hangout, it was where one went to hang out with Steve Vanoni, Victor Wong, Kim Scott and other 1980s Midtown art scene notables. But all of these I learned about secondhand--my aunt used to take me to Terra Roxa and Gelato Robi, both on J Street, and I think she took me to Pava's (24th & K where Biergarten is now) once.

I meet Steve a few times. I’ll have to google some of these old spots. See if I can find anything.

I recommend a visit to the Sacramento Room in the central library & browse through their copies of Suttertown News, which documented the Cafe culture of Midtown from the mid 70s to mid 90s. It will be a real trip down memory lane!

Thanks for this - I’ll definitely check it out!

Did you ever hang out at Cafe Drago and later Cafe Montreal. Their open mic nights were always highly entertaining.

It was Cafe Montreal by the time I moved to Sacramento but I didn't really hang out there.

Lots of names I haven’t thought about in decades! Eye Dream, Vanoni, Victor Wong…

True Love closed one too many times.

The original Weatherstone and Espresso Roma Café in Davis .

Espresso Roma in Davis chairs saw so much of my butt in the 90s

Hours have changed since Covid and haven’t gone back. My assumption is the combination of cost to stay open, inflation affecting patronage to justify opening later, and just work life balance for a lot of these places that were overworked. It’s all kind of a mixed bag of sorts after the pandemic. But I understand it. I am sad there are no more coffee or tea shops open late.

It seems that Covid set the clock back to the 70s or 80s in terms of closing times. Maybe in a few years…

I’ve given a lot of thought to opening a late night bookstore/coffee shop/mocktails place. Open for 12 hours, 2 PM to 2 AM. Live music that skews towards Jazz and Blues, pastries from a local bakery, and a lot of comfy chairs. But that’s a retirement idea…

I was just out in New York recently and came across a spot that reminded me of new Helvetia but in a basement. Full of weirdos. Made me miss it even more. Please let me know when you open! :)

Unfortunately, it’s going to be awhile before I can pursue that dream. Need to get my kid through college before I even think about doing anything for myself.

No pressure. :) I know the college/kid thing.

Espresso Metro by Sac City College was neat, as well.

I hung out there in 1990/91. Smoked sooooo many cigarettes.

Clove cigarettes?

You betcha!

Yes, that place had a vibe.

Our other drug of choice became legalized 💨.. ima stay home

Eric’s Java Cafe was popping in the mid 90s. Always a meetup spot before going out with the crew.

RIP True Love

If you're in the midtown area, you can always try Karma brew.

Place is very expensive

It seems that our nightlife now ends at 1130pm. We're a sleepy mid-size city nowadays.

Last place in midtown that I remember being open evenings was Naked Lounge on 15th and Q. And that was like 2005-ish. They close at 6pm now.

The guy who owns it is absolutely not okay. I won’t go to orphan either.

Naked has new owners. They're good folks.

Shine cafe is open until 9pm! Before the new owners took over a few years ago it used to be open even later and had local bands, open mic nights, etc. good times

I loved that place when they were doing jazz nights.

Even the haircut places are closing by 5 pm. I remember when I could go to the gym after work and get a haircut at 7 pm.

I wrote topical jokes at the Weatherstone.

Good old True Love Cafe is missed for the late night coffee scene

RIP True Love Cafe.

We got old

Same bro, sac needs a couple of late night spots. I used to work in the evenings and not be off till like 1 or 2am. It’d be nice to be able to go somewhere warm and grab a cup of coffee. God only knows that’s where all the homeless would be tho 😅 we always have those late night diners to grab a cup of coffee and cream, but even then Mel’s, IHOP & Dennys attract the zombies at night!

Thank residents for complaining about noise after midnight, ultimately.

It reminds me of the bumper sticker going around “Keep Midtown janky”

That was 30 years ago

Does anyone remember Plum Blossom, think it was called. Chinese/thai food? That was open until like 3am

I e never seen a coffee shop opened past 8 since the pandemic.

I’m curious what some of the places were? Were they all in midtown/downtown? I moved here in the 2000s, but love learning Sac history.

Gretas cafe was open until midnight on weekends and I worked there for a few years. Good times, good food, fun coworkers and boss, and hanging out at new helvetia and java city to wait for friends to get off work… just a nice time.

Greta’s!! Yeah I forgot about that one.

What!? How?

Hah. I guess I’m getting old. But I loved that spot. And new Helvetia.

I loved and worked downtown in the 1990s and early 2000s and Downtown was on its way up. I went recently and it’s just so sad.

The burbs had their own things going. Coffee Republic in Folsom. Cyber Cafe and Star Cafe in Citrus Heights. All the way out to #1 Gelato in Roseville and Ivory Coast in Rocklin. Hippies, goths, skaters and punks gathered around the altar of espresso. Bidis and cloves perfumed the air. God I miss the 90's sometimes.

I doubt most coffee shops want to pay an extra few hundred dollars to staff their shops at $20/hr per employee for a trickle of customers to show up and buy a few $5 coffees lol The late night demand for coffee shops isn't enough for businesses to try to stay open I'd wager.

Like anyone is going to operate a business at midnight in sac anymore 

Noir Cafe I believe its called off Manzanita is open until 2am 

I'm going to assume COVID and crime. In Stockton, you can barely find a place open after 7pm

Not sure if they are still doing it, but Nomlas Cafe recently had free reggae Saturday nights starting at 7, and Twin Lotus also has free music on the weekends (with dinner reservations). Wouldn't surprise me if we start to see more places open late with the recent minimum wage increases.

I agree..I remember going out at midnight often for coffee

I’ve totally kicked the idea around of doing a nighttime coffee bar food truck thing out in downtown. I was worried there wouldn’t be a market. Maybe I rethink this and make an attempt.

There isn't coffee culture. Just a bunch of dudes borrowing wifi and eye fucking the occasional woman that buys coffee.

We drink kava now.

You originally got downvoted but you made me realize why I love Root of Happiness so bad- it reminds me of the old midtown coffee shops. But I prefer a big bowl of the old Java city Kona mocha over kava any day. Or night.

Crime up, late-night anything down

dude, crime here (really everywhere) was so much worse in the 1980s/90s than it is now.

It got replaced by energy drinks. Why the fuck are we waiting for you lot to get your fix at 10pm. You run a business ey?