75 Years of Culinary Tradition at Frank Fat's

| tralev | sacramento | food |

In 1939 an immigrant dishwasher named Frank Fat borrowed $2,000 to open a restaurant a few blocks away form the California State Capitol in Sacramento. For the next five decades it would serve as the place to meet and get things done for local Sacramento politicians. One of the most famous anecdotes from it’s long history was the 1987 “Napkin Deal”[2] where a group of lobbyists, lawyers and political insiders created a pact written on a Frank Fat’s napkin to support sweeping tort reform.

Fat was fueled by a simple view of what a successful restaurant looks like; “You give people good food, a nice place to eat it in and make them happy."[1] A few generations later, Frank Fat’s is still serving up some of the best food in Sacramento.

The restaurant industry is one of the most challenging to succeed in. A testament to the passion that Fat had for the business can be seen to this day. The cuisine has changed quite a bit over the years. Originally, there was a combination of both Chinese and American dishes. The modern Fat’s menu serves up a wide selection of rice and noodle dishes originating from the cuisines of many different parts of China.

References: [1] Frank Fat’s: An Iconic eatery celebrates its 70th birthday from Capitol Weekly. [2] Willie Brown: Power, Money, and Instinct from The Alicia Patterson Foundation.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Pluralistic: Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach' (21 Oct 2025)

Today's links Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach': If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Scary Godmother; Nightvale novel; The war on Worker's Comp; Cadillac's murdermo…

via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow October 21, 2025

10 pointless facts about me

Found on Kev’s blog and originally started by Dave, here are my answers to this fun blog challenge: Do you floss your teeth? Sometimes. I’d say maybe a few times a week? I’m terrible at being consistent, and that includes flossing regularly. Tea, co…

via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed October 21, 2025

Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions

There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a web…

via Terence Eden’s Blog October 21, 2025

Generated by openring