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

Announcing Live AI & Design Systems Jam Sessions!

Ian, TJ, and I are excited to announce live AI & Design Systems Jam Sessions with our AI & Design Systems course community! Our first jam session will be Thursday, February 26 at 10AM ET. In these recurring biweekly Zoom […]

via Blog – Brad Frost February 16, 2026

I Sold Out for $20 a Month and All I Got Was This Perfectly Generated Terraform

Until recently the LLM tools I’ve tried have been, to be frank, worthless. Copilot was best at writing extremely verbose comments. Gemini would turn a 200 line script into a 700 line collection of gibberish. It was easy for me to, more or less, ignore LLM…

via matduggan.com February 16, 2026

Pluralistic: The online community trilemma (16 Feb 2026)

Today's links The online community trilemma: Reach, community and information, pick two. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Bruces x Sony DRM; Eniac tell-all; HBO v PVRs; Fucking damselflies; Gil Scout Cookie wine-pairings; Bi…

via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow February 16, 2026

Generated by openring