The Athletics played their last home game of 2026 on Sunday, a 12:05 p.m. start against the Houston Astros. The Sacramento Bee's season wrap, carried by Yahoo Sports, says the team entered closing weekend with 14 reported sellouts at Sutter Health Park, up from seven in 2025. It also says the A's were out of postseason contention weeks before the finale.
Those sellouts shaped how West Sacramento's restaurants got talked about this year. The season is now over, though, and the places that stay open through the winter will be doing a different job.
About Six Months Without a Game
The Bee reports that the A's and the Sacramento River Cats have each played some 150 combined games at the ballpark in each of the last two years. That leaves well over 200 days a year with no first pitch. Next season's A's home schedule, according to LVSportsBiz, opens Monday, April 5, with 75 home games. From Sunday's finale to that opener is about six months.
Six months is long enough for a restaurant to feel like the only thing on its block. It is also when the next round of tenants and neighbors arrives, which is the part of the fall that doesn't make the sports pages.
The Places That Were Never Built Around a Crowd
Benjy Egel's April pregame guide for Abridged covered 11 restaurants within a 15-minute walk of the ballpark. Read for what each one does on a day with no game, a few of them describe an ordinary weekday.
| Place | Where | What the April 2026 guide describes |
|---|---|---|
| Drake's: The Barn | Bridge District | Two-acre brewpub with dozens of housemade beers and New Haven-style "apizza," which the guide says no other restaurant in the region focuses on |
| Birdie's Social Club | Closest restaurant to the ballpark gates | Two patios, Trackman golf bays at $60 an hour for a group, and $8 cocktails, bites and shot-and-beer combos from 4 to 6 p.m. |
| The Midway | 330 3rd St | Dive bar with happy hour deals from 3 to 7 p.m. |
The guide notes that Drake's has been open seven years and calls it arguably West Sacramento's most popular restaurant addition of the past decade. A golf bay rented by the hour and an afternoon happy hour that starts before the game crowd arrives both work whether or not there is a game that night. Hours and prices in the table come from April, so a quick check before heading over is a good idea.
Franquette, at 965 Bridge St., shows the same design more clearly. The team behind Canon in East Sacramento opened it in February 2022, as the City of West Sacramento noted at the time, as an all-day cafe that becomes a wine bar in the evening. Co-owner Clay Nutting told Visit Yolo in 2022 that he wanted it to be a neighborhood restaurant where locals gather, and that regulars want to come at different times of day. The ground floor of Fulcrum Property's residential building The Block gave him that.
When baseball arrived, Franquette added a layer on top. Chef Elena Winks told CapRadio in March 2025 that a separate, shorter menu would replace the regular one starting two hours before each game. It had ham-and-cheese and Nutella crepes, a sausage dish, and a potato dish with cheese fondue. That menu is a seasonal addition to a cafe that was already open from early morning, and its own site still describes it as a wine bar and cafe from the Canon team.
Altos Cantina, at 1522 Jefferson Blvd., sits outside the Bridge District, and the West Sacramento Chamber of Commerce lists it as a Mexican restaurant and bar that welcomes children and specializes in cocktails made with tequilas from Los Altos de Jalisco. Its listed hours run from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. The Sacramento Business Journal reported that it took over the former Jefferson Bar & Grill space.
A Corner of 3rd Street Changes Hands in December
The clearest example of an off-season plan is on 3rd Street. The old Midway Bar and Grill space at 330 3rd St. is being reworked as Trackside Kitchen and Bar, from Torn Saetern and Micky Sisenglath. What Now Sacramento reported on Sept. 7 that they are targeting a December opening and that it is the first restaurant for both. Saetern told the outlet they are "trying to build community in westside."
The menu leans on Vietnamese pho and banh mi alongside Lao sausage, which What Now describes as a more specific regional angle than the usual "Asian fusion" label. Hoodline, citing CBS News, reports that Sisenglath previously managed The Midway at the same address. The new owners therefore already know the building.
They have also said they intend to build the business carefully instead of rushing the launch, and December is a target rather than a confirmed date. Opening then means the first weeks of business fall in a stretch with no home games. Whatever crowd shows up will be there for the food, since there is no game to draw one.
The New Neighbors Arrive After the Last Out
The other thing on the fall calendar is housing. According to the West Sacramento News-Ledger, Pierside will open its 239 apartments in mid- to late October and its 21 townhomes in November. It sits at Riverfront and Mill streets, a short distance from the ballpark. The Resort at The Bridge District, the amenity building next door with a pool, fitness center and coworking areas, opened in August.
The same report says the ground-floor retail space at Pierside has not been occupied yet. Fulcrum Property, the developer, has moved its headquarters into the five-story building at 995 Riverfront St. Fulcrum president Randy Koss told ABC10 last year that the city plans a riverfront plaza north of Drake's: The Barn over the next decade, and he described six to ten restaurants on the river. That is a plan on a ten-year horizon, so no tenant is announced for any of those spaces.
For now, the Bridge District has one weekday anchor after another (Franquette, Drake's, Birdie's) and a set of empty ground-floor bays waiting for the next one. Pierside's apartments open in mid- to late October, the townhomes follow in November, and the retail space at 995 Riverfront St. has no tenant yet.
If you're curious how the Bridge District's growth shows up around your own street, or you're weighing a move near the riverfront, Jennifer Kirtlan Real Estate Group can walk you through West Sacramento block by block. Reach out and we'll start with the streets you already know.
