2023's best new business openings and the hardest goings

 Hi everyone, this is Hayden LePore again. Since 2023 is wrapping up, I thought it would be good to write a list of what my favorite new business that have opened this year. And some of the businesses that I have had the hardest time saying goodbye to. 

My favorite new businesses that opened in 2023:

1. APEX Entertainment at Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs

I have not actually visited this place yet. I will let you know how it is once I visit this place. But from what I have heard and seen, it looks like a really cool family fun center. I would love to give this place a shot since I love racing go karts at the family fun center down the hill. 

2. 2B Glassblowers in Cameron Park

I really enjoy the work this place does. Their sculptures of Glassblown pumpkins, ornaments, and even olive oil cans are amazing!! I recommend checking this place out if you can. 

3. Grocery Outlet in Cameron Park

This location opened at the end of October 2023 with much fanfare. I really enjoy this one because it means our family and I are able to access the awesome deals Grocery Outlet offers without having to drive to the other side of Folsom to access them. 

4. Moonraker Brewing in Cameron Park

This place has become a large gathering place in the community. I haven't tried this place yet, but the burgers and fries here look delicious from what I saw. It was very crowded when I visited this place with groups of people enjoying their burgers and their beer. 

5. Tractor Supply Co. in El Dorado Hills

I enjoy all their hardware supplies and get inspired by all the products they sell for ideas of different projects around our house and our yard. Looking at their outside tubs gets me the idea of having a redneck hot-tub. I enjoy seeing their western wear and their dinosaur toys also. 

Honorable mention, and it would have been number one if it opened this year:

 Falafel Corner in Folsom:

I really love this place's falafels. I first tried this place's falafels when I was in Granite Bay for an outing a couple years ago and I fell in love with these falafels. Definitely makes me believe their claim to be the best falafels in the state. So I was very happy to find out that Falafel Corner was opening a location in Folsom, which opened in 2022, and we have frequented several times since. 

Speaking of Mediterranean restaurants, I saw that the former Netillo's Takos in Cameron Park is becoming a Mediterranean restaurant. Hopefully it will be delicious and successful because there aren't any Mediterranean restaurants on the western slope of El Dorado County. 

Other honorable mentions:

El Rey Mimosas in Cameron Park

Even though I don't drink mimosas, I really enjoy this restaurant's burgers and fries. I like having a restaurant in Cameron Park that I can order burgers and fries that isn't Applebee's or the fast food restaurants. Especially after I was a bit disappointed of not being able to make it to Bubba's Number Two, since they closed this year and losing Burger Hut a couple years ago. It isn't the only mom and pop burger joint in the area. The Breakroom in Shingle Springs. The Brickyard and Relish Burger Bar in El Dorado Hills. Old Town Grill in Placerville. Those are some of my favorites. 

Barnes and Noble Nationwide:

They already operate in Folsom and across the Sacramento region, and even though they did not open any new locations in the Sacramento area, they did open 30 new stores nationwide this year. This seems like good news because I enjoy looking at and reading books and I think it is cool to see bookstores making a resurgence especially after so many having closed down. And Barnes and Noble is not just building small locations. They are opening 25,000 square foot locations in some places. 

Some of the hardest goings:

Since I don't really like focusing on what is bad and what is sad in the world, I will make this one quick. I have a really hard time seeing the apparent direction of how things went, how things didn't really get better. But they didn't necessarily get worse. This article seemed like to was kind of a let down: https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2023/12/13/electric-fences-applications-rise.html. Seeing cities stop growing and start becoming dangerous theft holes, as I have heard, a reversal in the direction that had been going on in the past twenty years and from the direction that I would like to see. Hopefully, since the pandemic has been over and businesses and cities are tackling more theft issues, the negative trend might reverse. Many of these business closures are in other places, but they were crucial enough in history and close enough to my life that it must talk about them.

1. Arian's in Placerville

This was by far the most significant store closure in western El Dorado County. This was an old school army surplus store that sold many cool and unique things in the heart of Main Street Placerville. And had some good clothing items also. I sure hope something good takes it place because it is hard losing good shopping options in town. 

2. Nordstrom in San Francisco and the decline of Westfield San Francisco Centre.

I never visited this Nordstrom and I have never visited this mall or Union Square, even though I would like to visit Union Square sometime. Hopefully it is not as bad as the news makes it out to be. And there is a Nordstrom operating at the Galleria in Roseville. And I'm not even a Nordstrom shopper anyway. But it is always a let down to see a downtown department store close especially since there aren't many left and that they tend to be grand places to shop at and people have wanted to come back to downtown in recent years. 

3. Bubba's Burgers Two in Cameron Park, California. 

I already mentioned this place before. I never ate at this restaurant even though it was in my community. It wasn't one of the places I really liked going to. Which is why I am bummed that I didn't make it in time. How was this restaurant's burgers and fries?? Were they that good that it would have made this list of places people will miss dearly. Or were they, ah, ok??

4. Bed Bath and Beyond Nationwide

No list of goings for 2023 can't go on without mentioning this one. Whether you were really sad about losing this one, or if you didn't care. It was just another big box category killer. Beginning the year with 600+ locations and ending it with 0. And this store operated in the local area, in Folsom. One of the nation's biggest bed and bath retailers to being nothing. But funny thing is, they didn't go away completely. Overstock bought them and is continuing the use of their name, even renaming Overstock to Bed Bath and Beyond. They didn't keep open or reopen any of their stores, at least not yet. 

5. Netillo's Takos in Cameron Park

I went to this place a lot when it first opened and I wrote about this place when it first opened. Despite that, it wasn't my favorite Mexican restaurant. They did serve some good tacos, but we didn't order much else. I am more into steak fajitas, fish tacos, enchiladas, and tamales than just ordering street tacos all the time. And I am excited about this place's replacement, which I mentioned earlier in this post. 

Honorable mentions (a couple of these would have made it, but they weren't in the Sacramento area):

Top Hat Video in Bountiful, Utah

Why was losing a video store in Utah so hard?? Especially one I never visited?? Just because it was. It was the last video rental store in Utah and it closed at the beginning of this year.  And it surprised me because I thought it was doing well for a video store since it had 400+ Google reviews, which should be a sign people were still renting from this place. My family and I have been big fans of visiting Utah for quite some time now and I wanted to visit this store back on our trip in December of 2021 and I chickened out because I didn't want to go there and find out they were going out of business while I was there. And that I can't go there now since they are closed. Which is a bummer, especially when we went to Utah in July because we passed by Bountiful on our way to Lagoon Amusement Park, which is a really cool amusement park. My family has friends that moved to Bountiful recently, which we visited on the trip.  

Spotlight Video in Eureka, California.

Another video store. This one I actually got to see on our way to stay in Brookings, Oregon last year and it was open and operating. Funny, this chain operated in Brookings, Oregon several years ago and I was amazed to see that store operating back then because video stores were mostly a thing of the past back in 2015 when I saw it. I enjoyed seeing the Hollywood Video impersonation of their storefront, reliving the days of Hollywood Video. So, I was disappointed to see on Google Maps that the store was no longer shown as being operating on Google Maps. I couldn't look anymore. Fortunately, it wasn't the last video store in the state and not even the last one in Humboldt County, California. La Dolce Video in Arcata is still operating:https://ladolce.video/. Spotlight Video fortunately wasn't the closest still operating video store to El Dorado County. Bizzaro World (they specialize in comic book sales, but has a large Movie Rental section) in Davis, California and Nevada City Video in Nevada City, California are still operating. Record stores such as the Cave in Folsom are also really good places to find DVDs. Check out these pages if you want to learn more about operating video rental stores if you looking for one: https://www.facebook.com/people/International-Independent-Video-Store-Day/100063551637308/, https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaveTheVideoStore?src=hashtag_click&f=live. 

Anyways, this is the end of my list. I hope you enjoyed reading what I thought were some of the best openings and the hardest closings. Did you agree with this list. Or are there ones you felt were stronger??