During our recent patio visit to Bows and Arrows whilst enjoying a bottle of wine, Submerge was surprised with a sneak-taste of their new cranberry apple salsa and it was impressive. In the words of our fine publisher, Melissa-Dubs, “Honestly, it’s the best shit I’ve ever tasted.” It’s sweet, obviously because there’s fruit involved, but it still has those traditional salsa elements like cilantro, Tabasco, etc. Spicy and sweet, the best combination! Bows and Arrows is located at 1815 19th Street, Sacramento and the food portion of their operation is run by Fat Face Cafes Jaymes Luu. Music, art, retail, tasty food and a well-chosen beer/wine selection make it hard to leave this place, not to mention they have easily one of the best patios in town. See for yourself!

Are you a regular patron of Sandra Dee’s, because the food is just that good? If so, you may want to seriously consider checking out the Verge Center for the Arts on Thursday night. Verge is hosting a night of entertainment inspired by Southern cuisine and culture. Local chef Jaymes Luu of Fat Face is creating the Southern-themed menu, which will include: mesquite-smoked Bledsoe pork shoulder, cabbage green bean slaw, Andouille sausage jambalaya and babydoll watermelon salad. And if meat just doesn’t cut it for you, don’t fret! Veggie options will be available! Verge movie night co-curator Becky Grunewald will host 90 minutes of short films on Southern eats, like “Eat or We Both Starve,” a documentary on Mississippi’s Taylor Grocery, supposedly one of the best catfish joints in the South. If this sounds like your idea of a good time, buy your tickets at Brownpapertickets.com. Space is limited; remaining tickets will be sold at the door. Doors open with cocktails and live music at 6:30 p.m. The Verge is located on 625 S Street in downtown Sacramento.

Fat Face inside the new Bows and Arrows

1815 19th Street, Sacramento

I’d exercise caution when saying to your friends, “Get your Fat Face on!” They might take it the wrong way. Preface it by letting them know that it’s actually a good thing and you’re not attacking their winter waistline. Fat Face is the name of Jaymes Luu’s sandwich and gourmet popsicle business that has recently closed shop in Davis and will now be take residence in the new Bows and Arrows space (1815 19th Street, Sacramento). Luu describes the name of the business as a funny term for enjoying really good food, but in very humble way. It’s a term that she and her friends came up with that’s a very fitting definition, considering that Luu’s food is both good and humble.

On the Fat Face website, Luu encourages customers trying her popsicles to be “adventurous” and to “challenge their palates.” This might seem like a disclaimer for the out-there kind of flavors, but who wrote the rules on what a popsicle should be, anyway? Luu has been pushing the boundaries with her frozen confections, and the boundaries have never tasted so good. Among some of her more popular flavors is the Kaffir limeade and avocado, an interesting concoction for the title of “most popular.” Apparently fans of Fat Face have taken the challenge.

Fat Face’s previous location was on L Street in Davis, a small space where she not only served her signature popsicles, but also cranked out delicious sandwiches to boot. Grilled cheese with beer poached figs, smoked salmon, cola braised pork sandwiches or asparagus-filled breakfast “sammies” are some of the fun and sometimes wonky menu items that can be found at Fat Face. Ingredients are seasonal and specials can change on a whim, depending on who Luu has heard a suggestion from that day.

“[I get suggestions from] a lot of people I work with or customers will come up and be like, hey I think you should make this-and-this popsicle,” says Luu. “That will spark me to make new flavors.”

Luu is currently working on a mango and sticky rice popsicle and one of her newest flavors is something she calls the “bacon and egg.” Luu describes it as a “very yolky vanilla custard with a ginger bacon caramel.”

At the new location, Luu plans to extend her menu by playing off of the beer and wine list that Bows and Arrows owners Trisha Rhomberg and Olivia Coelho have been piecing together. The potential for crafting some small plates has sparked an interest for Luu, and she’s already got some ideas in mind.

“I want to have a pickle plate, fun popcorn; I’m trying to have more fun bar food like olives, but figure out how to make that more interesting than just olives,” says Luu.

When Luu decided to collaborate with Rhomberg and Coelho, she was drawn to their commitment to the project and how serious they were about making it all come together. They already had a building locked down, a kitchen in place and agreed to take on the build out. If all that wasn’t appealing enough, Luu also just simply liked what the whole thing was about.

“I appreciate their vision for what they want to do and what they want to bring; a community they want to create with their art stuff and their music,” says Luu.

The feeling was mutual.

“We went to eat lunch at Fat Face in Davis…walked in and loved everything about it. Super simple, sophisticated food that was local, seasonal, farm to table, scrumptious ingredients–really interesting flavors mixed together. The presentation was really humble but it was really good food,” says Coelho.

There’s something about Fat Face that Sacramento just hasn’t seen yet. It’s hard to put a label on and difficult to pigeonhole or compare with another cuisine. With the amount of support that was shown by Sacramento at the first annual Mobile Food Truck Festival, it’s clear that we love walking up to a truck to get something tasty. And wasn’t that idea born from the jingle of the neighborhood ice cream truck or paletero cart? Luu herself was at that festival, conducting a sort of Sacramento dry run, and her line was as long as the rest. Looks like we’re in for a fun summer. Now go get your Fat Face on.

Words by Adam Saake – Photos by Nicholas Wray

Sacramento is home to a large community of artists that continue to thrive with the help of each other as well as the trailblazing efforts of people like Trisha Rhomberg and Olivia Coelho. The 30-something, young business owners partnered in November 2007 to open Bows and Arrows, a vintage fashion store that over the years evolved into a multi-use space. The 17th and L street location was home to many Second Saturday art openings, some of the most amazing yet quietly talked about music shows, Pearl Records vinyl shop, Thunderhorse Vintage, a moped shop, the Junkee shop and most importantly a meeting place for young creatives who had a place to congregate and share ideas. And as much as Rhomberg and Coelho loved their space that they had poured so much of themselves into over the years, these two entrepreneurs were still hungry to expand and do even more. So, on June 4, Rhomberg and Coelho will open an even more ambitious version of Bows and Arrows at a new location at 1815 19th Street in Sacramento.

“We had been enjoying our Second Saturdays, our arts shows and our music shows a lot at our old location. We thought that it would be nice to focus more on the art, have a different building, a nice focused area for an art gallery and be able to serve beer and wine,” says Coelho.

The two began what would be become a tedious, yet invaluable learning experience as they searched for the perfect space to carry out their new and improved vision. Coelho had experience finding buildings, but on a smaller scale, when she opened her first vintage boutique Olipom. She sought out a second building for Olipom after the first building suffered fire damage in 2006. But the amount of blood, sweat and paperwork that was required to get their new space, a charming ivy-covered building located in the R Street corridor, up and off the ground was eye-opening.

“What the problem is, is that there are all of these rules. If a building looks really cool, but it’s in an area where you need to provide parking to the public and there’s no parking then you can’t do it,” explains Coelho.

ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements along with city codes are very strict when it comes to opening a business like Rhomberg and Coelho’s. It’s not just parking but, for example, how many bathrooms are required and what size they need to be. Even something minute like a .5 percent shift in the grade of their concrete leading into an entrance was a huge expense to correct.

“We thought that people had been using that door for a long time. What’s the big deal? We had to tear out the whole front and re-pour that sidewalk,” says a frustrated Coelho.

It’s not that Rhomberg and Coelho are annoyed that they need to make their new business handicapped accessible, it’s that there are so many requirements; so many road blocks in the way and each one adds more and more money to their tight and dwindling budget.

“You just start burning through your money. You think 80 grand is a lot of money and it’s just not. It’s shit,” says Coelho.

The City of Sacramento has employees that Coelho says are “really sweet people,” it’s just the “rules that are devastating.” The new Bows and Arrows plans to have live shows as well, something they’d be continuing from their previous space. This time around, though, things will be a lot more legitimate and more in tune with how an actual live music venue operates. That means that Bows has applied for an entertainment permit since their occupancy is over 49. These permits aren’t easy to come by, if they are even able to acquire one at all, and they’re expensive: $1,400 a piece and non-refundable. On top of that, the permit requires that two security guards, approved by the Sacramento Police Department, be on duty for all the shows. Again, having security at shows isn’t the issue, it’s the cost associated with those requirements.

“If we have 30 people come, they each pay $3 and we make $90 off the door and we pay $250 out to security…we’re at a loss every time we try and have a show,” says Coelho.

But Rhomberg and Coelho aren’t here to bitch and moan and not do anything about what they don’t agree with. Both owners have made their presence known at Midtown Business Association mixers, Midtown Merchants meetings where Coelho is a board member, and they even sat down and had a beer with Councilman Steve Cohn. After an MBA mixer, Rhomberg and Coelho, along with a group of local movers and shakers all sat down with Cohn at Midtown’s Streets of London.

“He had no idea how hard of a time we’re having trying to showcase local musicians. We’re not busting windows out of places. We’re not these wild and crazy people, but there’s nowhere to have it,” says Rhomberg.

They’re both extremely passionate about not only making some real changes themselves, but also about empowering and inspiring the young artists and small business owners to do the same.

“There are sympathetic ears, but they can’t hear you screaming when you’re at a house party with all of your friends. How is anyone in power supposed to know that there are all these disgruntled young people in town who aren’t up to no good?” says Coelho.

Rhomberg says that things like being able to talk with Cohn, attending the MBA mixers and having their voices be heard are all great opportunities to take some steps forward in the right direction. She fears that if more spaces, like the new Bows and Arrows, which will have a gallery to feature local and emerging artists, don’t begin opening and flourishing more often, then our artists community will find homes elsewhere.

“How are we ever going to have our own creative class if everybody feels they need to leave and go to San Francisco or Portland or Los Angeles to make a living in an arts industry? We have to keep our creative class here. We have to provide them jobs and we have to provide them venues to showcase their talents so people know about them,” says Rhomberg who along with Coelho is also a working visual artist.

June 4 will also be the first gallery opening with a stunner of a show from San Francisco-based artist Hilary Pecis. Pecis recently had a spread in Juxtapoz Magazine, and she’s represented by the exciting Guerrero Gallery located in the San Francisco’s Mission District. Her work is collage constructed from found Internet images, piled and manipulated to form impossible landscapes and designs. Her work will fit in perfectly with everything going on in the new space that Coelho says will be based off of their taste and aesthetic.

“When it really comes down to it, it has to be something that we’re drawn to and inspired by,” says Coelho.

Part of that draw and inspiration is behind the partnership with Jaymes Luu of Fat Face, who will be taking over the café space to do her signature sandwiches and gourmet popsicles. Friend Becky Grunewald, local writer and foodie, took the Bows duo to Davis where Luu was operating inside a very small space. Grunewald wanted to show them what could be done without a hood inside a smaller kitchen, the one similar to the Bows and Arrows kitchen. It turned out to be a serendipitous meeting where the three hit it off immediately.

“We liked her right off the bat and it just seemed like such a nice cohesion. It was like love at first sight,” says Coelho.

In no time Luu was on board and the vision for the new space was complete. The collaboration of Bows and Fat Face will be fruitful no doubt. Rhomberg and Coelho have been working, along with some trusted palates like sommelier Michele Hebert, on assembling a wine and beer list for the café. Delerium Tremens, West Coast IPA and others are among the beers being considered for the list along with four draft beers. With Luu’s food that is packed with unique flavors, you might see some interesting parings taking place.

“I want to do that, and I know Olivia and Trisha want that. I’m definitely going to work toward that,” says Luu.

It all seems like a lot going on: the café, the music venue, the gallery and of course the thing that started it all, the vintage fashion. If local fashionistas are concerned that Rhomberg and Coelho have lost their focus when it comes to the clothes, fear not, because they will be merely focusing their inventory so more shoppers can feel comfortable while browsing the racks.

“There’s a very specific breed of people that…want to see everything they can see. But the majority of people get very overwhelmed…and I feel like in order to make the shopping experience more enjoyable and more intimate, we had to edit the selection,” says Rhomberg.

Whether you’re a hardcore shopper or casual, a beer drinker or prefer wine, a lover of art and music or you’re creative juices flow from food, the new Bows and Arrows has something for you. And when it all boils down, it started with two young creative minds with a passion for all the things they love and a loyalty to the city they live in.

“I want everything. I want to literally, physically surround myself with amazing beer, good music. I want to be sewing and making handmade clothes, I want to look at vintage clothes for inspiration. And I want to show my art and show my friends’ art. I want it all and I want to share it all,” says Rhomberg.

The new Bows and Arrows, located at 1815 19th Street opened June 4, 2011 with an exhibit by Bay Area artist Hilary Pecis.