Crocker Cafe

Ate here twice. 1^st time had cheeseburger with fries — meat overcooked and dried and tasteless, bun soggy, fries soggy. In-​n-​Out much better at ¹⁄₃ the price.
2^nd time had Philly cheese steak — cheese not soft and melting so had been sitting for awhile before being served, fries soggy again.
Most likely food is prepared off site and assembled on site which accounts for its lack of freshness.

After walking around the Crocker Museum for several hours, I was feeling hungry so I headed downstairs to Crocker Café which is the café located inside the museum. They have a counter service menu of items including burgers and sandwiches. There is also a case on display full of salads that is great for a quick meal. As for drinks, there is a fridge case full of beverages including beer and wine.
I wanted something fast so I went for a large tri-​color tortellini salad ($ 7.20). The portion size was good and I liked the bright colors of the tortellini. The sun dried tomatoes and greens on the side were a nice addition to this dish. If you are looking for something light, I would recommend trying one of the salads that they have available.
As for seating here, you pick up your meal at the counter. Just outside of the café is a dining area for café customers. If you are looking for a satisfying meal to enjoy while you are visiting the Crocker Museum, check out this café.

The Crocker Café is a really great café that could stand alone even without the beautiful museum setting. Usually you only choose a museum café when you are starving after walking around for hours looking at art, but I would choose to come here. The meals are always fresh and interesting and presented beautifully.

This little Café is a gem. We had a perfect visit to the Crocker, in large part thanks to a lovely lunch at the Café. Staff is young, eager and enthuastic. food was presented beautifully. Everything was fresh, varied, great dept of flavor, we shared a few things because we wanted everything. Wonderful little place on the floor assembly hall. Follow the glorious fragrance of fresh food to this tiny little café tucked away in the back corner, and dine in the naturally light flooding in from the courtyard between the Crocker Mansion and the new Art Building. Fantastic Menu, great coffee, lots of other things to imbibe on, and wonderfully huge and tasty cookies! All made In house, I’m impressed, and wished I lived close by to avail of the place more often.

Lots of veggie options, reasonably priced, friendly staff, clean, inviting atmosphere

I had my vino (local-​Lodi-​chardonnay) along with the quickie deli case servings (grabbed to go because I never check what may be going on Thursdays (one day they open late) (I like to kick back when not busy here). the wild rice smoked salmon was mmmm good. then there was the sundried tomato pasta and garbanzo (chick peas) salad (not bad– would have preferred more tang or something). over all I was satisfied… and stay away from that store… always come out with something… tusk tusk…

The food was four star but the ambience and service are 3 star. It’s confusing as to what’s actually on the menu. The paper menu is a little different that the wall menu. Throw in a couple of daily specials in the cooler (without prices)…well you get the picture. Then you go wait until someone brings your order out. Burger was good but fries were soggy. Wish there were other options close by.

Tasty food and if you are a member you get 10 percent off. Menu changes weekly, with some items permanent. Vegans can have the vegan BLT and the Asian noodle salad, and other dishes with modifications. I wish the Asian noodle salad had a few veggies added, like broccoli.

Terrible experience. Can’t really write about the quality of the food, since our order (and several others) was lost. When the food was finally brought to us «to go» because we were burning through our lunch break, we had to leave it at the front desk while we dashed through the ONLY exhibit we had time to see. They got my friends order wrong, and mine-​Asian Noodle Salad-​was bitter. Really disappointing, as we had high hopes of a nice lunch and gallery visit. We’re writing it off (emotionally) as a donation to the museum, but will never eat lunch there again.

This place is such a nice surprise. The museum is obviously great, but the café has really great food. I’ve had lunch with co-​workers there a few times, and everyone really enjoyed their food.
When I’ve been, there were two burgers, one was a smaller more «normal» burger from the specials menu, and the other was a bacon-​cheese deal that was a lot more substantial. I got the small version, and it was plenty — my co-​worker got the bigger one and said it was awesome, but a little much. Can’t go wrong either way, it just depends how hungry you are.
NOTE: You don’t have to pay for museum admission if you just want to eat at the café. This makes for a great food option that’s a step in quality above a lot of the options around the Old Sac/​Mall area. The architecture and ambiance is really nice too.

We had a great lunch before visiting the museum. Not much else in the area unless you want mall food. The salad plate was very colorful and tasty. My husband had the gnocchi and it was wonderful, well cooked with asparagus. This is the second tinge that we ate at the museum and it is likely that we will have lunch the next time we return.

Operated by Matt and Yvette Woolston of Supper Club fame, the Crocker Art Museum’s restaurant is a sit-​down experience, with white linens and table service. The menu reflects Matt’s «seasonal and local» bent, with a soup of the day, an array of salads and a short list of entrees. Good news: you won’t be charged museum admission if you just stop by to eat.

Terrible! Seriously! They charged 2.17 for a small cup of regular (not espresso) coffee. It was from the pump kind which was, was almost out and worse than that it was cold. I wanted to add Half and half and was only able to get a few drops out. The bro working the register didn’t really seem to care if they had business or not. Do yourself a favor and eat and drink before you come, or better yet take a break halfway through your trip and walk to old town for some good food and service.

Food is ok, but I enjoy the museum more

The Crocker has a great place to eat, to meet friends, and to have a lovely dinner. 3 stars because they are completely unorganized. I believe they had about 4 outside employees taking care of about 30+ tables. Most of the people ordered at the counter, but the servers bring out the food, and it is a bit of a mess. Great food, wonderful chances for improvements, but the organization and management needs work.

If you’re going to spend much of the day at the museum, you might as well eat lunch here: it’s easier than trying to re-​park your car or to walk to Old Sacramento. It’s beyond the ticket counter, and there’s nothing between it and the elevators leading up to the exhibit floors, so I guess it’s in practice only open to museum patrons.
This is one of those precious little places where the actual quality of the food doesn’t measure up to its pretensions in appearance and presentations. The soups looked good, but were rather dull (and the sausage-​and-​corn chowder was virtually devoid of sausage). Simple dishes, like quiche and a noodle plate, were OK, but the lamb skewers were dry, the vegetables a mixture of charred and cold, and it took half an hour for the food to arrive, rather ridiculous for a lunch café.

The Neiman Ranch Burger totally rivals any burger from Burgers and Brew or any other burger joint. You have to try it! Don’t get the Happy Hour burger, it’s not the same. It was juicy and the soft bread held it together perfectly. Sooo good! I’d go there just for the burger and skip the art if I didn’t have time to walk around and was just having a burger craving. TRUTH! Oh. and the fries were good too!

The food here is awesome. The service is good and friendly. I also enjoy the ambiance. There’s so much light and open space where the tables are located. It’s a nice break from sitting in a cubicle. I’ll be sad to see this place close if they don’t find a replacement for the Mulvaneys.

First of all, it is what is it is — an overpriced café in an art museum catering to the ladies who lunch crowd and seniors or other groups touring the museum. If you’re coming to the Crocker and don’t want to spend a fortune, you might consider packing a picnic lunch. On the other hand, if your Junior League committee needs a nice place to meet for lunch, you will enjoy this.
I decided to give this place a try for lunch a few weeks back. It’s not hard to find, walk in the new museum entrance, take a left into the big room and the café is down to your right. Once inside, the signage is a little confusing. They have little baskets instead of trays, but since the signage talks about a picnic lunch I was a little confused if taking a basket meant that I was required to order certain items or even eat outside (as it turns out — they are just a fancier version of cafeteria trays). I was pleased to see that they sell various types of sodas and lemonades in bottles including Dublin Dr. Pepper which is the only Dr, Pepper still made with real sugar at a plant in Dublin, TX. Unfortunately, you only get an 8-​oz bottle and it’s $ 2.50 — wow!
After reading about it in other reviews I decided to order the Niman Ranch burger with bacon. I also got a bag of chips because it doesn’t mention anywhere that it comes with fries and I didn’t find out until it was delivered to my table. I do wish the lady taking my order had mentioned that, because I wasn’t really planning to eat both chips and fries.
The burger was good, but not great. I think next time I will try the chili verde pork on creamy polenta.
Unfortunately, I don’t know when the next time will be as this is clearly not a place to add to the regular lunch rotation, but rather a place to go when you are visiting the museum for other reasons. For people visiting the museum, this is a nice, albeit pricey, option. However, as another place to eat lunch downtown, this is not a great choice.

I am not sure what Unilocal Talk is because I don’t spend my life on
, however, I am happy to write a review for the Crocker Café. I have been waiting to read reviews on the Café since it opened on 10−10−10, but no luck. Today I wanted to change that, blah blah blah blah, people got butt hurt used foul language and here we are. So enough of the back story and on to the review…
The Café is a lot smaller than I thought it would be for a facility the size of the Crocker expansion, but since I was there at 11:00am, it wasn’t a a problem. The seating area is very large, however. There is indoor seating and outdoor patio seating. The menu has some nice options for lunch and is reasonably priced. Check out the photos I uploaded. I would imagine that the menu changes often since the place is operated by Mulvaney and he likes to use fresh and in season ingredients. There was a nice selection of grab-​and-​go items like salads and sandwiches, bottles of specialty soda and more typical drinks too (would it kill them to add a soda fountain).
I ordered the Niman Ranch cheese burger and my boyfriend got the chicken salad. I though both were very good. The burger meat had a nice flavor and the garnish added a lot to the overall flavor of the burger. My favorite garnish were the cucumbers, pickled Japanese style. It was an unexpected and delightful surprise. The included french fries were prepared well, but could have been a bit more crunchy.
The chicken salad was also very good, It consisted of romaine with bacon bits, pomegranate seeds, a hard boiled egg, creamy blue cheese dressing and of course the main event, a breast of chicken. The chicken was cooked perfectly, with a crunchy skin and tender meat. The bacon was cut very thick, but the bits were slightly too small I felt. I though the blue cheese dressing was well balanced, but my boyfriend thought it was slightly salty.
The staff is still working out the kinks in ordering, but that is to be expected when a place has only been opened for 3 days. I think the Crocker Café has a lot of potential not only as a lunch time café, but also as an addition to new and exciting night time programming at the expanded Crocker Art Museum. My rating is 4 stars.