Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento: Changes From 48th to 53rd

A taco stand that sold $2.25 street tacos in a shopping center parking lot for more than two decades is gone. A few blocks west, in the space that used to be a craft butcher, a chef is serving pasta out of a cold case. And on the city's engineering drawings, the eastbound curb along these blocks is marked for bike lanes where cars park today.

All three changes sit on a short piece of Folsom Boulevard, roughly 48th Street to 53rd, where the businesses behind the counter and the layout of the curb are both changing this fall.

Who Left the Stretch, and Who Arrived

Here is the turnover in order, with addresses, because on a corridor this short the addresses carry the point:

The Sacramento Bee reported that Island Tacos opened in 2005 and was owned by Antonio and Maria Valderrama and run by their family. It worked out of the parking lot of the Folsom Boulevard shopping center, across from University of Beer East Sacramento and Trader Joe's. The prices stayed small: $2.25 street tacos, $2.50 tamales, $9 burritos, and a separate meatless menu with vegan options. It was open seven days a week, 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. The sign on the door thanked customers for "every conversation, every purchase, and every familiar face." The Bee's Oct. 7 roundup confirmed the stand closed on Sept. 30.

Every business in that table depends on the same few blocks of foot traffic and curb access. That curb is the next thing on the city's list.

What the Butcher Shop's Closing Said About These Blocks

The building at 4801 Folsom spent more than a year in between tenants. When V. Miller Meats announced its closing in March 2025, KCRA reported that rising operating costs, softer customer spending and price competition from big-box grocery chains had made the craft butcher shop hard to sustain. KCRA's story described a holiday season when large chains sold prime rib roasts for about $7 a pound, roughly a third of what the shop itself paid for that cut.

That gap is the challenge for any specialty food shop on a neighborhood boulevard. CapRadio also covered the closing after a decade on Folsom. Neither outlet reported the shop moving to a new location.

The next tenant took on the same building with a different model.

What Bocce Is Doing With the Room

Bocce is a casual Italian restaurant from chef-owner Joe Pruner. He spent the summer running pop-ups to build interest while the space went through inspections and permits. The Sacramento Bee reported that Pruner had hoped to open in mid-July, but inspections ran long. "We finally passed our electrical inspection and got the greenlight to open," he told the paper.

The menu carries over from the pop-ups: pizzas, sandwiches and pastas, plus a cold case of takeaway items. The cold case is a small echo of the old meat counter at the same address. When Bocce opened on Tuesday, Sept. 1, the Bee listed its first-month hours as Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and said Pruner might add Sunday service afterward. That first month is over, so the current hours are worth checking before a Sunday visit. Pruner was also named one of the lead chefs for this year's Tower Bridge Dinner, and he planned to attend the Slow Food movement's Terra Madre Salone del Gusto in Turin in late September.

A few blocks east, Pastry Cat's soft opening at 533 53rd St. in May brought a bakery from founder Nariya Charoensupaya, whom the Sacramento Business Journal describes as a Thai-American pastry chef. That makes two new food businesses within about six blocks in five months, and both rely on people finding a spot to stop.

The Street Plan Is Aimed at the Same Blocks

The City of Sacramento's Folsom Boulevard Safety Improvements Project covers Folsom from 47th Street to 67th Street. The city's project page describes two different roads inside that range.

From 47th to 59th, Folsom already has one lane each way, a center turn lane and bike lanes that come and go. The city says the gaps "occur at locations with on-street parking, mainly between 48th Street and 53rd Street." That is the same stretch as the table above.

From 59th to 65th, the road widens to two lanes each way with no center turn lane and no bike lanes. The city links those extra lanes to speeding and the missing turn lane to rear-end crashes involving cars waiting to turn left.

The planned fixes:

• A lane reduction between 59th and 65th Streets, which the city's Vision Zero action plan calls the most effective countermeasure for speed-related crashes
• Continuous Class II bike lanes through the full project
• A center turn lane where one is missing
• Micro-surfacing, restriping, traffic signal changes and curb ramp upgrades

The parking change is the part most likely to show up in daily errands. The city's May 2025 open house presentation explains that westbound Folsom has no on-street parking and already has bike lanes, while eastbound parking in some places blocks a bike lane. It puts the total at 19 parking stalls removed across six blocks. According to the presentation, some of those removals are required regardless under AB 413, which calls for "daylighting," or clear space near pedestrian crossings.

So the eastbound curb on the blocks where Bocce opened and Island Tacos closed is the main place the parking changes. The presentation's text does not list the six individual blocks, so the exact spaces cannot be confirmed from it.

The project is estimated at $6 million, paid for with local funds and state grant money through the California Natural Resources Agency. The city expects a CEQA categorical exemption. Planning included a February 2024 meeting with the Phoebe Hearst School Parent Safety Team and a community open house at the school on May 29, 2025, which Sacramento City Express announced ahead of time.

The Calendar Is Still Soft

The city's project page says construction is "anticipated to begin in late 2026." The May 2025 open house presentation gave a wider window of fall 2026 to spring 2027. It is mid-October now, so the late-2026 estimate leaves about eleven weeks. Construction could begin this year or slip into spring.

The city's project page is the place to watch for a firmer date.

Where Folsom Turns Into Two Lanes Each Way

The second half of the project starts at a familiar corner. The lane reduction begins at 59th Street, the intersection ABC10 uses to locate Corti Brothers, the family-run Italian grocery that USA Today recognized for food tourism. Today, 59th is where Folsom changes from the calmer western layout to two lanes each way. Under the plan, that change moves east to 65th, and the stretch past Corti's would get the same center turn lane the blocks near Bocce already have.

Corti Brothers is also a reminder that specialty food can last on this boulevard. The store's own site is currently stocking products from the 2025 harvest.

Two Fall Dates Just Off the Boulevard

Some of this season's plans don't involve Folsom traffic at all.

On Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, Shepard Garden and Arts Center at 3330 McKinley Blvd. hosts the free Art by Fire Fall Sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. More than 25 artists will sell work indoors and outdoors.

The McKinley Park Farmers Market also remains on California's certified market roster, which the California Department of Food and Agriculture dated Oct. 1, 2026. The market is listed at 601 Alhambra Blvd., at H and G Streets.

Both are a short trip from the 48th-to-53rd blocks. One stop at Bocce's cold case or Pastry Cat on the way covers most of what changed on Folsom this year.

Changes to a street like Folsom, from lanes and curbside parking to which storefronts are open, affect how a block feels to people who live near it, and that feeling ends up in how a home is presented when it goes on the market. If you live near Folsom Boulevard and want to know how this fall's changes might play into your own plans, Angela Heinzer has followed East Sacramento for 36 years and would be glad to start with a free home valuation.