Orphan barrel flight: Rhetoric, Forged Oak and Barterhouse at Ella Dining Room & Bar.

A while back I had a freelance writer call me about an article she was working on about how real estate agents use restaurants to sell homes, and Alexa Collins, who writes for Homelight, asked if I sell Sacramento homes in that manner. Well, at first blush, I didn’t think that I did, but the writer called attention to a blog I recently wrote about a home I sold in South Land Park. She pointed out that I talked quite a bit about the nearby restaurants, and a favorite Mexican restaurant at that. You can do that in a blog, talk about nearby attractions, but it’s difficult to do in MLS. We are limited to 500 characters and spaces in MLS.

For example, when I write my marketing verbiage to sell Sacramento homes, I have to be careful I’m not violating Fair Housing laws. Unlike some idiot real estate agent who created a map of Sacramento neighborhoods, color-coded each neighborhood reeking of redlining, and then went on to assign stereotypes and racial slurs, and no, I am not linking to that offensive piece of shit because my main hope is that sorry-excuse-for-a-Realtor will lose his license shortly. I called the CEO of an influential local media source and notified the California Bureau of Real Estate. If you keep quiet, you’re part of the problem.

It’s not bad enough, you know, that we’ve got to pull together 40,000 counter-protesters in Boston to stand up to Neo-Nazis. Or, that every morning I get up hoping our President will self explode, wondering if this is finally the day, and it never seems to be the day. We don’t need more racism, intolerance and hate in this world. We need less of it. I am very careful about the impression I leave. Which is why when a seller in Curtis Park asked me to slip into his marketing description that the house was within walking distance to the park, I had to explain that we can’t discriminate against people with mobility issues. And if you say that’s going too far and it’s too PC, I’m gonna come over there and slap you.

Restaurants. When I lived in Minneapolis, we lived in the now trendy Whittier neighborhood, within blocks from Eat Street on Nicollet Avenue. It was like being on vacation, except we were navigating to these wonderful ethnic restaurants not from a European hotel but from our home. When I sell Sacramento homes, I do describe our fabulous neighborhoods, and the amenities available to a potential buyer. I guess restaurants are part of that, too. It’s where millennials congregate these days to socialize. We can be very proud of the restaurant scene in Sacramento.

One of the great benefits for an agent whose successful business is to sell Sacramento homes is the means to dine at some of the best restaurants in Sacramento. I have several favorites, one of which is Ella Dining Room and Bar. Anybody who reads my blog on a regular basis knows that about me. It’s a place where one can go like my husband and I last Friday, without a reservation. I wore cut-offs, a t-shirt and no makeup. We sat outside on the patio. August is Maine lobster month at Ella. A great tradition. Plus, Ella featured whiskey bourbon flights I could not refuse. There is valet parking. It’s 10 minutes from my house in Land Park. It doesn’t get any better than that.