Best of Sacramento 2018

It's time, once again, for SN&R's annual Best of Sacramento issue. Each year, it's a fun undertaking brainstorming, researching and discovering the best things that make Sacramento, well, Sacramento.

But what do we really mean by the term “best"?

With the readers’ voting results, that’s easy to define: These are all the things that you decided were worthy of that honor via a monthslong campaign that netted thousands upon thousands of votes in the following categories: Food & Drink, Shopping & Services, Sports & Recreation, People & Places and—introduced this year—Cannabis.

Also new in 2018: We expanded Food & Drink to span the region. Readers voted in categories including best pizza, burger and brunch for Sacramento, Elk Grove and Placer and Yolo counties.

The process for choosing the writers’ picks, however, isn’t always as clear-cut. It’s not about the literal best taco in town, the inarguably top workout spot or the hands-down, no-questions-asked No. 1 place to get a haircut. Rather, SN&R’s Best Of issue epitomizes our team’s efforts to unearth and share things we love. Some of them are established treasures, others long-held secret passions or word-of-mouth gems.

Find out for yourself. In the pages that follow, we bring you just some of our favorite things about Sacramento, plus your top picks in hundreds of categories. There’s a silky-voiced deejay and a cheese goddess, a vegan guru and an imitable drag queen. There are guides to ethnic bakeries and cannabis delivery services, team spirit shoutouts and an homage to local sports heroes of yesteryear.

And that’s just for starters. Read on to share our love for all things Sacramento and beyond. The best really is yet to come.