Club Pheasant, known locally as the Pheasant Club, has been a mainstay of the Sacramento restaurant scene for at least the past sixty years. Today this family-owned Italian restaurant is a favorite stop for families and locals in the roadhouse tradition, much like Plainfield Station or The Nut Tree.

When the county seat moved to Woodland, the building was sold to the Azevedo family, who lived there for a couple years before selling it in 1927 to a local entrepreneur who turned it into a speakeasy. Recalls Pete Palamidessi Sr., "He built the original bar, had four tables for gambling and two rooms upstairs for the girls. There's a hidden walkway between the rooms where the moonshine was hidden from the Feds." In 1935, the Palamidessi's purchased the building and its surrounding acreage for $10,000. The family moved into the building, serving handmade ravioli and roast beef sandwiches to locals downstairs while George Palamidessi, Pete's father, farmed the surrounding 10 acres. Ten years later during a trip to San Francisco, the family stopped at a North Beach eatery and proclaimed that Pete's mother, Luisa, made better cacciatore. On their return home, they created a menu featuring their locally famous garlic steak sandwiches and dubbed the restaurant "Golden Pheasant;" when a San Francisco restaurant of the same name threatened legal action they changed the name to Club Pheasant. It immediately became a magnet for family celebrations as well as backroom political deals. Today the Pheasant Club operates under the watchful eye of its fourth generation of Palamidessi's, and the family takes pride that "no one ever walked into this place without someone from the family being here to greet them."

Club Pheasant has several dining rooms that can be reserved for events and meetings. The restaurant is host to the regular Friday meeting of the West Sacramento Rotary Club, and is frequently the site of meetings and presentations of the Chamber of Commerce and other civic groups.

To discover more local eateries, visit our Restaurants page.

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Some content originally taken from Davis Wiki.

How was your meal at the Pheasant Club?

2007-04-25 17:16:03   I highly recommend the ravioli. —MaureenPascoe

2007-08-29 10:38:28   Well i have never had anything I did not like there but I think my favorite would be the fried rav's with the hot mustard. —Courtney

2007-09-24 20:28:38   Why would you eat here? —68.189.77.27

2007-10-14 20:59:03   When this page was originally created on the DavisWiki, wasn't there some info making the connection between the Pheasant Clubs origins as a UC Davis field station?? —75.26.177.141

Here's the original version — maybe integrate anything that was lost? Looks like this paragraph was removed and contained some interesting stuff: "Club Pheasant, known locally as the Pheasant Club, has been a mainstay of the Sacramento restaurant scene for at least the past sixty years. Today this family-owned Italian restaurant is a favorite stop for families and locals in the roadhouse tradition, much like Plainfield Station or The Nut Tree. Most UC Davis students have no idea that this restaurant exists, let alone that it once housed the UC Davis agronomy lab where soil samples from the riverbank were tested as the levees were being built. Davis diners are likely to recognize the familiar tongue & groove paneling and exposed electrical boxes so common in many of campus' older labs and buildings."