Louis Cairo's

This used to be our Favorite place for 3 pm lunch/early dinner returning to Sacramento from Oregon twice a yr for many, many years.  But, the last 3 times we ate there, the spaghetti, raviolis & other pastas were SO OVERCOOKED as to be inedible.  The salads were boring, fake croutons & the 'famous Louis garlic bread.  It had BOTTLED GARLIC (NOT FRESH). You can taste the difference & it was AWFUL.  It was covered 1/2" thick corner to corner but Tasteless.  The Only reason to go are the sweetbreads & chicken livers, those were very good. The only other place to eat was mad house Granziellas around the corner (crazy busy, expensive ordinary deli sandwiches, long lines). At least Louis Cairo's is not busy so you have the place to your self if you come after 3pm...

Great restaurant 100 miles from Redding. On a road trip we checked yelp and so happy we did. Amazing roasted garlic bulb with brie. Clean, friendly staff and good food. Happy we stopped somewhere the locals go vs just Denny's down the street.

Oh, I dunno. I may, or may not be biased because this is pretty much the only dine-in spot still in business, in this ghost-town? No, no I'm not and this is why:

The other tourist-trap is crowded and can pretty much accommodate everyone in your traveling circus-party: Grandma, Pa, kiddies, etc... But, Louis Cairo reminds me of the old-school Italian restaurants (reminds me of Vince's in West Sac - or of Pheasant Club before the suburbs enveloped the place)... spots NOT afraid of the liberal use of GARLIC.
We stumbled upon this place because my oldman tends to get thirsty on the weekend - and, the big sign reading "cocktails" was calling him to pop on in.
Upon entering, I noticed right off that something yummy was being cooked... although I thought this place was only a bar.
Turns out it's a pretty popular dinning spot. Well, during the day when we visited, it was pretty empty, except for one other bar-fly and a VERY friendly bartender. I have to admit that I wasn't in the least bit hungry until I got a waft of garlicky Italian food - I was just about to request the Fried Raviolis when the bartender recommended the Louis Bread (Yeah, we were admiring a Garlic-Glove SF Giants bobblehead behind the bar).
Um, let's just say that I think this bread would satisfy anyone's RDA of garlic for about the next 5 years! It came with a steak knife - ya know, in case you didn't want to shovel half of the loaf directly into your pie hole; there's no discrete or dainty way to snarf on this bread - chunks of roasted garlic will end up everywhere... so, just give up and shovel it in.

I'm also adding extra points because the bartender was making FRESH salsa from her own garden, and it smelled divine! Just wish we could have stayed longer to sample... but, she did tell us to go ahead and grab some fresh veggies she placed on a cart near the door, as she had an especially abundant year in her garden - squash, tomatos, corn, etc... And this is just one of the reasons why I LOVE little spots like this!