‘A safe place to express myself’: Luna’s Cafe closes after 40 years in Sacramento

A chapter of Sacramento’s cultural history comes to a close on Aug. 8. After 40 years of featuring musicians, poets, comedians and visual artists at his namesake café in Midtown, Art Luna is calling it quits. 

With its stage surrounded on three sides by the audience, Luna’s has provided a very intimate experience for performers and patrons alike since its opening on Aug. 8, 1983. The small space means everyone sees who’s coming through the front door on 16th Street, just as everyone hears the espresso machine spitting out foam in the back.

“When it’s packed in there, the windows are dripping with condensation … everybody seems to be on the same wavelength and I just love it,” said musician and visual artist Kevin Seconds. “It made me really go out of my way to make more eye contact and connect and see how people are sort of receiving whatever it is I’m trying to put out there.”

“I can’t tell you how many times somebody has come off stage remarking that ‘people actually listened to me … intently,’” Luna said. “If somebody’s talking too much, I’ve actually, on a very rare occasion, come out and told people, ‘Hey, tone it down.’”

Aside from the rotating wall art, the venue hasn’t changed much in the past four decades. The original oak bar is still there. The dozen or so small cafe tables haven’t been updated, and neither has the white lattice partition that separates the front door from the rest of the room. 

The space will continue to be a home for artists after Luna’s Cafe departs its doors: Silver Lining, a dueling piano bar, is taking over the business and plans to open Oct. 1, and Luna said he’ll be helping out the new owners with booking.

Still, locals say Luna’s Cafe — and the man behind it — have made an inexplicable impact on the local arts scene. 

“There are so many artists in this town that love that place and love Art,” Seconds said. “A lot of younger, up-and-coming musicians got their first chance to play on a stage at Luna’s. A lot of places wouldn’t have even bothered. They would have said ‘Nah, build up a following and then come in and talk to me.’”  

Art Luna walks through a hallway in his cafe, Luna's Cafe and Juice Bar, in Sacramento, Calif, on Thurs., July 27, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

Poet and musician Ruebi Jimenez got her chance at Luna’s when she was just 16. 

“I went there because I was a young, angsty poet and Luna’s has had the longest running poetry reading in Sacramento,” said Jiminez, who went on to perform and work as a server at Luna’s Cafe for the next decade. 

Creating a welcoming space for established veterans like Seconds and first-timers like Jimenez was a hallmark of Luna’s. So was freedom of expression.

“I don’t put any restrictions on what they do,” Luna explained. “I just say, ‘Give me your best shot.’ I think just by giving people the chance to play and hone their art here, whether it’s music, comedy, poetry, visual arts … that’s an important function, I think, that Luna’s has had over the years.”

He said lately, as people have told him what the cafe has meant to them while it prepares for its swan song, “that’s starting to get emotional.” 

“People are coming out of the woodwork and telling me, ‘Hey, it’s been great, you gave me my first show,’” Luna said wistfully. “I’m like, ‘Wow, we’ve had more of an impact that I’ve actually realized throughout the years.” 

Jimenez echoed that: “It was just such a safe place to express myself and to … not only come of age, but to be surrounded by a community of other artists.”