A new neighborhood pizza and bread shop is headed to East Sacramento.
Fabulist will take over the former Café Capricho space at 3269 Folsom Blvd, according to a recently filed fictitious business name statement. Founded in 2010, Café Capricho recently announced that it would be shuttering on Jan. 16, as its longtime owners are retiring.
Andrew Tescher and Stacey Johnson, a husband-and-wife duo with decades of experience in the Sacramento food scene, first crossed paths while opening the Piatti Italian Restaurant location in Fair Oaks in the early 1990s.
Andrew, a Sacramento-area chef with more than 35 years of experience, is the founder of Side Hustle Pizza, a pop-up concept he launched in 2019. The passion project quickly evolved into something more serious. As Stacey explained, “He started doing pop-ups during the pandemic then, and has been obsessed with pizza for about 13 years.”
That obsession has since expanded beyond pizza. About a year ago, Andrew began baking bread regularly—a hobby that soon became his newest fixation—and the idea of opening a brick-and-mortar shop started to feel inevitable. He is also a founding participant in Alchemist, a local incubator group that helped bring Fabulist from concept to reality.
The name Fabulist, which means “storyteller,” nods to the personal history behind the project and the eatery’s casual, approachable spirit. The awning outside the shop will read: “Fabulist Pizza, Bread, and Other Things.”
As the awning suggests, the menu will center on pizza and bread while leaving room for creativity. Guests can expect whole pies and pizza by the slice, sandwiches, and three to four types of bread, including core staples, a rotating weekly feature, and some made using non-traditional fermenting processes.
The menu will also feature a few fresh salads, a couple of sweets, and one particularly beloved element: butter, which Stacey jokes is its own food group.
While Andrew will helm the kitchen, Stacey will take on a multifaceted role focused largely on front-of-house operations and day-to-day management. Though she now works in the mental health and substance use treatment field, she brings significant restaurant experience of her own. Having spent 14 years as a chef and 11 years as a general manager, she will also serve as Fabulist’s Chief Butter Maker.
Additionally, Stacey plans to weave her community-focused work into the fabric of the business. Ideas include hosting women-owned small business pop-ups, collaborating with the recovery community, and organizing fundraisers with local elementary schools and neighborhood groups—initiatives she says will take shape organically as the shop settles in.
The space itself is designed primarily for takeout, with limited seating available. Fabulist is targeting an opening in the first week of June 2026, beginning with limited hours and days. Full production across the menu is expected by about week five.
“The goal is to make people happy and have fun doing it,” said Stacey. “We take our food seriously, not ourselves.”
