All-day cafe

The phrase “coffee shop” evokes a sad menu: stale croissants, saccharine muffins and wilted salads. A cafe takes more care with its food but sidelines the drinks.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The airy West Sacramento coffee shop and wine bar Bean & Barrel seems to care as much about its espresso, drip coffee and rotating list of vinos as it does breakfast, lunch and dinner. Though the business’s name leads with the beans, the food menu contains more surprises than the cardboard carbs found at most coffee shops.

At the cafe that opened in February, executive chef Janine Villalobos, has put together a California fusion of healthful fare with a dash of fatty sin or spice. You’ll find five kinds of toast with ingredients like chili oil and buffalo mozzarella, sandwiches with chicken liver or chile verde, and salads with white anchovies and sheep milk’s cheese. Charcuterie boards and large plates sate more substantial hunger.

The roaster is no slouch, either. The beans come from Camellia Coffee Roasters, launched last year by Ryan Harden of Old Soul Co. and Robert Watson of Insight Coffee Roasters. Drip coffee ($2.25 for 12 ounces, $3 for 16 ounces) tasted bright without the acidity, thanks to a blend of Ethiopian and Brazilian beans custom-made for Bean & Barrel. (The improbable flavor profile boasts “milk chocolate, peanuts, velvet”—though smooth, the drink contained no hint of fabric.)

In the morning, the egg & bacon toast ($7) was filling enough to fuel several hours of cafe work. The poached egg with pudding-like yolk didn’t run all over when holding up the buttery toast. Underneath the egg rested slabs of bacon so thick that you’re certain of two things: Your arteries are clogging, and it’s worth it. An add-on of zesty avocado lightened the medley, and the melted Monterey Jack tasted like cream. Drizzled everywhere, a pleasing pop of chili oil.

Living up to its coffee shop title, Bean & Barrel also sells pastries, but these aren’t like cardboard. The cinnamon roll ($3.50) was fluffy with ample cinnamon.

For lunch, the orzo salad ($7) was underseasoned with lemon vinaigrette. But it still entertained the palate with its mix of briny olives, arugula, red onion, cherry tomatoes, diced bell peppers and cucumbers and chunky feta.

Totally swerving from a coffee shop’s usual arena of mediocrity, the large plates were bomb. The pig wings ($16) placed two tender pork shanks atop a nest of cold vermicelli noodles in a spicy fish sauce. Cherry tomatoes, jalapeños, carrot slivers and cilantro complemented the smoked meat with watery crispness. The scampi ($16) was small for the price, but what was there was delicious: Garlicky, buttery shrimp and roasted cherry tomatoes flavored with white wine on cross-sections of baguette.

The best time to go? Wednesday if you like wine and don’t mind crowds—there are free tastings 5:30-7:30 p.m. If you prefer oysters, they’re sold for $1 Mondays and Fridays 3-6 p.m.

Despite its restaurant-sized ambitions, the coffee shop still attracts laptop toters. With light flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows, free Wi-Fi, ample outlets and natural wood tables, Bean & Barrel beckons: Give me your hungry, your uncaffeinated, your overworked. With heavier dishes than Nido and better food than Cafe Bernardo, Bean & Barrel gears more toward the digital worker.

Perhaps this is the coffee shop’s response to the modern gig economy. If you can’t kick freelancers off their laptops after a two-hour Wi-Fi session, might as well seize the captive audience by serving a wide enough variety of food that they’ll keep ordering all day.