SACRAMENTO, Calif. — From Parkland, Washington to Sacramento, California, Lucky’s Drive-In is opening soon.
Lucky's Drive-In is a restaurant that's known for its hamburgers, fries, and housemade sauces. They also have hot dogs and even salads and a veggie burger option for their vegetarian customers in which they cut their own fresh vegetables every day. Real fruit and dairy are used for all 17 milkshakes listed on their menu and most of their customers who leave reviews rave about them.
Although Lucky’s Drive-In has been successful in Parkland since 2015, co-owners Willow Eskridge and Michael Feagins’s experience is usually in eating food, not in running a restaurant.
“I'm very well versed in eating food,” Willow said. “Mike and I have both owned businesses before we started Lucky's. I had a photography business for about 10 years. I did portraits and he had a sharpening business and then he worked for a bread distributor, which was handy for doing our funds for Lucky's.”
Mike and Willow ended up taking a chance and starting Lucky's.
"We definitely are risk takers, which I think you kind of have to be to start a restaurant. We're enjoying it," Willow says. "I mean, we had an opportunity that became available and we just gave it a whirl and went for it."
Since then, Mike and Willow have gained a large following, allowing them to expand and look at other states and cities; California being next on their list.
Willow says she and Mike both enjoy a slightly slower pace, but not too slow so they thought Sacramento was the best city to expand into. Also, they preferred a place that wasn’t too hot, didn’t have high humidity, doesn’t snow, and has a nice and diverse population.
“I wouldn't want to live in downtown LA or in San Diego. It's very fast, has a lot of people, and is just very very big," Willow said. "Sacramento is kind of just a toned-down version of that. It's still got all the things of the city that you love, but it's just a little bit smaller."
When Mike and Willow first started Lucky’s, they didn’t have any indoor seating. Since in Washington it constantly rains, the two looked for creative ways to incorporate seating. That's when they turned to the LeMay family, the owners of Washington state's largest car collection.
The property Mike and Willow lease belongs to a member of the LeMay family. One day, they were invited to check out the family's bus collection. That's when the two fell in love with a retro-styled red double-decker bus and came up with the idea to use it for their seating area.
The two bought the bus and with their makeover, turned the inside into little diner booths with glitter vinyl and bar stools.
“It's from the 1950s, it has beautiful lines rounded, and gorgeous windows. It's super cool," Willow said. "Mike and I are just really into vintage things, retro stuff because things don't look the same nowadays."
However, there was a minor setback with the bus once it arrived in Sacramento. Willow posted a video on video on Facebook showing the bus with fresh graffiti on it.
Willow expressed how disheartening and disappointing it was to see her bus in that state. The permit process to get the restaurant started has already taken a long time for them, so Willow was devastated and felt disrespectful.
“We have worked really, really hard to get to this point and we worked really, really hard to afford the painting of the bus," Willow said. "It was no small feat buying the bus itself, having it transferred down here, all that we've put into this so far. It was just devastating. It was sad.
Willow and Mike spent days scrubbing away the paint, ultimately cleaning it all.
In addition to moving forward, locating to California during a global pandemic has only motivated Mike and Willow.
“At the beginning, it was very scary and I think a lot of people felt the same way. Once we've been doing this for a while, we just kind of got used to throwing the mask on and getting the party started. Compared to a lot of other restaurants, though, we were pretty lucky in that respect…no pun intended,” Willow says.
Since Lucky’s is not a sit-down restaurant and is rather more of a grab-and-go kind of place, their customers didn't have to go inside, allowing their business to continuously succeed during the pandemic.
“In a weird kind of way, we were in the best position we could have been to go into COVID. Maybe this process will work out. It always works out in the end,” Willow said.
With permits processing and upgrades, Mike and Willow predict the new Sacramento location of Lucky's Drive-In will open around late December or the beginning of January in Curtis Park. Follow them on their Facebook and Instagram pages for updates!
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