Legend Has It celebrates grand opening as Sacramento’s first hi-fidelity listening bar 

By Katerina Graziosi

It’s a quarter to 2 p.m. when Purple Disco Machine’s “Devil in Me” fills a bar on the corner block of 4th and L Streets in Downtown Sacramento with a rhythmic funk-house beat.  

The sound is crisp, enveloping a growing crowd with a quality and precision rivaled by live music. Abs One is at the decks of the newly minted booth where 14 DJs — including DJ Fooders, Vinyl Honey, DJ Epik and others — set to spin vinyl records until midnight at the grand opening of Legend Has It, the city’s first hi-fi bar, on Sept. 14. 

Short for hi-fidelity audio, hi-fi bars are spaces that prioritize the listening experience, particularly of pressed music, over all else. Popularized in Japan during the 1940s and ’50s, these intimate venues made use of postwar goods entering the country by sourcing top-notch audio systems and curating “cultural lifelines” for audiophiles and community alike to gather in the wake of a shortage of social events and the shuttering of businesses forced by World War II. 

The concept of a Japanese jazz kissa, or kissaten, is mirrored here at 410 L St. with its cozy, modern furniture, custom blonde-wood millwork and Klipsch La Scala speakers that flank the booth — some of the clearest in the game, according to co-owner and DJ José Medina. 

“We curated this equipment to make sure it fits our space,” Medina says. “You’ll hear things that you haven’t heard before on an album, especially when it’s been reproduced on a vinyl.” 

Medina and his wife, Victoria, co-own the bar at the former location of Whired Wine with business partners and friends Jin and Michael Juliano. Inspired by their shared love of music, craft beer and natural wine, the two couples dreamt of fusing it all together. While the four previously floated ideas of opening such an establishment, it was a visit to a listening bar during a joint trip to Seattle in late 2022 that moved the needle. 

“I still remember the conversation that basically sparked it,” Medina says. “We saw a vinyl bar [in Seattle] and we were captivated, but at the same time we were like this is something we could do, to an extent, in Sacramento.” 

A hub to call home 

For co-owner Juliano, whose background is in audio engineering and radio, his travels with wife,Jin, to visit family in South Korea and the hi-fi bars they experienced there, as well as in Japan, highlighted a different and special kind of DJing culture. 

“In my mind back in the day, [a] DJ was always in a tower somewhere like dance club sort of stuff,” Juliano says, “so seeing a DJ just spin vinyl in soul, funk, jazz — it blew my mind.” The more relaxed setting and the audio focus is a concept he says was missing in Sacramento.

It’s a sentiment shared by Eric Sasz, who goes professionally as DJ Saurus. Sasz has been involved with the local music scene for over 25 years and currently books DJs for San Francisco’s Exploratorium After Dark hours. He now helps book the talent at Legend Has It and says he’s well-connected and poised to highlight a diverse repertoire of turntablists.

“A lot of local DJs get overlooked in Sacramento, especially vinyl DJs, because the younger turn-up culture is really big right now,” Sasz reflects. “But with vinyl culture, there’s a lot of folks here that we wanted to shine the spotlight on because they’re just not getting that.”  

In addition to the limited opportunities for a niche subset of DJs, lasting impacts of the pandemic continue to affect nightlife economy and the music scene as a whole, according to Medina, who has held residencies locally at B-Side and Bottle & Barlow. He adds that while many businesses turned to live entertainment as a way to entice patrons back through their doors, many of them couldn’t pay DJs pre-pandemic rates while sustaining higher overhead costs. 

“A lot of DJs have been impacted by recent closures of business, but then also very much by  the changes to the business model [post COVID],” he says, adding that he hopes to help change that and broaden collaboration with creatives and artists to forge a true community-focused hub. A lineup of 14 local DJs played 45-minute sessions during the opening to a rotating crowd of about 400 people, according to Medina. 

Audrey Esperanza, who spins as DJ Ink Fat around town in places like Darling Aviary and The Flamingo House, was in attendance to support the launch. She stresses the need for cities to have spaces dedicated to preserving the art of analog mixing and to “keep this kind of culture alive and thriving for the younger generations.” 

Best known as DJ Epik, Dustin Worswick’s set closed out the night. He’s been kicking around Sacramento’s music scene since the mid ’90s and currently plays at LowBrau’s Motown Mondays, his weekly residency of over 10 years. Worswick took on an unofficial consulting and supporting role to the Legend Has It project saying it has his “seal of approval.” 

“I’m hoping music lovers in Sacramento embrace it and get to come out and experience something that’s a little different than your average bar and club,” he says. “This is a space where you’re going to be taken on a musical journey.” 

The sum of parts

When the co-owners moved to the River City from San Francisco — the Julianos in 2021 and the Medinas in 2022 — it was through networking with the community that solidified Sacramento as a good home for the project, according to Juliano. 

“As we were getting to know Sacramento, we met so many cool people, DJs, bar owners and brewers” he says. “The brewers and a lot of the bar owners as well have been just super open to us.” 

In addition to a selection of California-produced natural wines, the bar boasts a large selection of local craft beer from Porchlight Brewing Company, LogOff Brewing, Alaro Craft Brewing and others, according to Juliano. He adds that everyone they’ve worked with to complete the project from the electrician who wired the impressive set up, to the graphic designer, the breweries supplying the craft beer and the interior designer, all are locally based businesses.

And for the inspired crate digger, record sales by local purveyors Twelves Wax and Sounds Universoul set up shop just outside the bar during the launch. 

“Keeping things really Sacramento is really important [to us],” co-owner Victoria Medina says. “We want this to be a staple in the community and continue working with more folks in the community and putting our roots there downtown.” 

Not unlike the revitalization of communal gatherings brought about by jazz kissaten in Japan, José Medina hopes to carry on expanding avenues of creation and collaboration for the region. 

“The hope is to continue to innovate and continue to bring growth to Sacramento,” he says. “I think it’s safe to say we are heavily invested [here].”

As for the hi-fi bar’s name, it’s an eponym to the inaugural concept realized in the capital city but also a nod to the reflection of an innovative future, according to Juliano. 

“I think we all like the idea of saying, ‘well, legend has it, it all started in Sacramento,’” he says. 

This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. Solving Sacramento is supported by funding from the James Irvine Foundation and the James B. McClatchy Foundation. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review, Sacramento Observer and Univision 19. Sign up for our monthly newsletter.