Sommer 4.0

Raised in Fair Oaks, Sommer Peterson left to forge a career as a big-city restauranteur. She returned home to fashion a dream. Now she’s fighting to keep it alive. 

For Sommer Peterson, Fair Oaks always served as a starting point for her ambition. She grew up here, left to find her entrepreneurial footing in the Bay Area, and ultimately returned with a restaurant vision shaped by both hometown roots and hard-earned experience.

What she didn’t expect was how close that vision would come to slipping away, or how much the community would shape its next chapter.

After leaving Fair Oaks at age 18 to find herself in the big city, Peterson spent more than two decades in San Francisco. Years spent rising through the exhausting ranks of corporate retail—she helped launch the West Elm brand—prompted her to seek more freedom in the hospitality industry. She helped build distinctive, experience-driven restaurants and social spaces. Among them: Mission Bowling Club, an individualistic eatery that landed on Food Network’s list of top places to eat.

In the process, Peterson learned how the proper proportions of atmosphere, food, and service combine to create places where people linger — and where memories form. Over time, she began imagining what that kind of space might look like back home in Fair Oaks.

That opportunity emerged in an unlikely form: a building that had long housed a local mortuary at the northwest entrance to Fair Oaks Village.

With deep roots in the community—she attended local schools from Fair Oaks Preschool to Del Campo High—Peterson returned home in 2016 to raise her daughter, Olivia, with husband Nate French. “When Olivia came along, I wanted to be closer to family,” Peterson said. “I grew up here, and I knew I wanted to come back to the village. It just had my heart from childhood, the neighborhood with the peace sign on the bluff, where all the old hippies live.”

Peterson also saw a dining desert, and she aspired to help change that. While scouting potential restaurant spaces in Midtown Sacramento, something unexpected transpired. Driving past the old cinderblock building on Winding Way that had housed the now-shuttered Russ Monroe funeral home, she spotted a “for lease” sign and felt an odd tug.

What if? 

Where some saw a place of pathos, Sommer started to see promise.

In 2019, she opened Shangri-La, reimagining the empty funeral parlor as a Palm Springs–inspired restaurant and social space. Mid-century modern replaced morgue. Open patios invited conversation. Fire pits and bocce courts sprouted from aged parking asphalt. The menu emphasized meals and craft cocktails meant to slow people down. Shangri-La became a destination — hosting thousands for first dates, birthday dinners, anniversaries, and long evenings under the lights.

For a while, it felt like the dream would thrive.

Then came the reality of running a large, high-design restaurant in a village itself struggling for rebirth. Toss in a historic pandemic for good measure, and suddenly Peterson’s dream began to evaporate. Bottom-line pressure grew. Late last year, she explored the possibility of selling the business.

What followed changed everything.

Messages flooded in from diners. Couples shared stories of first dates that became marriages. Neighbors described friendships formed around the fire pits. Some messages had her shedding tears. Peterson realized she wasn’t ready to give up.

Instead, she pivoted.

Shangri-La shifted toward a more casual, everyday-eatery model: earlier opening hours, a daily happy hour, and a menu built around approachable dishes designed to keep prices down while maintaining quality. Scratch cooking remains non-negotiable, a safe, welcoming space the priority.

Today, “Shangri-La 4.0” is being fashioned based on guest feedback and economic survival, Peterson said. “Restaurants are being hit exceptionally hard right now, and they’re closing at a record pace. I hope our community, and every other community, can step up and support local independent restaurants, because the corporate chains are always going to have the edge. We will be overrun. That is the sad truth.”

Peterson says 2026 will be the restaurant’s last year, or yet another rebirth. “This is our Hail Mary,” she said. “This is either going to work or it’s not this year.”

For someone who left Fair Oaks to find herself, the struggle has become personal: making sure her dream can endure, right where she began.

Story by Eric Bailey