Howdy Y'all,
I just got back from a dry run using the "Something Extra Gather Room" at the Bel Air #502 on Arden and Eastern.
The address is 4320 Arden Way, Sacramento, CA 95864 and the gmaps page is:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/eBKZdheFGPSeDXFk7
I thought to do a dry run to sus out the AV setup and get a general lay of the land, suffice to say I am VERY impressed. The SEGR is located immediately inside to the left of the left most entrance, right in "THE TAPROOM" area. It's one of those rooms where the walls are made of partially frosted glass panels.
Coffee, beer, desserts and charcuterie are available at the nearby counter,but you can also walk across the store and get something from the deli if you want something more meal shaped. Just remember to actually buy the food before you eat it. :p
The AV setup is a BIG tv with a BIG soundbar attached. The power button for the TV is on the bottom edge in the center,so you have to wedge your fingies between the tv and the soundbar to get at it. Once the TV is on, some inputs can be switched and some sort of cable/broadcast tv box can be controlled via the Crestron tablet thing on top of the media cabinet. The pincode for the Crestron tablet is the store # twice, literally: "502502". HDMI in is on the right side of the media cabinet. If you really really want you can also plug into either HDMI 1 or DVI directly on the tv, but then you only get audio from the crappy TV speakers and not the nice sound bar.
The store wifi *seemed* to be ok, measuring at ~100Mb symmetric, but then I had issues connecting to some ubuntu repos? I fell back to the wifi hotspot on my phone which also worked p well, which tells me the area has good T-Mobile coverage.
From what I can gather the room isn't used much and the staff there seem pretty chill, so no ones gonna yell at us if we show up a little early and leave a little late.
And the best part (aside from the beer) is that the 2hr booking cost $0.
This is absolutely my vote for the December meeting, but let me know what y'all think. Shout out to Gary for the idea, I had *no idea* meeting rooms in Raley's were a thing.
I'll send a follow up email with some photos/videos attached of the venue.
Cheers,
Sen-h.