The best mac and Cheese in Sacramento.

Garden Brunch on Broadway

Tower Cafe built its name on Thai steak and eggs and a brunch line that regulars say is worth standing in, but the kitchen's comfort-food range covers mac and cheese for the table that wants something simpler than the pancakes or the omelets. It is a weekend destination first, a mac and cheese stop second, and the wait is the real filter.

Swabbies runs on the Philly cheese steak and a bar menu built for groups pushing tables together for live music nights on the river. Mac and cheese here plays a supporting role to the burgers and appetizers, the kind of order that rounds out a big table rather than the reason to walk in.

Cricket Country Kitchen leans on eggs, hash browns, and pancakes inside a retro diner room full of old western kitsch and booth seating built for families. It is a breakfast address more than a mac and cheese one, but the comfort-food instincts that make the hash browns a draw carry over to any cheese-and-noodle side on the menu.

The Prime Rib Dip sandwich and the Tavern Burger are what pull people into this R Street tavern before a downtown show, with the Thai Steak salad rounding out a menu built for beer and casual plates. Mac and cheese fits the tavern mold here, a side order in a room that treats every plate as pre-show fuel.

Brookfields runs on made-in-house American plates, the chicken fried steak breakfast and teriyaki chicken lunch special carrying the room's reputation as a family standby. Mac and cheese slots into that same scratch-kitchen approach, a side dish built with the same casual, home-style hand that made the lunch specials a local habit.

Coin-Op's menu takes a back seat to the arcade cabinets, but the spinach and artichoke dip has become the order regulars default to, with wings and burgers filling out the rest. Mac and cheese belongs in that same bar-food lane, a plate meant to be shared over games rather than studied on its own.

The burgers get the loudest praise at this saloon, where live music carries the room and the bar bites are built to go with a cocktail rather than stand alone. Mac and cheese would sit in that same bar-bites category, a plate for winding down a night out rather than the centerpiece of a visit.

Urban Roots pairs BBQ and beer in a neighborhood room where the fish tacos get top billing, but mac and cheese is a named menu item here, not a guess. The noodles run soft rather than al dente by some accounts, and the seasoning on the smokehouse plates carries over into the mac, making it a real side order, not an afterthought.

Selland's built its weekday happy hour around the cheeseburger and fries, with the five-dollar spritz doing as much work as the food to fill the East Sac room. Mac and cheese reads as a fries alternative on that same happy hour menu, a side built for the same casual, neighborhood pace as the burger it usually rides next to.