Photo: Mason Trinca, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Mason Trinca, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Mason Trinca, Special To The Chronicle

Sacramento heat is no joke. Weeks of temperatures in the hundreds are a grim reality. There’s palpable relief when the sun goes down and the delta breeze picks up. It’s cooler at night, and, thanks to a number of new events, it’s cooler at night.

Case in point: At Oak Park’s Gather, a lively street party held the second Thursday night of each month, city dwellers wander among regional vendor booths and food trucks while bands onstage set the atmosphere. Communal tables fill with old friends and new acquaintances.

It sounds simple, but Gather, now entering its fourth year, wouldn’t have been possible even five years ago. The city had not yet climbed out of the recession, which had stalled investment and innovation. The three-block stretch of Broadway across from Gather had not been renovated, and no one lived there.

“When (my husband) and I created (Gather), we came from an authentic place of wanting to highlight what our city has to offer,” says Maritza Davis, who launched the first event with her husband, Roshaun, four years ago. “It’s genuine to what this area needs — what any area needs: community building.”

Sacramento is in the thick of it. Public art is flourishing. There’s an underdog NBA team to root for, and superior professional theater to enjoy. The city is awash in craft beer, and the cocktail scene rates nationally. And yes, the region has developed into a farm-to-fork mecca.

It’s tough to trace the city’s recent transformation to a point of origin, but the Crocker Museum, the oldest museum in the West, is a good place to start. The museum, founded by E.B. Crocker — either one of the great robber barons of the 19th century, or a titan of industry, depending on your point of view — reinvented itself in 2010 with a new, modern wing. The expansion tripled the museum’s size and unlocked the potential for events such as courtyard performances and ArtMix, an extremely popular monthly themed party/spectacle. The event in September, for example, will feature illustrators from Marvel and Dark Horse Comics, as well as pop-up comic-book shops.

“One of the things the expansion has allowed us to do is much more specific programming targeted to specific audience groups than we could ever do in the past because we simply didn’t have the physical space to do them,” says Lial Jones, the Crocker’s executive director.

The Crocker’s evening events represent a modest fraction of the city’s outdoor nightlife scene.

Patio drinking and dining has exploded. Long-standing Spanish restaurant Tapa the World and its Middle Eastern-influenced neighbor, Kasbah, have always had sidewalk seating and patios, but others are following suit, including fine-dining mainstay Waterboy and creative midtown bistro Hook and Ladder. New patios at the rebooted Paragary’s gastropub and popular nightclub Harlow’s have become signature features.

Central to the after-hours patio scene is the R Street Corridor, a 27-block stretch of bars, restaurants and loft housing that was once a warehouse district. The 1400 block in particular — bookended by hip-hop/rock club Ace of Spades and celebrated cocktail lounge the Shady Lady — fosters resort-level energy.

“Sitting outside on patios definitely transformed R Street into a ‘go to’ nightlife experience,” says Ace of Spades manager Brett Bair. He thinks Sacramento was primed for the growth it’s currently experiencing for nearly a decade, but hindered by the economic recession.

“I’ve always viewed Sacramento as the land of opportunity,” Bair says. “I’ve lived in Los Angeles and, you know, people’s experiences in the Bay Area with house prices and the general cost of living — Sacramento doesn’t have that financial burden yet. Creative people are opening businesses here.”

More and more events are catering to that creative class. For example, Oak Park First Fridays, which started last year, offer a roving open house of the North Oak Park neighborhood. Shops and boutiques stay open later; restaurants roll out special menus and deals. And then of course there’s Gather, which other neighborhoods want to emulate.

“We’re starting to get out of those awful teenage years and say, ‘OK, we’re comfortable with who we are,’” Davis says. “People are starting to value, to love their own community. We’re onto something now.”