At Straw Hat Pizza located at 9129 Kiefer Blvd in Sacramento they have created a truly family friendly karaoke experience, a rare thing indeed in today’s karaoke culture. Every Saturday night from 7pm to 11pm you can find little children dancing around the tables as their parents sing and even the older kids and teenagers are encouraged take a turn on the microphone. The venue itself is small. The pizza parlor only has 14 tables and they fill up fast. The food is good and prices are standard for a Straw Hat pizza. The staff is friendly and helpful. Though they may not be a bar if you’re looking for a bit of liquid courage before your turn at the microphone they do serve beer. On an average night a person can sing between 5 to 6 times if they are there for the entire show. The songs chosen by the local crowd are within the country, golden oldies, and 80s genres.
The karaoke show itself is run by DJ service New Dimension Sound and hosted by KJ Rob Lewallen. KJ Rob runs the show off of a small laptop, a Mackenzie sound mixing board, and portable Yamaha speakers. The New Dimension songbook is 282 pages long and the company claims to have over 2000 songs in their selection. There is a good representation of every music genre available for selection. The only two areas that are lacking a little in selection are heavy metal and jazz.
Being in such a small venue there were some problems with music echoing off the walls and a couple feedback issues that lead me to believe that the sound system wasn’t properly calibrated for a small enclosure. Also the laptop that KJ Rob runs the show off crashed halfway through the night. Some of the regulars who attend every week indicated that the KJ has a system crash every week at about the same time, a system upgrade maybe in order.
KJ Rob was courteous about answering questions from new singers. He is willing to sing duets with those that do not have a partner, and even help bail a singer out by singing with them when they find themselves in over their head with a song. However he does not appear to do any actual mixing for each singer. On more than more occasion KJ Rob would start the song and then just walk away without adjusting the sound volume or anything else, even with new singers.
Over all if it’s a fun night out with your family that you are looking for than karaoke at Straw Hat Pizza is a good choice. However it is not recommended for diehard karaoke enthusiasts that care more about the quality of sound and KJ service than family friendliness.
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