Quick Take
Following the pandemic revival in 2022, 2023 was a slow and difficult year for many Santa Cruz County restaurants. As we enter 2024, some business owners might attempt to lure budget-conscious customers in with more affordable menus and special events.
After three years of low lows and high highs in the Santa Cruz County dining scene, 2023 was kind of a bummer.
It wasn’t as bad as 2020 and 2021, when food businesses strained against the crushing weight of pandemic restrictions. For those that survived, a hungry public eager to get out of the house and let loose came rushing back in 2022. Dining rooms filled up fast and if customers didn’t make dinner reservations – even on a weeknight – they were often out of luck. Meanwhile, a flood of new pop-ups and food trucks opened, carving out space on the dining scene for adventurous chefs and eaters.
By comparison, things slowed way down in 2023. A few notable food businesses launched and dug in roots, including chef Jessica Yarr’s charming, plant-forward café The Grove in Felton. In April, Firefly Tavern, a gastropub, opened in the former 99 Bottles spot in downtown Santa Cruz. In October, acclaimed sommelier and hospitality entrepreneur Mark Bright opened Saison Wine Bar & Cellar in Scotts Valley. In November, two former pop-ups teamed up to open La Marea Café in Capitola Village. The Midway, chef Katherine Stern’s anticipated brick-and-mortar restaurant, welcomed customers for a soft opening in the last week of December.
The highly anticipated Alderwood Pacific, a casual sister to Alderwood Santa Cruz – the only restaurant in Santa Cruz that’s noted in the prestigious Michelin Guide – opened in February, only to close abruptly at the end of September without explanation.
Some of the biggest openings this year were actually reopenings: Venus Spirits Cocktails & Kitchen Beachside reopened in July after an extensive remodel of the old Café Rio space on the Rio Del Mar esplanade, and 11-year-old Lago di Como made a splashy reentry in March under new co-ownership.
But in 2023, closures made headlines more often than openings. It’s difficult to say why. For some restaurants, like Golden Chinese, whose owners retired after 22 years on Jan. 1, the time had simply come to move on.
For others, the reasons are less clear, although some business owners blamed a struggling economy, inflated prices and growing cost-consciousness among consumers.
Stern sees the cost of living as a big reason restaurant prices have gone up. Santa Cruz County was listed as the least affordable market in the nation in 2023, and as a result, restaurant payroll has gone up. “We want to pay people enough to live here and be employed here, and restaurants need to raise prices in order to do that,” says Stern. “That’s hard for customers — it’s hard for me as a customer. But the cost to produce things in a restaurant is really high.”
Following the closure of its Aptos location in August 2022, Burger in Santa Cruz shut down without notice in April after more than a decade. A few months later just down Mission Street, Emily’s Bakery closed after 41 years. In September, chef Anthony Kresge closed Reef Dog Deli, his café in Capitola, although he said he hopes to reopen at a more suitable location.
Following the sudden demise of Alderwood Pacific, vegan-friendly downtown restaurant Café GSC (formerly Café Gratitude) closed in October, citing financial difficulties. In November, long-standing Pleasure Point breakfast spot Cliff Café announced it would serve its last meal at the end of the month, and in Santa Cruz, family-owned Italian restaurant Ristorante Italiano closed suddenly after 41 years. At the end of the year, downtown Santa Cruz’s Café Mare came under new ownership; the Front Street restaurant is closed for a remodel and will reopen under a new name and concept.
The weather was also unkind to restaurants in 2023. In January, restaurants in Capitola Village and in the Santa Cruz Mountains were hit hard by storms. In the mountains, road closures from mudslides and lengthy power outages made serving customers difficult for businesses like Casa Nostra in Ben Lomond.
Along the coast, restaurants in the village suffered extensive damage from wave surges that ripped through buildings. It took weeks or even months for waterfront restaurants to reopen, and meanwhile nearby businesses that were physically unharmed reported lost income from a significant drop in tourism. Some of these same businesses were damaged again by similar wave surges at the end of December, although most were able to reopen after a few days.
The craft beer community experienced a shakeup, too. Humble Sea Brewing closed the Humble Sea Tavern, its restaurant in Felton, in August, while almost simultaneously opening its third taproom location in Alameda. Live Oak’s Greater Purpose Brewing Co. closed in July after three years in business. In August, Balefire Brewing opened in the same space. In Watsonville, Buena Vista Brewing Co. purchased The Slough Brewing Collective. In Scotts Valley, the owner of Faultline Brewing purchased San Francisco-based Laughing Monk Brewery, and decided to merge the two brands and retire the Faultline name. The shakeup continued into 2024 with the Jan. 3 announcement that Adair Paterno, the owner of Capitola-based brewery Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, and Brad Clark, owner of Private Press Brewing in Santa Cruz, purchased Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing on the Westside.
What could this mean for 2024?
Some restaurant owners are trimming their sails to the economic winds and looking for new ways to get budget-wary customers through the door. Many are offering exclusive culinary events in order to entice diners with a unique experience, like themed meals and wine- and beer-paired dinners.
“You have to be super creative right now to get people out to eat,” Sean Venus told Lookout in December. Venus owns four storefronts in Santa Cruz County: Venus Spirits, a Westside distillery; two restaurants, Venus Spirits Cocktails & Kitchen in Santa Cruz and Venus Spirits Cocktails & Kitchen Beachside in Aptos; and Venus Pie Trap, a café in Rio Del Mar. He thinks that because of the economy and high interest rates, customers are tightening their budgets and are more cost-conscious: “So we try to do things that are special, like a really great happy hour, to try to get people to come out and enjoy it at anyone’s budget.”
Others will try to lure people back in with lower prices. More special weeknight combo deals are probably on the horizon – expect to see more Taco Tuesdays and Wine Wednesdays.
Diners also might see more “nose to tail” gastronomy on menus, with chefs using more parts of the animal instead of just the choicest steaks and tenderloins. The price for wholesale beef went up more than 25% between November 2022 and November 2023, and the price of chicken went up 18.6%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In order to lower prices, chefs could use more affordable options like liver and beef cheeks. If you see more chicken liver mousse and oxtail stew on local menus, this could be why.
In that same vein, chefs might focus on plant-forward, vegetarian and vegan cuisine. This would allow them to put the focus on Santa Cruz County’s unparalleled agricultural bounty while keeping prices low.
For some local chefs like Stern using locally grown produce is already a way of life. “I just get so excited about vegetables. Probably more so than meat,” says Stern. “There’s just so much more variety there.”
FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this story said Ristorante Avanti closed; it is open.
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