Quick Take
Santa Cruz’s tax on sugary beverages won’t go into effect until May 1, but Charlie Hong Kong owner Carolyn Rudolph decided to stop serving soda at her Soquel Avenue restaurant in response to the community’s support of the bill. The fast-casual South Asian-inspired Midtown eatery will phase out soda next month, and replace it with mineral water with low or no sugar added.
The City of Santa Cruz’s soda tax is set to go into effect on May 1, but one Santa Cruz restaurant owner is ready to cut ties with sugary drinks as soon as possible.
When Carolyn Rudolph saw that despite ferocious spending by the opposition, a majority of Santa Cruz voters supported Measure Z, the city’s sugary-beverage tax, she took it as a sign that local residents agree with what she’s known for years: Sugar is bad for your health. In response, she decided to remove sodas from her restaurant’s menu, something she has wanted to do “for a long time,” she said.
Starting this month, Charlie Hong Kong, a health-focused fast-casual restaurant in Midtown, will phase out sodas. Instead, Rudolph plans to replace them with mineral waters with no or very low sugar added, like LaCroix sparkling water. The restaurant announced the decision on its Facebook and Instagram pages on Nov. 25.
“The community voted for health. Let’s vote for health,” said Rudolph, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Rudy.
Measure Z is the first soda tax passed in the U.S. since 2018. It earned 52.35% support, despite being outspent by the corporate soda lobby 50 to 1 ($2 million to $40,000). The law adds a 2-cents-per-fluid-ounce tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverages. However, the American Beverage Association has vowed to fight the tax in court, claiming it is illegal under a state law that prevents local governments from raising taxes on grocery products.
Charlie Hong Kong currently stocks Boylan Bottling Co. soda, made with cane sugar, and Bundaberg ginger beer as soda options, all of which have around 40 grams of sugar per 12-ounce bottle. Once the current supply runs out – probably in January, said manager Sam Rudolph, Carolyn and Rudy’s son – the restaurant won’t restock them.
The restaurant also offers homemade lemonade, and hibiscus and ginger iced tea, both made with a “scant amount” of organic cane sugar, said Carolyn, and hot herbal tea, which doesn’t contain sugar. These drinks will remain on the menu. Charlie Hong Kong is also keeping coconut water in stock, because despite the beverage containing 17 grams of sugar per 10.8-ounce serving, there’s no added sugar and it contains electrolytes, minerals and other health benefits.
“Our goal is no added sugar at all. If it’s fruit juice or natural sugar, that’s fine, but we’re trying to keep it to zero added sugar,” said Sam.
Around half of the restaurant’s customers buy a soda with their meal, so the Rudolphs expect some might be disappointed about the decision. “I think some people will be upset, others will be fine and others will be indifferent. Any time you make a change, that happens,” said Sam. At first, he resisted Carolyn’s suggestion to stop serving sodas because he saw that customers enjoyed them, but the passage of Measure Z tipped the decision in Carolyn’s favor.
“The customers want the sodas, but we’re a health restaurant,” said Carolyn. “They can get them somewhere else.”
Despite the eatery’s small size, Charlie Hong Kong has been at the forefront of the local health food movement for more than 25 years. The 600-square-foot restaurant uses all organic vegetables sourced from Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville for its Southeast Asian-inspired street food menu of rice bowls, noodle bowls and sandwiches. It also serves organic tofu, organic farm-raised salmon, free-range chicken and hormone- and antibiotic-free pork. Most of the recipes contain no or very low sugar, and the menu has many vegan and gluten-free options.
The cooks use rice bran oil, considered a more healthful oil, and only in small amounts, according to Carolyn. The restaurant stopped using single-use plastic containers in 2011, three years before the state banned single-use plastic bags in 2014.
It’s not the first time the Rudolphs made a controversial decision, either; Charlie Hong Kong stopped serving beef earlier this year because they feel the significant environmental impact of beef production is not in line with the restaurant’s environmental values.
While some customers might miss having a root beer with their Spicy Dan’s Peanut Delight, Carolyn has also spoken to others who are shocked to learn how much sugar is in a soda. “People are very unaware of the content of sugar when they buy a soda. They don’t look. I’ve started mentioning it to people, and they’re like, what?” said Carolyn.
She said the taxes on sugar are reminiscent of once-controversial taxes on tobacco. “I think sugar is going to go the way of cigarettes. When they brought attention to cigarettes and started taxing them, it made a difference,” said Carolyn. “Sugar is not good for our bodies. I want Charlie Hong Kong to be a community space where people come to be nourished.”
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