Longtime harbor restaurant Johnny’s gets a reset with chef Jeffrey Wall and owner Ciera Kash

As soon as chef Jeffrey Wall stepped into Johnny’s Harborside’s second-story dining room overlooking the Santa Cruz Harbor, there was no doubt in his mind that he could help save the struggling 20-year-old restaurant. 

“You put good food with a view like that, it’s a shoo-in,” he said. “[Customers] just need it to be good, and they need it to be consistent.”

These were two areas Ciera Kash, a longtime part-owner of the restaurant, wanted to improve when she purchased majority shares from Dan Agostinis earlier this year, along with overall cleanliness and staff policies and procedures at the seafood-focused harbor staple. Although the restaurant hasn’t seen a significant dip due to the closure of the nearby Murray Street Bridge, like other area businesses have, sales have been uneven over the last few months. Earlier this summer, she connected with Wall, who was living in Los Angeles following his 2024 departure from Alderwood Santa Cruz, where he was the executive chef at the Michelin Guide-listed fine-dining restaurant for more than four years. 

Over the past three months, Wall and Kash have reinvented the menu and atmosphere at Johnny’s, crafting precise yet playful takes on familiar dishes like chilled shrimp Louie salad, a Dungeness crab sandwich, and fish and chips made with local halibut, while staying true to the soul of this neighborhood haunt that’s beloved by local fishers and harbor residents. 

Johnny’s never really recovered financially after the pandemic, Kash said, and had fallen into hard financial times in the years after due to inflation and increased labor costs, and the lack of a head chef. She saw the possibility of a better future for the restaurant, and knew she had to turn over a new leaf. 

“I’ve been through a lot with Johnny’s,” said Kash, who started bussing tables there when she was 19. Her family has had a stake in the restaurant since 2007, and she became a part-owner in 2018 after working at restaurants and as a pastry chef in the Lake Tahoe area. Earlier this year, she bought out Agostinis when he decided to move on. “I’ve been through eight or nine chefs, and a few general managers who promised the world and never delivered. I knew deep down that it had to be me,” she said. 

Kash reached out to Wall, whose food she admired from meals at Alderwood. The two connected over a shared passion for hospitality and vision for the menu. Wall said he knew within five minutes that Kash was a “good person” who cared deeply about the restaurant’s success and place in the community, crucial factors that swept other offers he was considering off the table. “It really came down to, what is the company about, who’s the owner, what’s the culture, and how do they treat people?” Wall said. He agreed to come on board as a consultant, and has worked with Kash to retrain the staff and create new systems to improve efficiency and the guest experience. 

It was important to him to create upscale twists on seafood classics at Johnny’s that the restaurant’s regulars would enjoy over and over again, he said. “The best advice I ever got as a chef was ‘Don’t forget that you’re cooking for the people that eat at your restaurant, not for yourself,’” said Wall. “Ultimately, people are coming to your restaurant to enjoy themselves. If they don’t want to eat it, it doesn’t matter how good it is.” 

The new menu focuses on seaside restaurant hits with star power. Wall channeled his 22 years in the fine-dining industry into making technically precise, carefully crafted dishes without any stuffiness. The Dungeness crab sandwich ($19) is a crunchy, textural delight, with a layer of thread-like shoestring potatoes that serve as an upscale twist on putting potato chips on your sandwich. The shrimp Louie salad ($29) is as classic as it comes, but every part is thoughtfully executed: well-seasoned greens, jammy hard-boiled eggs, plump prawns and a tangy-sweet Thousand Island dressing. The entree list features heavy hitters like grilled branzino ($35) amplified with a saffron-mussel sauce, and flank steak frites ($45) with chimichurri and smoked butter. 

Former guests of Alderwood and Alderwood Pacific, both now closed, will recognize some familiar dishes from those menus at Johnny’s. The calamari ($19), a mix of tubes and tentacles alongside fried jalapeños with an herby poblano vinaigrette, was a staple at Alderwood Pacific, as was the grilled avocado ($12) with kicky wasabi buttermilk dressing, and the smoked beet and kale salad ($18). 

Notably, the smash burger that rose to cult status when it was at Alderwood is available at Johnny’s, now listed as Jeffrey’s cheeseburger ($19). It’s a decadent, beefy creation layered with gooey Gruyere, sweet caramelized onions and garlic aioli. 

It would have been too expensive to close the restaurant for two weeks to completely retrain the staff, so Wall brought in some tried-and-true dishes that he knew would work and appeal to guests, he said. Plus, he and Kash believed that fans of Wall’s in the area would enjoy ordering some of their old favorites. 

But the chef’s creativity really shines on Taco Tuesdays, when Johnny’s puts aside its regular menu in favor of a collection of Mexican specials. Although Wall inherited this weekly tradition, he took a straightforward list of common Mexican dishes and ran miles and miles away with it, ultimately resulting in the most delightful and thoughtful compositions I’ve ever eaten off of a tortilla. 

“I put a lot of effort into that menu,” said Wall. “If I’m going to do something, I’m not going to half-step it. If we’re going to do Taco Tuesday, it’s all or nothing.”

Among the list of 10 à la carte tacos, there are no losers, from buttery grilled diver scallops ($8) with cooling cucumber pico de gallo and cilantro-heavy guacamole, to a rich birria de res vampiro ($7) on a cheese-crusted tortilla.

The carnivorous filet mignon taco with bone marrow ($12) is a knockout. I’ve seen all manner of innards and gizzards in a taco, from tongue to stomach to spleen, but nothing so decadent and utterly beefy as scooping marrow from the bone over medium-rare steak, with warm, bursting heirloom tomatoes and addictive, crunchy salsa macha – Mexico’s version of chili crisp. 

The vegetarian chile relleno taco ($8) is equally as memorable, with roasted poblano chiles nestled around mozzarella stick-like fried pepper jack, with a crackling exterior and gooey center and sweet corn salsa. The rabbit enchiladas ($27) smothered in deep, dark mole negro are hearty and complex, and worth returning for. Wall makes the mole with the help of a mole madre that one of his cooks brought him from Mexico City. Like a sourdough starter, the mole madre contains a bit of every mole that it was made from, and is used to start a new mole. “You can’t put a price on stuff like that,” said Wall, who was honored by his cook’s gift. “His grandmother had it, then his mother, and now him. There’s so much love there.”

Service was overall attentive, but there’s room for some improvement. During one meal, one of my guests bit into a bad oyster. It’s a unpleasant risk that anyone eating raw shellfish takes, but our server wasn’t very sympathetic. They offered a brief apology, and cleared the shells away without much comment. Although we had eaten the others, it would have been nice for them to smooth things over with a round of dessert or drinks, or to strike the oysters from the bill. 

There are more updates on the horizon. Wall is working some locally caught fish into the menu that he can access consistently, like rockfish and halibut, purchased from Johnny’s downstairs neighbor, H&H Fresh Fish Co. Kash is also talking to the owners of H&H about possibly hosting some pop-ups this fall outside of the fish market at the edge of the harbor. 

The bar is a central feature of Johnny’s, and Wall hinted that it would become the focal point for updates at some point in the future, but he wouldn’t share any details. 

With Wall, Kash said she’s honored to steward Johnny’s into a new phase of life. “It’s always been a blend of the chef and their taste, and making sure the locals love it. That’s the most important thing,” she said. 

493 Lake Ave., Santa Cruz; 831-479-3430; johnnyharborside.com. 

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