Morning at the Silver Spur — where old-line Santa Cruz goes for breakfast

If, for whatever reason, you need to find Bob Henkel, you can skip the detective work. All you have to do is show up in the morning at the Silver Spur in Soquel. Because like eggs, bacon and pancakes, Bob is at the Spur every day.

Wait … every single day?

“Every single day,” he says, grinning, next to his wife, Chris, and a couple of friends at his accustomed table. “I’m either here at 6,” he says, “or there at 7.” He points to the neighboring table. This dude refers to the tables in waiter shorthand, by their designated numbers. Now, that is a regular.

That every-day thing includes, incredibly, holidays when the restaurant is closed. See, Bob gets the same thing every morning — crispy corned beef, plate of sliced tomatoes, pancakes with real maple syrup. In the past, he says (and Chris confirms it), he has shown up on a holiday at the Spur to find a to-go container with his crispy corned beef for him to enjoy at home. 

Not every regular — actually, not any regular — can match Bob’s devotion to the Silver Spur, but this is the kind of place that people come back to back again and again, day after day, year after year. Saturday mornings at the Spur are generally the busiest, and when I dropped in one recent Saturday morning, the place was bursting with customers, many of them waiting in the parking lot. It was a challenge to find anyone who was visiting for the first time.

People come here for the food, sure — robust, honest, unfussy, as American as a cowboy hat. But it’s more than that. This world, and especially our little part of the world, seems to be undergoing big and shifting changes that are often unsettling. And, at more than 60 years old, the Silver Spur oozes enduring, unchanging, profoundly familiar community roots. It feels like a granite boulder when everything else is shifting sands.

Dan and Janice Kraft, for instance, a few tables over from the Henkels, estimate that they first came to the Spur 57 years ago — we’re talking the LBJ years, folks. Dan, who has a collection of Silver Spur coffee mugs at home, tells me that the owner in those days was a crusty old guy named Art who smoked a lot, was famous for his apple pie, and “wouldn’t put up with anybody complaining when he had to raise prices on the menu.”

There is, however, one former owner of the Spur who stands above all others. Her name is Linda Hopper, and, though she died in 2022, her name is evoked on the front of the Spur’s menu to this day. Linda was something of a restaurant savant in Santa Cruz County, having run and managed a handful of beloved diner-style places such as the Sunrise Cafe in Soquel VIllage, the now-defunct Danny’s Diner (a short stroll up Soquel Drive from the Spur) and her namesake Linda’s Seabreeze Cafe in Seabright. Her style was straightforward Americana — great food, generous portions, relaxed atmosphere, neighborhood oriented. She wasn’t after Michelin stars; she wanted to create meaningful social connections. And the Spur was the culmination of her vision.

Hopper sold the Spur in 2019, and the new owner, understandably perhaps, made some changes. They weren’t radical changes, per se. But the new ownership and the pandemic caused an abrupt break between the Spur and many of its diehards. When the current ownership team — father-son duo Juan Valencia and Daniel Govea — came on board, their strategy was to re-create the Silver Spur just as Linda Hopper had run it, even bringing back the same menu.

I’m standing in the kitchen at the Spur, which on a Saturday morning is kind of like standing on a roller derby track in the middle of a match. Juan Valencia is talking about orange rolls. The Silver Spur is perhaps most famous for its orange rolls and cinnamon rolls, both of which were established by Linda. Juan worked for Linda back in the day, and now as the boss, he’s carrying on some of her signature dishes, such as the sweet rolls and bread pudding. (You can find cinnamon rolls elsewhere in Santa Cruz County, but the Spur’s orange rolls, the handiwork of Sylvia Garcia and Juan, might be unique in the Monterey Bay.) “We’re making them two or three times a week,” says Juan. “People really love ’em.”

On the busiest weekend days, the Silver Spur serves up to 300 plates for breakfast and lunch, and sells about 200 pancakes a day. 

In the dining room, everybody loves the food, but they want to talk about something else. “See that table right there,” said Santa Cruz born-and-raised Jeff Jolin, pointing to a large table next to where he and friend Eileen Altman — “this place is great for people-watching,” she says — are waiting for their breakfast. “That table right there in the community table,” he says. “Linda used to keep that open for [strangers] to sit together and get to know each other.”

Jeff says he’s been coming to the Spur nearly every Saturday morning, and often during the week as well, for 15 years or so. He has an intriguing theory about the restaurant. He works as a contractor and, he said, for whatever reason, the breakfasts he enjoys at the Spur give him more energy and drive in his work than the breakfasts he makes at home. “And I see [other people in the construction trades] here all the time,” he says, “and I just wonder how many buildings and houses and construction projects all started with breakfast here. How much of Santa Cruz did this place build?”

At the counter sits Lee Collings, one of the few regulars who doesn’t date back to the days of Linda Hopper. From the moment that Lee moved from over to hill to Aptos just three years ago, he embarked on a search for a local diner he could call his own. For a year, he just wandered around trying places and walking away unsatisfied, or at least half-satisfied. Then he got a tip about the Silver Spur. Since his first experience at the Spur, he drops in now about three times a week. The Spur is a good fit for folks who fit Lee’s profile, those who will often eat alone but who nevertheless like to socialize and meet people. “The food is good, but it’s the people here,” he says. “I mean, they’re wonderful.”

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.