Quick Take
The Alley Oop, a sophisticated cocktail lounge, is opening Friday at 320 Cedar St. in the former Poet & Patriot space next to Kuumbwa Jazz after a three-year renovation. Owner Max Turigliatto hopes the speakeasy-style bar, which serves vintage cocktails, wine and shareable small plates, will complement the music venue and bring a refined nightlife option to that end of downtown Santa Cruz.
A New Orleans-inspired cocktail lounge is preparing to open inside a former neighborhood pub, breathing new life into a culturally vital corner of downtown Santa Cruz.
On Friday, the Alley Oop will open at 320 Cedar St., next door to Kuumbwa Jazz, with a menu of mixed drinks, wine, Champagne and small plates. Owner Max Turigliatto has spent the past three years transforming the space into an intimate speakeasy-style spot.
After a long renovation held up by a difficult permitting process, he said he’s excited to finally welcome the public. The space held The Poet & The Patriot Irish pub for decades until it closed in 2020.
“It’s time to activate it,” he said. Starting Friday, the Alley Oop will be open every day from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
The lounge is intended to complement nearby Kuumbwa Jazz, with which it shares a small parking lot off of Cedar Street known as Theater Square. Turigliatto played drums in a cover band when he was a teenager and participated in Kuumbwa’s jazz camps as a kid, so he knows the small but mighty concert venue well. Hopefully, it will “give a little bit of romance to that side of downtown,” he told Lookout in 2023.
The Alley Oop was crafted with music lovers in mind as a place to stop by for a drink and a snack before or after a show. He also hopes to attract a date-night crowd, or anyone seeking an elevated bar experience, without any pretension. “We’re Santa Cruz meets a New York City basement bar meets Chicago speakeasy,” he said.
The menu is composed of small plates designed to be shared by two people, and include New Orleans-inspired items like prawns remoulade, snacks like olives and “Jazz Alley” chicken wings, and more substantial items like a burger and lamb chops. “We’re a cocktail lounge with food, not a restaurant with cocktails,” Turigliatto clarified, with everything designed to be enjoyed with a drink.
The beverage menu is “grape-forward,” he said, and emphasizes liquors like brandy, cognac and eau de vie, Champagne cocktails, French and Italian still and sparkling wines, and wines from acclaimed Ridge Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Vintage cocktails like Clover Clubs, Sazeracs and New York sours are also on the list, as well as alcohol-free cocktails and beer.
This is the second time that Turigliatto has revived a weathered drinking establishment. In 2019, he and business partner Grant Staudt purchased Ye Old Watering Hole on Mission Street in Santa Cruz’s Westside neighborhood. They renamed it Mission West, and updated it to attract a broader audience with quality liquor, craft beer, house-made cocktails and community events. In January, they sold Mission West to Santa Cruz real estate agents and former customers Krista and Peter Cook.
Guests can make reservations at the Alley Oop through the bar’s website, and Turigliatto aims to start a wine and cocktail club later in the year. He hopes that the bar will inject a bit of sophistication into the south end of downtown: “There’s nothing like it.”
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