Welcome to Lily Belli on Food, a weekly food-focused newsletter from Lookout’s food and drink correspondent, Lily Belli. Keep reading for the latest local food news for Santa Cruz County – plus a few fun odds and ends from my own life and around the web.
… Measure Z, Santa Cruz’s beverage tax, won’t go into effect until May 1 (or later, if the beverage industry’s promise to sue ties the new law up in litigation), but one Santa Cruz restaurant owner is ready to cut ties with soda altogether. Starting this month, Charlie Hong Kong, a health-focused fast-casual restaurant in Midtown, will phase out sugary drinks.
When owner Carolyn Rudolph saw that despite ferocious spending by the opposition, a majority of Santa Cruz voters supported Measure Z, 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 told me, and replace them with mineral water with no or low sugar, like LaCroix sparkling water.
“The community voted for health. Let’s vote for health,” said Rudolph, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Rudy. Read the full story here.
… Sitting down for a meal at Linda’s Seabreeze Cafe in the Seabright neighborhood is an iconic Santa Cruz experience. In August, the 35-year-old restaurant came under new ownership for the first time in 26 years. Marcie Bei Magdaleno and her husband, Mark Magdaleno, purchased the beloved breakfast and lunch spot from Tex and Claire Hintze.
Bei Magdaleno is no stranger to the local restaurant industry; her family ran the DeLaveaga Lodge Restaurant for more than 40 years, and has been a customer at Linda’s since she was a kid. She told me she plans to keep the Seabreeze the same – while slowly incorporating a few popular dishes from DeLaveaga onto the menu. Here’s the story.
… Downtown Santa Cruz restaurant Mad Yolks is expanding over the hill. The sunny, egg-themed hot spot is preparing to open a second location at 1087 Meridian Ave. in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. The opening timeline is TBD.
Mad Yolks opened on Pacific Avenue at the end of 2022, and has earned a cult following in just two years for its egg sandwiches on fluffy homemade brioche buns, tasty matcha and fruit-infused teas, and hearty snacks like tater tots smothered in Japanese curry with furikake seasoning. Brothers Henry and Peter Wong own Mad Yolks, and also opened Poke House just up the street in 2017. Congrats!
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Dungeness crab season will remain closed in California through the end of December, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday. Whale entanglements in fishing gear are at a six-year high, and nonprofit group Oceana called for “stronger measures” to protect wildlife.
Only one local market, H&H Fresh Fish Co. in the Santa Cruz Harbor, currently has crabs imported from Washington state, where the season is open. Other Santa Cruz County markets might bring in crab for the holidays, while others say they’ll wait for the season to open locally later this winter. Here’s the update.
NOTED
Last week, farmer Dick Peixoto, owner of Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville, received the 2024 Grower of the Year Award at the Organic Grower Summit in Monterey. Peixoto is a third-generation farmer, and grows more than 50 organic commodities in Watsonville and Southern California, which are distributed across the U.S. and Canada.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Celebrate New Year’s Eve Scottish-style at Steel Bonnet Brewing Co., Scotts Valley’s Scottish craft brewery, on Dec. 31 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. The pub is throwing a Hogmanay celebration with live music, fresh oysters and a toast to “auld lang syne,” which means “days gone by” in Scots, at 4 p.m. – that’s midnight in Scotland.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
A few weeks ago, I shared how cooking with my 3-year-old son, Marco, is a joy now that he can follow instructions and is more physically capable. Not so for my 20-month-old daughter, Cecilia. She also wants to help Mama and her brother in the kitchen, but has firmly entered her “agent of chaos” phase. I can’t turn my back on her for a moment or she’ll pour my coffee into the oatmeal, grab wads of raw dough to fist into her mouth, or grab the paring knife I accidentally left within her reach (is there anything more terrifying than a baby with a knife??). This morning, I turned to flip some pancakes, and when I turned around she had poured half a bottle of maple syrup onto the butcher block and was licking it off of her hands. Why do I even bother with coffee in the morning, when I have an almost-2-year-old to spike my body with adrenaline?
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Starting next week, raw milk will be tested for bird flu in six states, including California, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Infectious disease experts have called for expanded testing since the beginning of the outbreak to protect the animals and any humans who could become sickened, and control the spread of the disease. (The Mercury News)
➤ Tips may fluctuate, but restaurant workers are earning more than they did last year, according to data released this week. Base wages increased this year, and now account for a larger amount of service workers’ paychecks than gratuities. (NBC News)