Santa Cruz County will find no reprieve from the rain after damaging storms rolled through the region on New Year’s Eve; another storm system, forecasted to be more severe, is expected to arrive Wednesday.
Coast Life
Posted inFood & Drink
Chef Jessica Yarr to open new café in Felton
Jessica Yarr of Chicken Foot and the Brunch Shift aims to open a family-friendly café and bakery in downtown Felton by March.
Posted inFood & Drink
Chill Out Café, Golden City Chinese close after 20-plus years
After 25 and 22 years, respectively, Pleasure Point burrito shack Chill Out Café and family-owned Golden City Chinese in Santa Cruz closed at the end of 2022.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Santa Cruz County 2023: Inside Wallace Baine’s crystal ball of predictions and prophecies
With a new year upon us, Wallace turns to his favorite drag-queen psychic, the Fabulous Ms. Claire Voyant, to peer into the unknown … and goodness, did Ms. Claire have some visions about name-change fervor across the county, the new downtown library, fashion plate Fred Keeley and plenty more.
Posted inCity Life
As fentanyl crisis surges, pilot project aims to get Narcan into Santa Cruz County bars and nightclubs
The SafeRx project aims to distribute Narcan to six local bars, three in North County and three in South County. The organization has successfully partnered with one establishment thus far, the Slough Brewing Collective in Watsonville, and hopes to collaborate with several more in the new year.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Remembrance 2022: Santa Cruz County looks back at those we lost
In the final chapter of his series remembering prominent members of the Santa Cruz County community who died in 2022, Wallace Baine spotlights a barber-author, artists, activists, an academic and more.
Posted inCoast Life
California taxes, regulations are killing small legal weed farms the state vowed to help
Small operators across California’s legal cannabis market say government taxes, fees and regulations are threatening their survival.
Posted inWatsonville / Pajaro
Unsung Santa Cruz: From her home, she organizes a food distribution program for fellow migrant farmworkers
Ernestina Solorio gives her home and her time to ensure farmworker families receive essential items they urgently need.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Unsung Santa Cruz: Tonje Switzer’s ‘condoned activism’ helps others through long-term CZU recovery
Bonny Doon resident Tonje Switzer has turned the experience of her home burning down in the CZU fire into a way to help others through post-fire recovery. “Her story,” says one person who knows it, “is one of a clear-eyed motivation to succeed in values-driven work, leaving a trail of people better off, and community better built, in her wake.”
Posted inFood & Drink
Longtime food & drink columnist Christina Waters switching gears
“I can now expand my arts writing free from the insistent pace of the weekly column,” Christina Waters says of what’s ahead after some 35 years at local alt-weeklies.