Whale City Aptos brings beloved Davenport restaurant to Mid-County

More than a year after its original intended opening date, Whale City Bakery finally greeted its first customers at its new Aptos location on Tuesday. This is the second location for the Davenport bakery and restaurant, an important stop on Highway 1 since the 1980s. 

Fans of the original Whale City will feel right at home at the new spot, located inside the former Burger on Soquel Drive, and not just because of a familiar bright yellow and purple exterior. The menu at Whale City Aptos is very similar to its sister, with all-day breakfast, sandwiches, burgers and salads – straightforward, mostly American-inspired fare that offers few frills but is nonetheless satisfying. 

Although it lacks a bakery, a selection of pastries and breakfast treats are delivered daily from Davenport. The owners plan to add a baking area at some point in the future, manager Geraldine Valdovinos said in Spanish. She spoke to Lookout with the help of an interpreter. Both Whale City locations are owned by Jimmy Armas, who purchased the Davenport location in 2021 from Stephanie and Kristen Raugust. The couple owned and ran the iconic eatery for 34 years. 

Whale City Aptos also serves beer and wine, and is open seven days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breakfast is served all day, and a lunch/dinner menu is available starting at 11 a.m. during the week and 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. 

It took more than a year to finish extensive remodels of the dining room, bathrooms and kitchen, and to train enough staff to capably manage the large restaurant. “Everything is new,” said Valdovinos. 

Whale City Aptos was nearly full on opening day. The interior has been totally remodeled since Burger vacated suddenly in 2022. (Burger’s Santa Cruz location, at Mission Street and Bay Avenue, closed a year later, and there’s no word yet on any new business moving in there.) Now, the dining room feels bright and open. Skylights funnel sunshine through high ceilings, and the wide brick wall across from the eight-seat bar adds warmth to the industrial-style design. The seating area is irregularly shaped, which creates smaller rooms within the larger one, and no doubt helps absorb some of the noise in such a large space. 

A roomy outdoor patio overlooks the forested ravine behind the restaurant, covered in shade structures for the rare warm day in Aptos. 

On a recent visit, the service was attentive, friendly and relaxed – my water glass never dropped below half-full. There are always kinks to work out over the first few weeks at any new business, and my lunch took a while to get out. A few minutes later, my server noticed the wait, investigated, and then quickly delivered my meal. The kitchen team is led by Francisco Chagollan, who has been the cook at Whale City Bakery for more than 25 years. 

On this menu, as in Davenport, classics are king. The fat, glossy-lidded 4-Mile Burger, named after a beach 4 miles north of Santa Cruz on Highway 1, came topped with charred leeks, sauteed mushrooms and melted Jack cheese, with the usual pickle-onion-tomato-lettuce and fries. The mild, oniony leeks were a springy touch to an otherwise standard, but very good, burger. 

At Whale City Aptos, the team hopes to bring a little bit of the northern part of our coast to Mid-County, says Valdovinos, and to share the dishes that the Davenport restaurant is known for, like fish & chips, calamari and fresh pastries. “Davenport is a small area that not too many people know about, but it’s an important part of Santa Cruz County,” she said. “We want to keep the long history of Whale City going, and share it with Aptos.” 

7941 Soquel Dr., Aptos; whalecityaptos.com.

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