If you're a UCSC student, new to town, those occasional parental visitations might prove to be more stressful than necessary if you don't know exactly where to take your loved ones. An afternoon at Pergolesi might not be quite right if your parents don't appreciate the company of greasy haired youths preoccupied with body art and the first Arcade Fire album. Here are a few suggestions to help maintain parental relations, and impress them with your beautiful and cultured new town.

HOFFMAN'S BAKERY CAFE

For breakfast, lunch, dinner and desert, Hoffman's provides easily recognizable, parent-friendly foods, great for people who know "Thai" has something to do with a country but would prefer to keep it out of their diet. The spinach salad is fresh and basic, and they have a nifty tea selection to boot.

99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL

This bar and restaurant has a good, lively atmosphere, where an exotic beer, or two, or seven, might create an easy passage through which to steer conversation away from the statistics class you've just failed for the third time, and into friendlier pastures. There really are 99 types of beer here, so the beverage menu alone will be conversational fodder to float you through at least half of your meal. But if you're a regular here, just don't let your folks spy your name mounted in the form of a little plaque on the wall for having tasted every one of the 99, unless your name is conveniently John Smith or something.

NEW LEAF COMMUNITY MARKET

While strolling down Pacific Avenue with the aunts, uncles and cousins visiting from Kansas or wherever, this market can serve as a great opportunity to share the concept "organic" with them. Though this location can prove to be a little pricey, the produce can be purchased individually, as opposed to whatever scheme Trader Joe's is trying to pull on us by shrink-wrapping everything and forcing customers to purchase no less than four bell-peppers at a time.

MARTHA BENEDICT, ACUPUNCTURIST

The folks had a long journey, they're tired, their immune system is down and they feel sick from that crazy ride you took them on at the boardwalk. If we just stick some needles in you, this'll fix you right up. Located in the same building as the Literary Guillotine, Martha Benedict is a friendly, intelligent acupuncturist who knows her stuff, and will most likely be able to see a new patient that day or the next.

LOGOS BOOKS AND RECORDS

A good place to kill half the day, Logos offers an amazing breadth of both new and used books. Drop Dad off in the bargain cookbook section, leave Mom in martial arts and point little Tommy in the direction of erotica, thus freeing you up for the next three hours at least to overtake the metaphysics section by storm and exacerbate your budding enthusiasm for Cabala.

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