I wanted to talk to a visiting chef friend about his Sunday trip to the Land of Medicine Buddha retreat center and Forest of Nisene Marks State Park.
No go.
He just wanted to talk about Adorable French Bistro (which partners with Vino Cruz at 4901 Soquel Drive, Soquel).
“The almond twists!” he shouted.
The rough news there: They’re getting a surprise exit—according to co-owner Nicolas Lossky, “They leased it to someone else!”—just as they were gathering traction with the area’s audience, after moving in and teaming up with Vino Cruz this fall.
Their last day—at this location only, more on that in a minute—is April 27.
The redeeming news, fortunately, is two-fold.
One, Adorable Soquel will host “moving parties,” on consecutive weekends—April 19–20 and 26–27—with special treats, including slow-cooked lamb for Easter, and standard hours (7am–9pm daily), with bakery-in-the-morning, bistro-by-night fare.
“Basically it’s a last call for this location,” Lossky says.
Good news nugget number two is where his emphasis comes from. Adorable French Bakery is nothing less than a farmers market juggernaut in the region, serving two dozen outposts. And, importantly, Vino Cruz will export its complementary curated wines to Adorable’s Scotts Valley bistro in the former Malone’s Grille (4402 Scotts Valley Drive, Scotts Valley), which also debuted this fall.
That will open promptly after the Soquel Vino Cruz concludes, namely April 28. adorablefrenchbakery.com
LIGHTS TO DARK (AND STORMY)
CT Lights Lounge has headed off to the heavens, which means the spot that once housed Firefly Tavern and 99 Bottles of Beer (110 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz) has seen a lot of turnover of late. Next up is The Salty Otter Sports Grill, and a major reason to believe it’ll swim rather than sink: Its owners have a sister marine mammal across the bay in The Salty Seal Brewpub & Sports Bar (653 Cannery Row, Monterey) which balances tourists and locals with a nice regimen of live music and Caribbean-inspired house specialties like the tasty Bermuda-style fish chowder, a nod to the owner’s home island, and a robust Dark and Stormy with Goslings Black Seal black rum. Opening date TBD, saltysealpub.com.
NOW AND THEN
The new Sunday brunch by Emerald Mallard at Humble Sea Tavern (6256 Highway 9, Felton) is getting made over in the lab and debuting early next month, complete with ambitious breakfast cocktails by the Humble Sea lions. (Look for more on that here soon.) Meanwhile breakfast smash burgers are available all day Sunday, and standard food-service hours continue 4–8pm Thursday Friday, noon–4pm, 5:15–8pm Saturday, 9am–4pm Sunday with constantly changing items like steak tartare, raw Mallard-style oysters and specialty smashies (on top of the OG and fried chicken), emeraldmallard.com. Meanwhile, over at Humble’s Westside flagship spot (820 Swift St., Santa Cruz) Trivia Night unlocks wisdom and giggles every Wednesday in the Seacret Garden, complete with its own taps, humblesea.com.
LOOSE NOODLES
Don’t go for the food and drink, but backflip over the hill to San Jose to see Cirque du Soleil’s ECHO for the eye-popping contortionist, aerobats suspended by their hair, teeterboard insanity launches into the ether, flying pole acrobats and soaring trapeze work, all done with lushly artistic costume, stage/set and live song and music, appearing through May 11, cirquedusoleil.com…The happy hour at Hook & Line (105 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz) gets sustainable seafood fans revved up for the likes of seafood chowder with mussels, Manila clams and black cod by way of options like brut reserve Cava ($11), Discretion Brewery lager ($8) and Pink’s pineapple Margarita ($12), eathookandline.com…Hammock Cafe (110 Cooper St., Suite 100G, Santa Cruz) now crafts a Jing King elixir made with ants who ate ginseng their entire lives, roxa.hammock.cafe on IG…Rick Ross, play us out (and are we still talking about the same thing?): “I ain’t gonna lie: I love that cheese.”
