Deafening silence. Original copy. Random order. Awfully good.
Friendly fire, passive aggressive, organized chaos, small crowd, clearly confused, bittersweet. And, yup, jumbo shrimp and Microsoft Works too.
What’s your favorite oxymoron? As you may have diagnosed, I have a few, but two top choices would be “classy dive bar” and “playing with your food.”
Those are on my mind of late because 1) Mission West (2405 Mission St., Santa Cruz) represents a recent revelation to me, and has fresh ownership coming in (while its outgoing owners develop a new downtown watering hole); and 2) relatively new d20 Pizza (1520 Mission St., Santa Cruz, in the former Burger) has a good thing going just down the block.
Mission West packs in the people with reasonable price points, well-curated spirits and an old-school simplicity.
Max Turigliatto and Grant Staudt helped convert it from a scrappier iteration of unapologetic diveyness—as The Watering Hole—to what it is today. Now they’re handing the reins to the owners of the building at the start of 2026.
Peter and Krista Cook of Lighthouse Realty are taking over, and have tapped longtime restaurant pros Amy Di Chiro (who’s worked at institutions like The Crepe Place, Aldo’s and Linda’s Seabreeze Cafe) and husband Nelson (Crepe Place, Makai Island Kitchen & Groggery, Riva Fish House) to direct operations.
BYO food is welcome at Mission West—as is food someone else brings, as was the case with fresh-cooked tamales from a roving vendor last Thursday—and one play there is d20.
Emphasis on “play”: While d20 does delicious Detroit-style sourdough pizza, it also stocks small plates, fresh-baked cookies, local craft beers, wine, sake-based cocktails and an ever-growing library of board games for play and purchase.
Founder and pizzaiolo Colin Freas loves the Chinese strategy game Go, but remains open to any and all contests, standup video games included (there are a few of those too).
“Santa Cruz has a creative, playful energy that we wanted to capture,” Freas says. “D20 Pizza is about rolling dice, sharing laughs, and building community one slice at a time.”
He adds some rhetorical questions, or at least they sound like that to me.
“Do you like pizza? Do you like games?” he asks. “Then you’ll probably like us. We’re here for the players, the locals, and anyone who wants a place to hang out late with great food.”
And hopefully morons who like oxymorons too.
BITS AND BOTS
Far West Fungi continues its weekly MycoMixers 2–5pm Thursdays at its Santa Cruz store/café (224 Laurel St.), featuring tastings and fun freebies,farwestfungi.com…Last week the Santa Cruz City Council ditched aspirations to build a temporary bicycle and pedestrian path over the rail bridge next to the closed Murray Street Bridge due to safety and funding concerns, which reaffirms the importance of supporting that neighborhood, which continues to offer free parking and a weekend ferry service crossing the river…Two bits of tech progress, ranging from inspiring to hmmmm: 1) Cellular Tracking Technologies has developed a tiny, solar-powered radio tag that weighs 60 milligrams and costs $200 to track individual monarch butterflies, which is cool; check out Project Monarch Science in your app store; 2) Lumia 2 is a $250 “smart” earring that self describes as world’s tiniest wearable, launching in 2026, and designed to track health and fitness stats, including blood flow to the brain…Food & Wine reports Samuel Adams has developed a 30% ABV beer called Utopias 2025, the world’s strongest, which debuted this month and goes for $240 per 24.5-ounce bottle…Novelist and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro, take us home with a touch of Thanksgiving-appropriate gratitude: “There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
