Category:Winner
Art Gallery:Davenport Gallery
Local Band:Extra Large
Billiards:Surf City Billiards
Dance Club:Motiv
Dance Studio:Motion Pacific
Festival:Capitola Art & Wine Festival
Karaoke:Karaoke Sound Co.
Local Solo Musician:James Durbin
Movie Theater:Del Mar Theatre

Plus Letters to the Editor

Our biggest issue of the year has arrived. Welcome to the official Best Of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. Your votes were cast during the first few months of the year and now the results are finally tallied. There were some surprise winners this year, especially in the category of Restaurant of the Year (although it’s one of your longtime favorites) and New Business.

Category:Winner
Acupuncture:Five  Branches
Aerobics Studio:Santa Cruz Dance Co.
Alternative Health:Five Branches
Bike Trail:Nisense Marks
Botox:Laser Hair & Skin
Day Spa:Caress Day Spa
Facial:L’Atellier Day Spa
Fitness Center:Toadal Fitness
Fitness Trainer:Kyle Haynes (Santa Cruz Strength)
Golf Course:Pasatiempo

Chardonnay 2010

Founded in 1974 and located in Geyserville, Clos du Bois is a well-established winery producing large quantities of wine annually. With its very recognizable label and reasonable prices, Clos du Bois can be found easily in most stores that carry wine.

Zelda’s serves locals with swift and sweet service during the off-season

It’s like being on vacation this time of year. The weather is improving, and patrons of attractions and restaurants tend to be locals, and less numerous. Now is the time for us to enjoy our seaside hot spots.

It was a charming plant, a gift from my neighbor, and I could just imagine its sword-shaped emerald leaves decorating the forest floor. Atop the stalks, unusually triangular in cross section, hung four to 19 frilly, white, bell-shaped flowers, each painted with fine green lines.

I think my ideal reality show about Santa Cruz would be following the youth that live here and all of the different challenges that they face—their triumphs, the social interactions. I think that would be pretty interesting.
Rivka Sheehan
Santa Cruz | Sales/Cashier

UCSC alumnus, Bassnectar, looks forward to playing his home away from home

Anyone who listens to pop music today is familiar with wobbly bass lines, wooshing filter sweeps, epic synth melodies and frenetic, stuttering collages of fractured digital noise. Electronic dance music took the Top 40 by storm in 2011, and four months into 2012 it is showing no signs of letting up.