Something flavorful is brewing, you might say. Several special somethings, really.
To start, Santa Cruz Mountains gem Steel Bonnet Brewing Co. (20 Victor Square, Unit B, Scotts Valley) is on a heater.
Fresh off two first-place medals at California State Fair’s craft beer championships, it has a family-friendly taproom OTW in Oldtown Salinas (217 S Main St., Salinas), cracking open in late August.
Signature brews Big Trees Red Ale and Black Dragon took top honors in the American Amber/Brown Ale and U.K. Stouts categories, respectively.
The Salinas spot will enjoy synergies born of the facts SBBC’s production facility is less than two miles away, the Main Street corridor has a lot going for it, and the former Farmer’s Union Pour House is essentially a welcoming—and turnkey—space, steelbon.net.
FRESH SITUATION
H&H Fresh Seafood has opened a second location, code name H&H Westside (402 Ingalls St., Suite 15, Santa Cruz), transporting the same sort of snappy catch offerings at the original harbor spot (493 Lake Ave. A, Santa Cruz) and pairing that with poke bowls, oysters, tuna crudo, local rock crab, tinned fish platters and a lineup of sea-centric grocery items and other grab-and-go options.
Co-owners Hans Haveman and Heidi Rhodes envision a casual neighborhood gathering place, with future additions including sushi hand rolls, raw bar nights, expanded patio seating and ceviche, seafood salads and onigiri. Soft launch hours are 11am–6pm Wednesday-Thursday, until 7pm Friday-Saturday, until 5pm Sunday, closed Monday-Tuesday. As their website proclaims, “Same boats, same standards, same family—now closer to your side of town,” hhfreshfish.com.
RISING SUN FUN
Two welcome additions from a pair of yakitori pop-up stars have arrived, one around the corner from the new H&H. That one, Toriman Shouten, will animate the tiny (and terrific) former Margins Wine space with Japanese groceries, snacks and onigiri, then the development of Santa Cruz’s first sake tasting room, featuring California-made and imported sake. Last week, Toriman founders Yuko Asaoka and Kaito Akimoto opened their first permanent location, Toriman Konbini, in the Brown Ranch Marketplace (3555 Clares St., Suite G, Capitola). The top-shelf Far Eastern convenience store stars five flavors of handmade onigiri, soups, soba, sundries, cookware, beer, wine and—eventually—expanded offerings such as ramen, curry rice and weekend yakitori grilled al fresco, instagram.com/yakitori_toriman.
NEW SNACK ATTACK
Sweet Home Santa Cruz is back for its fourth annual—and biggest—festival yet, sugar rushing beyond the perimeter of Humble Sea (820 Swift St., Santa Cruz) into the Mission West patio and parking lot, plus McPherson Street 11am-5pm Saturday, June 20, instagram.com/sweethomesantacruz…
Santa Cruz Mountain wineries have kicked in an epic value with a Sip & Explore World Cup Tasting Passport for a very modest $25 that empowers free wine tasting at 30ish wineries for the run of the tournament through July 15, and PS SCM’s quarterly Passport Day takes place this Saturday, June 20, with its Taste of Terroir dinner a week later (June 27) at Beauregard Ranch with chef Brad Briske handling food and seven wineries flowing the vino, winesofthesantacruzmountains.com…
The annual Sustain Supper returns to the Homeless Garden Project’s Natural Bridges Farm on June 20, with a four-course farm-to-table feast, local sippers, live music, a farm tour and inspiring speakers in support of the nonprofit’s transitional employment program; chef Estevan Silva of Studio Estepan and chef-professor Andrea Mollenauer of Lifestyle Culinary Arts cook, while James Beard Award-winning farmer and food-systems advocate Mai-Nadine Nguyen delivers the keynote, homelessgardenproject.org…A little Rumi goes a long way: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
