Coffeehouses in Santa Cruz.

My idea of a grand vacation: Lots of coffee.

The men of my church are attending a men’s retreat this weekend, and since it’s in Santa Cruz County I decided to take a few more days off and make a little Santa Cruz vacation out of it. I haven’t had a proper vacation in a few years anyway. So I booked a hotel and off I went.

What’d I want to do in Santa Cruz? Same thing I did when I lived in the area: Not a lot! Whenever I came to town, it was usually for shopping, restaurants, and coffeehouses. I don’t have any shopping to do, so that largely leaves restaurants and coffeehouses. Can you make a vacation of that? Absolutely. Well, I can.

Two problems I ran into right away. First, my job has me on a nocturnal schedule. If it helps, think of it as Pakistani time: I wake around 8ish, and go to bed around 12ish, but swap the AM for PM. I have to get off this schedule when I’m on vacation, which is easier said than done. Really the best thing would be for me to simply vacation in Pakistan.

Whenever I’ve adjusted to daylight hours in the past, it always wound up slightly askew: I wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning, and go to bed at 8. I’ve tried to get closer to 6AM and 10PM, but every time I stay up till 10 or later, I still wake up at 3 all the same. My body simply doesn’t wanna adjust any further. It’s not ideal, but I try to make it work by reading and writing until everybody else wakes up.

Anywho, since I was in Santa Cruz I just figured I’d go a coffeehouse in the morning. Lots of coffeehouses I used to go to; I could probably hit up a different one every day of my trip. So that was the plan: Out of the hotel at 5, and get some coffee, maybe a bagel; something basic.

This plan was foiled by the fact coffeehouses in Santa Cruz don’t open till 7. Seriously.

Oh yes, there’s Starbucks and Peet’s, but I have Starbucks and Peet’s back home and didn’t wanna visit any of the coffee places I have back home. I wanted the unique-to-S.C. places. Only one of them opened at 6, though. The rest required me to kill time till they finally opened their doors at 7. Two didn’t open till 8; one didn’t open till 9. That’s right, NINE ANTE MERIDEM. Does no one need coffee in the early, early morning?

I mean, I coulda gone to 7-Eleven or McDonald’s or a gas station. But again, I could get that sludge back home. (Actually, Circle K’s coffee isn’t bad.)

When I first moved to Scotts Valley, it was to attend Bethany College in the mid-1990s. This was before Starbucks went national; this was when coffee was still 50 cents at gas stations and fast food restaurants. But there were coffeehouses I frequented back home, and I figured I’d find similar hangouts in Scotts Valley.

But nuh-uh. They did have a coffeehouse in town, which opened at 8 and closed at 5. I was warned away from it because they used Scotts Valley tap water to make the coffee, and I barely recommend using S.V. water in your toilet; that’s how bad it tastes. I had one professor who used to make coffee with the tap water, and the really strong beans he preferred did not conceal the water’s foul taste. It was one of the rare times I turned down coffee.

This is why whenever we college kids went out to coffee, we went to Santa Cruz or Capitola. So I got to know the coffee scene. It has of course changed over the last 30 years. Mr. Toots is still in Capitola; the White Raven (where I’m writing this) is still in Felton; Santa Cruz Coffee Roasters is still a-roasting… but I can buy their beans back home. Jahva House was gone by the time I moved back in the ’00s. Café Pergolesi folded just after I left. Espresso Royale became Lulu Carpenters; then the owner decided he didn’t want college kids to be his customer base anymore and did his darnedest to alienate them, and wound up alienating me too.

Well, this wasn’t just a coffeehouse tour. I did visit a few restaurants I hadn’t been to in a while. Others were shut down for renovations; others were straight-up gone. The restaurant biz can be cruel. As is the bookstore biz; Logos Bookstore shut down a few years ago, but I noticed the city is planning to move the public library into its old building, and that’s actually a great place for it.

And man are there a lot of new high-rise apartments downtown. It’s getting gentrified big-time. Not sure I like that. Wealthy citizens have a bad habit of fighting any weirdness, and weirdness is one of the many things keeping Santa Cruz fun.

Oh yes; I did visit the Boardwalk. But only to use the bathroom. I spent far more time on Capitola Village’s beach, watching the surfers as I waited for Mr. Toots, and later Pizza My Heart, to open.

Wasn’t wasted time at all; my phone is loaded with books to read, which is the other thing I really like to do on vacation. What do you think I do in all these coffeehouses anyway?