In a land far from me and in time nearly forgotten, we were all painfully young and fresh upon the world. There were still hippies and love was still relatively free, and no one had ever really heard of crepes as a viable food stuff....
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In a land far from me and in time nearly forgotten, we were all painfully young and fresh upon the world. There were still hippies and love was still relatively free, and no one had ever really heard of crepes as a viable food stuff. We had a German friend who made them for us and I spit mine out the window when no one was looking. So when these folks opened up a crepe restaurant, people thought they were crazy. They arrived originally on Soquel near ocean on the ground floor in a big yellow duplex. There were two tiny store fronts on either side of the main staircase and I can’t remember what the other one housed, but the budding restauranteurs called their enterprise, The Other Side. We all just called it, the crepe place. I mean, it was the only place you could get them right? And it was tiny beyond belief, but we crammed in there with our friends and lovers and talked about the new age.
That was literally a lifetime ago. And after various evolutions, it ended up in the current location. And I tell you they adopted funky like it was a beloved stepchild. It was also the first place any of us knew that actually had a decent outdoor eating area, it was shelter from the storm.
And now I’m old and I tread the nostalgia trail like Moses back at the Nile checking out the reeds. And, literally, nothing has changed. You expect to look in the mirror and see a younger self giving yourself an incredulous stare.
And the food is amazing, the gigantic Turkey Crepe with cranberry preserves is exactly the mouth celebration it was in my youth.
I had been worried about a meeting the next day with a very special friend. Didn’t have a clue where to take them, and of course The Crepe Place was the perfect quintessential Santa Cruz place. Like a ship in a bottle frozen in time, only with great food and wonderful service. I felt like I had come home after many many years away, which is exactly what it was.