Exploring the City

Happy Monday everyone!

How was your weekend?

It's been pretty chilly around here and I am absolutely loving it!

This weekend Michael and I decided to try out some local restaurants and walk around downtown a bit.

If you're ever in Santa Cruz you have got to try these places. I, being the bad blogger I am, didn't take any pictures so I had to steal some from their websites. Whoops!

For breakfast we went to Walnut Avenue Cafe and it was the most homey and absolutely charming breakfast place I've ever been to. It was very Santa Cruzian and Michael and I both fell in love with the place. 

source: http://walnutavenuecafe.com/
It's adorable right?

I had the best chai I've ever had in my life (not joking, it was amazing!) and 9 grain pancakes with boysenberry sauce. They were so delicious and filling. It was definitely an awesome way to start our morning.

We walked off breakfast by walking up and down downtown and poking our heads into different shops. Of course we stopped at the local bookstore and got lost in the stacks, thank goodness I found a fellow bookworm! I found this awesome book on sale and we'll be trying out some of the recipes this week.

For lunch we hit these charming, and I mean charming, little cafe called Gabriella's.

source: http://gabriellacafe.com/
It has to have been someone's old home it was so tiny and I felt like I was sitting in someone's living room. They serve all locally grown produce and mostly organic (just the other day I was complaining that we're "hippie central" around here and there's like zero organic places). Michael got a grassfed burger with caramelized onions and I got a vegetable panini on super yummy foccacia. It was quiet and beautiful inside, full of local art. Definitely a new place for us!

I've lived here for 10+ years now and I'm still discovering new places around here. I just love it here.

Have a great week everyone!