Favorite spots to chow down after riding the waves.
Surfers are a different breed. Paddling out in the Pacific Ocean makes you hungry, so filling up for cheap is usually the main priority.
“After you’re in the water, you just need calories,” a friend says. “Anything that’s heavy.”
Plenty of Santa Cruz restaurants cater to surfers’ specific caloric needs, especially with hearty breakfasts, but, it’s the cafe parking lots in Pleasure Point that seem especially jammed with beach cruisers.
The neighborhood surrounds a surf break of the same name, and on its main drag, 41st Avenue, coffee shop and sushi restaurant windows are tagged with stickers of customers’ favorite skateboard and surfboard brands.
Located in the area known locally as Eastside, which runs from the San Lorenzo River along the ocean to Capitola, Pleasure Point is the home of wet suit pioneer Jack O’Neill and the place where surfer Jay Moriarity, the subject of the just-released film “Chasing Mavericks,” grew up. Pleasure Pizza, one of the neighborhood’s standbys, is featured in the film.
Eastside restaurants make up for their sometimes basic fare with a lot of personality — it’s hard to imagine anywhere else you could eat pancakes inside a van that looks as if it could have been in “Starsky and Hutch.” On the other hand, a few dressed-up newcomers like Suda add to the range of dining options.