Shadowbrook

EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTION

Shadowbrook sits above Soquel Creek on a steep hillside, accessible by the hillevator, a cable car carrying guests from the parking lot down to the creekside entrance. Inside, eight dining rooms are built into the hillside: the greenhouse room, the fireside room with its hanging balcony, the redwood room, the garden room with a cypress growing through the floor. California cuisine, local sourcing, and a wine list of over 120 bottles.

OPERATOR STORY

The owner started at Shadowbrook in 1972 as a college student planning to leave in the fall. He never left. The founders found the abandoned 1920s log cabin in 1944 and spent three years restoring it before opening for dinner in 1947; the current owner took over in 1978. Shadowbrook is the restaurant Santa Cruz County returns to for every occasion worth marking, a community institution built by someone who chose to stay.