Monday night at Discretion Brewing, someone behind the bar taps a keg nobody's tried yet, tapes a index card under the handle, and pours it for six dollars until it runs dry. Regulars call it Keg of Honor. A projector goes up against the taproom wall for Movies in the Taproom, and the two habits have run together long enough that most people who walk in on a Monday already know which one they came for.
Twenty-four hours later, the same building runs Taproom Trivia at 6:30, no sign-up required, just show up early enough to grab a table. A mile away, food trucks post up at Anna Jean Cummings Park, better known locally as Blue Ball Park for the four oversized concrete spheres that look like they're rolling downhill through the coastal prairie grass. Taco Tuesday has been a fixture there long enough that Food Trucks A Go Go still lists it as a going concern this year, rotating vendors like Holopono and The Organic Taco through the same lawn.
Thursday belongs to Bargetto Winery, where the creekside courtyard fills up for Live Music and Wine from six to eight, no cover, wine by the glass, a food truck like ITALIAFIRE or Taquizas Gabriel parked for anyone who wants dinner with it. Bargetto has been pouring wine on that same stretch of Soquel Creek since 1933, which means the Thursday crowd isn't discovering anything. They're keeping an appointment.
Line those nights up and a pattern shows itself in the weekly schedule. Discretion owns Monday and Tuesday. Bargetto owns Thursday. Nobody is competing for the same six hours.
The Daytime Gap in Soquel Village
Run the same exercise for daytime hours between lunch and dinner and the grid falls apart. Bargetto's tasting room is open from noon to five daily, which covers the hour but doesn't really invite anyone to stay. Home, the New American restaurant that's anchored Soquel Village since chef Brad Briske opened it in 2016, doesn't turn its lights on until five in the evening at the earliest. For most of Soquel Village's history, if you wanted a reason to be downtown on a Tuesday at two in the afternoon, your options were an antique shop, a coffee at the Ugly Mug, or driving somewhere else.
The daytime gap remained for years.
What Home Away Added to the Daytime Mix
As Lookout Santa Cruz reported, Briske opened a second, smaller restaurant around the corner from the original last December: Home Away, tucked into the former VinoCruz space at 4901 Soquel Drive. It isn't a second dinner service. It's a casual bar and market that leans into daytime hours, hours when the village had few options.
The connection between the two restaurants isn't a marketing gesture. Home Away doesn't have a full kitchen of its own. Dishes like duck cassoulet or tripe with tomato demi-glace get prepared in Home's main kitchen next door and carried over, which is only possible because the two spaces sit close enough for that to work. The wine list draws on the same local names Soquel has been pouring for years, including canned wine from Santa Cruz's Birichino and Watsonville-made Tanuki Cider on tap. Briske told Lookout Santa Cruz:
"It's kinda like I got myself a new restaurant for my birthday."
The grand opening landed the day after his birthday, which is a small detail, but the bigger one is the schedule. Home Away settled into a Wednesday-through-Sunday run, with grab-and-go items like fresh pasta and house charcuterie added the following January. It isn't trying to out-compete Home's dinner crowd or Bargetto's Thursday night regulars. It exists in the hours those two don't touch.
The Same Names, Once a Year, in One Room
Every September, the businesses that spend the rest of the year quietly holding down separate nights end up in the same room at once. The 17th annual Taste of Soquel ran this past Saturday, September 26, at the Congregational Church of Soquel, a benefit for Second Harvest Food Bank. Bargetto, Discretion, Wargin Wines, Soquel Vineyards, Raffaelli Vineyards, Poetic Cellars and VinoCruz all poured. Home, Cafe Cruz, Star of Siam, Tortilla Flats and Dorothy's Desserts all served. Live sets came from Rivets & Rust, The Bourbon Brothers and B Movie Kings.
Over its run, the festival has raised more than $143,996 for Second Harvest Food Bank. Many of the businesses listed here also appear in Soquel Village's Monday-through-Thursday calendar.
Reading the Calendar Like a Local
For anyone trying to actually use this instead of just admiring it, the shape holds up week to week:
- Monday — Discretion Brewing's Keg of Honor, $6 pours until the keg is gone, paired with Movies in the Taproom.
- Tuesday — Trivia at Discretion starting at 6:30, or the food trucks at Anna Jean Cummings Park for Taco Tuesday.
- Wednesday through Sunday, daytime — Home Away, for daytime hours when Soquel Village had few options.
- Thursday evening — Bargetto Winery's Live Music and Wine, six to eight, no cover, on the creekside courtyard.
- Weekend evenings — Home, for the dinner reservation that's been the anchor since 2016.
None of these compete with each other for the same hours. The calendar shows businesses and events across the same three or four blocks during the week.
Living around the corner from all of it means having those events nearby. With options spread across the week, there is usually something nearby to build an afternoon or evening around.
If you're trying to get a feel for what a specific corner of Soquel actually offers day to day, not just what a listing says about it, The Portola Group can walk you through the neighborhood block by block. And if you're curious what your own piece of it is worth these days, get your instant home valuation and we'll talk about what's around the corner.
