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| The walk is good for you. |
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| What, no trolley? |
A twenty-fifth wedding anniversary doesn't happen every day, at least not to me. My husband and I thought about going to Hawaii to celebrate. Thoughts are cheap, we have many of them, but putting actual energy into a planned vacation sounded stressful. We're already living a full-time vacation called retirement and we have been to Hawaii many times. We were ready for a private, relaxing but elegant celebration. We started out with roses and chocolates and ended with dinner at Shadowbrook in Capitola. We enjoyed complimentary bubbly and chocolate truffles. The food was over the moon delicious--mine was the best lamb I've ever had! Josephine wouldn't know what to do in a place like this, but Solow would be comfortable there, if dogs were allowed. He knows how to dress for every occasion.
Welcome to the Shadowbrook Restaurant. Opened in October of 1947 with
a theme of Romance in Dining this is not only the most romantic place
to dine in the entire Santa Cruz area but was recently designated one of
the Top 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in all of America by the 5
million voters of Open Table.
The Shadowbrook building has been here for almost 100 years. It was
originally a log cabin built in the 1920's as a summer home that was
accessible only from Soquel Creek. At some point it was enlarged with
the addition of the Fireplace Room, which is still in use today as a
dining room. It has a massive fireplace and hanging balcony which leads
the way to all six dining rooms located on four different levels.
In the 1930's it was a Tea Room. The owners would take a shallow
bottom boat down the creek and entice tourists to float up the river to
take tea. Afterward, they would float them back down to the beach. It
changed hands again after the Tea Room but by the 1940's the place was
abandoned.
In 1943 a guy named Brad McDonald was just out of the Navy and living
in San Francisco and he was visiting his mother who lived up on Wharf
Road. Her cat was missing so Brad offered to help search. He came down
this hill cutting his way through the underbrush when he came upon the
abandoned Tea Room. The windows were broken and it was in sad shape, but
he fell in love with the place and with the setting. He found that the
property was owned by the bank and they would let him have it for $800
down and $80 per month. So he bought it and he came down on weekends to
work on it. Finally, he and his wife Bea showed the place to their
friends Ed and Virginia Phillippet and before the visit was over the two
couples decided to move in here.
After six months of work here they decided to open up the main room
as a dinner house called the Shadowbrook. They built living quarters for
themselves in a water tower that was at the top of the property. One
family in the top floor and one family below. Ed was the chef and Brad
was the Maitre d' & waiter. Ed's first menu included something
called orange sugared biscuits that had orange peel shredded into the
dough. A newer version of those original biscuits called "orange rolls"
were a popular part of Shadowbrook's brunch service until 2008 when
brunch was discontinued in order to accommodate more Sunday weddings.
That first season as a restaurant in 1947 was slow because they had
missed the summer rush, but things quickly changed. A couple of their
first customers were salesmen from Foster & Kleiser. If those names
sound familiar it's because that's the company that owns most of the
billboards along the highways in California. These guys really liked
Brad and Ed and to show their support they put up billboards for the
Shadowbrook on the Bayshore freeway in Sunnyvale. Incredibly, they did
it for free.
Perhaps the biggest challenge of running a restaurant down a steep,
wooded creekside slope is getting supplies in and out. Delivery trucks
can't drive up and deliver directly to the kitchen. After years of
lugging things up and down the hill Brad hired a local carpenter to
build a wooden slide with a cart on it, but he couldn't afford the
powerful motor they would need to run it. So he hooked a cable to the
bumper of his mother's 1927 Buick and ran the cable around a large pine
tree at the top of the hill. He then painted lines in the road that told
him where the Buick should stop so the cart would be at the top or
bottom of the hill.
One of the things that had to be hauled each day in their first year
of business was a 300 pound block of ice because Ed and Brad had no
refrigeration. In 1948 they bought a used walk-in refrigerator and they
thought it would come down the hill but no moving company wanted to move
it. No problem. Ed and Brad strung a cable across the creek between two
trees. They would give it a push and it would 'zip line' across to the
restaurant. They let it go and it was so heavy it pulled both trees out
by their roots and the refrigerator went into the creek. Fortunately it
was lined with cork insulation and it floated. Brad got inside and
paddled it to the other side. It took them a week to drag it up the bank
and get it into place.
Two years after founding the Shadowbrook the City of Capitola was
incorporated and Brad won the majority of votes for city council which
mean he would be Capitola's first mayor. But it wasn't to be. Not only
was Brad young, in his twenties, but he kept a slot machine in a closet
here are Shadowbrook that he and friends would play with after hours.
People thought if he were mayor he would bring gambling to Capitola so
they gave the mayor job to someone else. McDonald's supporters were so
angry they mounted protests which lead a newspaper reporter to dub the
new city "Scrapitola." One year later, McDonald was installed as mayor,
and still today every so often you will hear the word "Scrapitola".
In 1955 Brad needed money for his new restaurant and nightclub called
the Saba. It was located down next to the beach where the old Capitola
Hotel was. He sold his share of the Shadowbrook to Frank Podesta. A
funny story about the Saba, it only lasted two years before it burnt to
the ground, with Brad, the ultimate entrepreneur, selling lemonade and
drinks outside to those watching the burning building.
A few years later, in 1958, the red 'cable car' was added. It was the
first of its kind in California and guests could now arrive in style
from the top of the hill or, for some, avoid the arduous task of walking
back up after dinner. A favorite thing to do here is walk down the
meandering garden path alongside the ferns and waterfalls, and then ride
the cable car back up.
In 1972 Mike Clark and Mike McClellan bought the Shadowbrook. The two
'Mikes' already owned the Crows Nest at the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor and
they immediately went to work updating the building, expanding the
kitchen under a large turf roof and replanting the grounds. They also
built a second cable car just for freight on the far side of the
property. It was the two Mikes who decided to keep Shadowbrook open year
round. Up till 1972 it was closed every winter. One of the first
waiters that they hired was Ted Burke who was set to start graduate
school in the fall. As the fall approached Ted decided if he could put
graduate school off for one semester he could make enough money so that
he wouldn't have to work while in school. But, in fact, Ted never left.
In 1978 the two Mikes were ready to retire and although they had many
offers for the restaurant they preferred to sell it to someone on staff.
Ted, then a manager, stepped forward as did Bob Munsey, who had managed
the Crows Nest. Together they bought both restaurants. Bob has since
retired but Ted is still the active owner here today. Since taking over
34-years ago Ted and Bob added the Redwood Room and the Greenhouse Room,
expanded the Garden Room, remodeled the bar, expanded the kitchen
twice, built a wine cellar, upgraded the walking path and made hundreds
of other restaurant and structural improvements, many of which the
public never sees.
The day after the restaurant's 50th anniversary in 1997 they began an
extensive remodel of the Rock Room, the original bar area and one of
the oldest parts of the building. Still known as the Rock Room, this
area opens earlier than the dining room and offers lighter foods from a
wood oven along with specialty cocktails. This was a big project and
required the restaurant to face one of the biggest challenges here on
this steep hillside. How do you get these giant beams down the hill to
the construction site? They solved it with a giant lift helicopter that
picked up the beams in the parking lot and gently set them here in
place.
The Executive Chef here is not only very talented but also a local
gal. Her name is Ashley Hosmer and she attended Harbor High School in
Santa Cruz and then graduated from the California Culinary Academy. She
was the Shadowbrook sous chef for several years and in 2010 was promoted
to Executive Chef. The dinner menu here is known for thick prime rib
and steaks, scampi, salmon and innovative nightly specials. Though it's
well known for its romantic setting it is a warm, comfortable and very
popular environment for any type of gathering.
Shadowbrook has won many awards for both food and service, including
an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator magazine for its wine list,
which noted its moderate pricing. October through May the restaurant
promotes 'Winemaker Wednesdays' that focuses on a different Santa Cruz
Mountain winery each week and offers special priced tastings of the
featured wines.
As many people have noted, the Shadowbrook has managed to do something
that is very rare. It honors its past while continually reinventing
itself to stay current. It's one of the oldest restaurants in the area
and yet at the same time one of the most interesting, beautiful and
respected. It gets better all the time without forgetting its
unpretentious log cabin roots.
