Downtown Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

Downtown Santa Cruz is organized around Pacific Avenue, which had to be rebuilt in stages after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake brought down many of its older buildings. Today the blocks hold shops, restaurants, bars and a handful of galleries, with Abbott Square off Front Street acting as a market hall and event space. Housing in Downtown Santa Cruz is mostly apartments and condominiums, some perched above ground-floor shops, with older single-family houses on the edge streets near Walnut Avenue. It's the most urban corner of the city, where people live above restaurants and park wherever a spot opens up. Coffee is serious business here. Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company has been roasting at 1330 Pacific Avenue since 1978, and Lulu Carpenter's fills a restored brick building at 1545 Pacific. For something sweet, The Penny Ice Creamery on Cedar Street makes its ice cream and waffle cones from scratch. Verve's Pacific Avenue cafe, at 1540, sells beans and pastries from Manresa Bread. The San Lorenzo River runs along the east side, and the levee path there is the closest thing to open country. Neary Lagoon sits across Pacific to the west, and the Boardwalk and beach are a downhill walk south. Del Mar Theatre screens films on Pacific, and First Fridays and the farmers markets fill the street with events through the year. For daily needs, Trader Joe's and the River Street New Leaf cover groceries, and the main bus hub puts Metro routes and the Highway 17 Express to San Jose within reach. Many errands happen without a car, and the whole core is flat. Late nights and weekends bring crowds, sirens and music from the bars, and parking garages and meters take the place of driveways. Sleep depends on which block and which floor. On a market day or a First Friday, you can see how much of the town treats this stretch as its own front yard.