There are many decisions of when it comes to where to eat dinner in Santa Cruz. In this post, Santa Cruz Restaurants .org is going to share with you some of the top rated places to eat dinner in Santa Cruz – in no specific order.

Top Rated Places To Chow Down Dinner In Santa Cruz

Restaurants In No Specific Order

Cafe Cruz

I have been going to Cafe Cruz for years and have never had a bad experience. The food has always been awesome and the service top notch. I’ve been there for both lunch and dinner, but lunch is my favorite. When it’s nice and sunny and you can sit on the beautiful patio. But even in the winter it’s nice to sit in the bar area by the cozy fire.

They always have great specials and wonderful soups.

I always feel great recommending Cafe Cruz, and I’ve never known anyone to be disappointed.

The only negative thing I can say is that parking can be hard. We always park in the parking lot across 41st Avenue and walk, makes it pretty easy. Cafe Cruz is most definitely one of the best restaurants in Santa Cruz.

Tortilla Flats Soquel
This has been one of my favorite local dinner spots since I was a small child. The restaurant is fairly small, and the interior is decorated with a nice variety of artwork from the Southwest and Mexico. At dinner time they always have a few specials, including fresh seafood, new mole sauces, and a different dessert every day. In my opinion, they have the best chips and salsa in Santa Cruz, and my favorite item on the dinner menu is the Chicken Mole Enchiladas, with a dark sauce that somehow spans the tastes of chocolate, chile and coffee all in one.

Tortilla Flats might not have the best view in Santa Cruz, but I go for the food, the service & the ambiance. And I have to say I’m not a big fan of their burritos, as they are nothing special and their are a ton of great taquerias in Santa Cruz if all you want is a burrito. The bar is a great place to sip down one of their Original Margaritas after work –by far the best margarita in town.

Parking is never a problem, as there is a parking lot in back and often street parking right out front. Overall, this is without a doubt the best Mexican restaurant in Santa Cruz.

The Shadowbrook Capitola
The food and drinks are pretty good. Service was a little slower than I expected and a bit difficult to wave down our waiter. I also requested a birthday sundae and it was the saddest sundae I had ever seen, which, for the price of our meals, it was very surprising that they did not have anything ‘fancier’. While the Shadowbrook Capitola isn’t really known for food that will make you go crazy, they do have one of the best looking restaurants in Santa Cruz that you should check out.

The Crows Nest Restaurant

Very good! I’ve been here a couple times. Great view, good service, amazing calamari! It is a little pricey, but worth the cost to go to a nicer restaurant where you can order clam chowder and have a view of the ocean. They have events throughout the year, so be sure to see if there are any live bands coming around the time you are thinking to go. They do have comedy nights as well.

The Crows Nest Restaurant is also a sister restaurant of the Shadowbrook Capitola, and you can see a lot of similarities between these Santa Cruz restaurants. You can see that they both tend to focus more on the location and ambiance then the food, but overall this is a great place to eat dinner whether it be with the family or on a date.