At the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, time has stood still in many ways. The freshly baked honey wheat loaf and hearty savory crepes haven’t changed. Neither has the tin ceiling in the bar or the saloon-style doors in the dining room. Even some of the kitchen crew and servers are the same.
The Crepe Place opened as a French eatery in 1973, and I’ve been going there for 30 years. Yet on my most recent visit, a warm Tuesday in February, I found it better than ever.
My husband and I settled into a table in the ample and lush back garden, near a pergola draped with colorful glass bottles and a trickling water feature. As the sun set and the eclectic band called Jazz the Dog took the stage, we dug into a delicious turkey crepe and a hefty cheeseburger.
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Dinner for two for under 50 bucks and a free live show in a magical alfresco setting? Yes, please.
“It’s the best spot in Santa Cruz,” general manager Amy Di Chiro told me in a recent interview. “We’re seeing so much development in Santa Cruz, and a lot of it is really homogeneous. What’s special about this place — it’s kind of like an homage to what Santa Cruz once was.”
Customers enter the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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General Manager Amy Di Chiro serves dishes to customers at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Bartender Nicholas Gyorkos makes a drink at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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I started coming to the Crepe Place in the ’90s as a UC Santa Cruz undergrad. Since then, the menu has expanded beyond crepes. While the turkey crepe dinner ($27), which comes with soup or salad and the signature honey wheat mini loaf, has long been my go-to, the 8-ounce cheeseburger served with fries or salad ($18) was introduced last year; both are so satisfying. (Crepes ordered a la carte are $6 less than the crepe dinners.)
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Under the green awning of the circa-1900 Victorian that houses the restaurant, a weathered tin cutout of an old-timey cop standing on a bottle cap — a vintage Pepsi advertisement — has greeted diners for decades. The front room, which holds the bar and a large stage, is decorated with music and movie art spanning generations. Through a corridor and past the 60-seat dining room is the garden, which has two stages and seating for another 140.
In my UC Santa Cruz days, Adam Bergeron was an employee at the Crepe Place. From 1990 to 1999, he worked his way up from salad-maker to kitchen and general manager. But we didn’t meet until my recent visit, after I learned that the restaurant is under new ownership.
Well, sort of. Bergeron and his wife, Jaimi Holker, are its present and past owners.
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Co-owners Adam Bergeron and Jaimi Holker with family members of the original owners Michelle O’Mahony and host Keeley O’Mahony at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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A Buddha statue in the back garden at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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During his initial tenure at the Crepe Place, Bergeron and restaurant founders Marlene and Gary Keeley had talked about him someday buying the business, but it was never serious, Bergeron recalled. He eventually moved to San Francisco, where, in 2003, he and Holker opened the 12 Galaxies nightclub, which had a five-year run.
In 2007, Gary was ready to sell. (Marlene had died four years prior.) Since Bergeron and Holker were operating 12 Galaxies and raising two kids in San Francisco, they purchased the restaurant with Bergeron’s friend, Eric Gifford, who lives in Santa Cruz. Together, they turned the Crepe Place into a bona fide live music venue, hosting free and ticketed shows.
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“A million bands played here that are now famous,” Bergeron said, rattling off names such as Portugal. The Man and Local Natives, as well as Norah Jones and Father John Misty. “Frank Black from the Pixies played right where we’re sitting,” he continued, referring to the stage in the back corner of the garden.
Starting in 2012, Bergeron and Holker branched out to another entertainment field, initially buying the historic Balboa and Vogue theaters in San Francisco, then later the 4 Star.
Meernaa performs on the garden stage at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Squid Row Orchestra warms up for a performance at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Kisser performs on the garden stage at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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With their younger child graduating high school in 2018, the couple felt like they were entering a new phase in their lives and sold the Crepe Place to Chuck Platt and his wife Vanessa. Vanessa was an accountant for the restaurant, while Chuck is the bassist for punk rock band Good Riddance.
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Fast forward to summer 2024. By then, Bergeron and Holker had helped establish and sold their interest in San Francisco’s buzzy Laundromat restaurant and were itching for a change of scenery. “I grew up in cities and had lived in them my whole life,” Holker explained. “I had been saying, ‘I kind of want to move to the edge of nowhere’ — not the middle, but the edge, less of a city.”
Bergeron was missing the Crepe Place. In a conversation with former joint co-owner Gifford, Bergeron wondered whether the Platts would sell it back to him. “About an hour later” — out of the blue — “I got a text from Chuck saying, ‘I had a dream last night that I sold you the Crepe Place back,’” Bergeron recounted.
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Customers dine in the dining room at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Customers hang out in the bar area at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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In early 2025, Bergeron and Holker, who currently reside in Felton, acquired the Crepe Place and the building it occupies. Among their early action items was hiring Di Chiro again; she previously worked at the restaurant from 2015 to 2022. A month into their latest proprietorship, Bergeron and Holker shuttered for nine days for renovations, including painting the interior, replacing the roof and overhauling the kitchen.
“It still surprises me how much we got done,” Holker said of the tight turnaround. “The dedication that everybody showed up with was incredible.”
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Consider it a testament to the restaurant’s iconic stature in the community.
Original owner Gary Keeley had opened the creperie in 1973 at the suggestion of his sister, who had just returned from Paris and was raving about the crepes she had in the French capital. “There was no other entity selling crepes, and I think most Santa Cruzans had never even heard of them,” he told Good Times in a 2023 article celebrating the restaurant’s jubilee. (Keeley died later that year.)
According to the Crepe Place website, the first iteration, which debuted on the corner of Ocean Street and Soquel Avenue as the Seine on the Other Side, “was so tiny that only ten people, if they were close friends, could be seated at one time.” The most expensive crepe — combining ham, cheese and egg — was 60 cents.
The Crepe Place cheeseburger with American cheese, pickles, lettuce and housemade sauce on a toasted potato bun, served with a side of fries. at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Customers dine inside while patrons listen to Kisser perform on the garden stage at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Walking through the bar, Bergeron pointed out the original menu on the wall: a 12-by-22-inch chunk of redwood, with the food and drink offerings laminated on it. “It was the only menu, and you just passed it from person to person,” he said.
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Since patrons often called the restaurant “the crepe place,” in 1974, when the Keeleys moved to a larger space near Santa Cruz’s Town Clock, they changed the name. A landslide in 1988 and the following year’s Loma Prieta earthquake prompted additional relocations before the Crepe Place landed at its current site in 1990. By then, the two-story Victorian had been home to various food establishments.
Since retaking the reins last year, Bergeron and Holker have added a sandwich section to the menu. While crepes comprise about half of sales, the most popular non-crepe item is the cheeseburger that they launched, which includes a juicy patty, melty American cheese and house-made sauce. “It’s been a runaway hit,” Bergeron said.
The bestselling crepe is the Crepe Gatsby ($21) — filled with sauteed chicken breast, sun-dried tomato pesto, spinach, feta, mozzarella, mushrooms, scallions, tomatoes and garlic, as well as sprinkled with Romano cheese. Bergeron conceived the crowd-pleaser when he was an employee in the ’90s; it remains one of his favorites. Holker is partial to the spinach and asparagus crepes.
The bar at the Crepe Place is full with customers at the restaurant/music venue in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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The turkey crepe, with turkey, white cheddar cheese, mushrooms, cashews, onions and sauteed celery with black pepper, sage and thyme. Served with cranberry sauce on the side at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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According to Bergeron, the recipe for the whole wheat flour crepes has stayed the same since day one. A batch of batter is made in the morning, using 48 eggs and yielding approximately 120 crepes. The batter is poured into a 9-inch crepe pan and then flipped onto a griddle, with the filling piled on. (Vegan and gluten-free crepes are also available.)
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My favorite, the turkey crepe, channels Thanksgiving flavors with turkey meat, white cheddar, mushrooms, cashews, onions and sauteed celery, seasoned with black pepper, sage and thyme. The plating is simple: extra cashews on top and cranberry sauce on the side.
While dishwasher George Deardorf has been here since 1986, Juliana O’Mahony just came on board as a host and busser in September. But the 19-year-old is very familiar with the Crepe Place: Gary Keeley was her grandfather, and her parents met at the restaurant; her mom was the boss’s daughter, and her dad cooked on the crepe line.
The February evening that my husband and I dined at the Crepe Place, I spotted Grammy-winning bluegrass star Molly Tuttle in the garden enjoying the music of Jazz the Dog, too. The band — which includes Patti Maxine, Rhan Wilson and Rick Zeek — covered songs by Neil Young, John Prine and Elvis Presley. In addition to performing, Wilson and Zeek maintain the garden, including fabricating its bar and stage.
The staff of the Crepe Place poses for a photo outside the restaurant/concert venue in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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A bobblehead of Jerry Garcia sits on top of a shelf at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Squid Row Orchestra performs on the bar stage at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Amid the greenery are a Buddha statue given to Bergeron by his father; a ceramic totem by Holker’s father; and bronze works by Bergeron’s brother, Jud, a San Francisco-based artist. Server Germaine Faison described the garden as an oasis.
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“People live here for years and don’t know it’s here,” she said. Faison joined the Crepe Place in 1997 and, after stepping away in 2020 to care for her mother, returned in 2024.
“It’s always felt like home,” she said. “It’s the best place to be — everything about it.”
The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
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