Found Treasure: Watsonville Travels with Charlie (Part One)

October 7, 2022 – The plan: Report to chef David Baron’s Watsonville home, roll out on a fleet of cruiser bikes and visit a collection of his favorite locally owned spots, not far from where he works as executive chef at Seascape Beach Resort.

Only the plan didn’t account for the fur baby. 

My own dog-sitting duty meant the bicycling part—a central element designed to show how bike-able (and likable) Watsonville can be—was suddenly in danger.

Six-month-old Charlie the springer spaniel is good at many things. 

He’s good at cuddling. With the weight and feel of a 20-pound beanbag, he’ll sit in your lap as long as you let him. 

He’s good at kidnapping a shoe, or a remote control, or a pair of sunglasses to gnaw on. 

He’s also good at eating, like a vacuum stuck on hyper drive. 

But he’s not yet good at being left alone—or, it turns out, riding in a kid cart behind a bike.

When we tucked him in the little rolling trailer Baron affixed to his collectible-level Santa Cruz Bicycles rig, he was content for about 2 seconds. 

Then he was nosing his way out of the mesh screen held in place by velcro that wasn’t strong enough to resist. 

The best plans, I swear, are those built to be adaptable.

That’s something the author of Travels With Charley: In Search of America explains in that very book.

“All plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless,” John Steinbeck wrote. “We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

Back in Watsonville, we tried plopping the bean bag puppy in the child seat on the handlebars of another of Baron’s prime hipster-grade cruisers.

Suddenly, with a cuddle arm to hold him in place, Charlie was ready for an adventure.

Steinbeck enjoys a lot of local connections. 

But there’s one that gets a lot less love than, say, Cannery Row or Salinas Valley.

It’s Watsonville. 

As Steinbeck Now, a deep website dedicated to the writer it describes as a “Romantic. Realist. Rebel.” points out, he returned constantly to his sister Esther’s house in the Pajaro Valley farming community.

“Esther loved her brother and welcomed him when he came to Watsonville,” Steinbeck Now reports. “Evidence that Steinbeck enjoyed visiting the Rodgers household, wherever he happened to be living at the time, can be found in letters and photographs from the 1930s to the 1960s on view at the home.” 

Baron knows the feeling. That’s why he’s loving his newfound family home after years living and working everywhere from France to Carmel-by-the-Sea to his current post at Seascape Resort. 

A major reason for that: He and the kids can ride 5 minutes to an epic paved “pump park” plump with all sorts of berms, jumps and lumps designed for young BMXers and more seasoned MTN bikers alike.

Another key reason: A quick ride also delivers him to all sorts of flavorful places, each wholly deserving of their own Found Treasure column. 

The seasoning behind that reason is Baron’s number one flavor advisor, Watsonville local and longtime food supply expert Oscar Lomeli.

That’s why I’ll change the plan for this column here. Rather than describe the whole winding and over-indulgent ride, I’ll stick with the first stop. 

Other installments will come to fruition further down the bike lane, of which Watsonville has many.

I’ll do so with hopes for another mission on my mind, and another Travels With Charley line in my head: “A journey is a person itself; no two are alike.”

Plenty of clues that Cowboy’s Corner Cafe is a place to prioritize jump into view immediately.

The line out the door. The old-school sit-down counter facing the kitchen. The specials board bringing the heat with whompers like linguisa scrambles, loco moco, corn beef hash and eggs and French toast with strawberries, bananas, almonds and yogurt.

Other less visible clues lurk, including the fact that the spot represents the type of family tradition this column aims to honor. Paula and Juan Diaz run the place with a basis built on first names and big plates, with Juan Jr. helping in front and back of the house.

As Lomeli puts it, “They’re purists,” he says. “Everything from scratch.”

Two more clues: 1) The Diazes helped another Found Treasure candidate, Silver Spur in Soquel (when it was under previous ownership), become a community staple; 2) Back by the bathrooms appear photos of Bill Murray, an enthusiastic repeat visitor.

By the way, that’s the same Bill Murray who once said, “I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person.”

Paula decided what we would eat when we asked for the best plates at her place. 

Her choices reinforce the fact this family knows its fundamentals, namely breakfast and lunch.

The pancakes are poofy, with moisture from the blueberries and no need for syrup once they touch butter, living up to the legend Lomeli predicted. 

The veggie scramble with a boatload of ingredients like carrot (?!) and squash, not a normal request for any of our crew, is a unanimous hit. 

“So cheesy and so full of fresh flavor,” adds Baron. “Definitely a real breakfast.”

The biscuits and gravy, meanwhile, might offer the truest test. So many quality spots can trip up on texture or baked-plus-liquid synergy. Here they nail it, with help from the house hot sauce.

Maybe you’re like me, and you value the cleanliness of the bathroom as an indicator that a “greasy spoon”—aka comfort food—knows what details to de-grease.

Here the bathroom wins approval, and the carpet was about as clean as it could be considering how many plates were flying out of the kitchen. 

With that kind of quantity, though, and the furious eating that follows, crumbs tumble. Which caught Charlie’s attention. 

I told you he’s chill when you’re cuddling him on your lap for two hours, even in a kid seat on a bike moving through traffic. 

But this was his first restaurant experience, following his first bicycle ride, and remember lil homie is good at eating. 

For him it might’ve felt like a trip within itself. When I tried to ask him he was busy eating.

Steinbeck has a similar take that speaks to future installments of Travels With Charlie, Watsonville edition.

“Who has not known a journey to be over and done before the traveler returns?” Steinbeck writes. “The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”

More at cowboycornercafe.com.