October 17, 2023 – When we last spoke with Jayne Droese for the Spring 2023 issue, she was serving up Detroit-style sourdough pizzas under the name Jayne Dough at spots like the Westside Farmers Market and Apéro Club. A mere handful of months and many many pizzas and satisfied customers later, she is putting down roots in the Capitola Village at the old Reef Dog Deli spot, and rebranding as La Marea Café.
“I was not actively looking for a brick-and-mortar but I was always keeping the idea in the back of my mind,” she says. “I read the Edible article about Reef Dog closing down and I’ve always loved the village since I was little, and I just loved this cute little cottage space and it seemed like the perfect size.
“I reached out to Anthony, the owner, to see what his plans were. He called me back and was like, ‘If you want this, I think you’d be a great fit.’ We had actually met a year prior at an event I catered, so this place just happened really randomly. Now I have a brick-and-mortar and I’m super stoked.”
La Marea, which means the tide in Italian, is slated to open in early to mid-November. It will serve breakfast and lunch for takeout, delivery, and limited in-house seating in the cozy, under-500-sqare-foot space.
The menu will feature Droese’s signature deep-dish, house-fermented sourdough pizzas loaded with rotating cheeses and seasonal toppings—available by the slice and whole. Droese is also expanding the offerings to include open-faced sandwiches on sourdough bagels (which she’s been piloting in limited runs at her pop-ups), plus frittatas, scones, grab-and-go deli salads, and rotating specials that showcase sourdough, like focaccia sandwiches and meatball subs—all made with locally sourced, seasonal ingredients.
On the libations side, Droese recruited Syllable Coffee, a local roving coffee catering company that pops up at local haunts like farmers markets. As a permanent fixture in La Marea, Syllable will help bring a classic neighborhood café vibe and “showcase and share their exceptional coffees on rotation” says Droese.
The forthcoming restaurant is the culmination of Droese’s years in the industry, but the past two years of operating Jayne Dough really helped crystallize her vision. The pop-up model was a critical launchpad for Droese to solidify her plans, while building a customer base and getting her product out there. While she thoroughly enjoyed the experience and has many fond memories, she is more than ready for this next chapter.
“Running a pop-up is very stressful and it’s very hard to be profitable. You never know what you’re walking into or how busy you’ll be. And renting a kitchen that charges hourly…the numbers never worked out,” she says. “My dough takes at least 10 hours of hands-on time, so having a brick-and-mortar that I can cook in at my leisure, and also expand my menu and show I can do things other than pizza, that has been something I wanted to do for a while now.”
While Droese’s time in restaurants was significant, family and travel were also monumental in providing the initial culinary inspiration that began her journey. One particular trip to Tuscany in 2010 proved to be deeply fateful and would spark Droese’s passion for rustic foods and baking especially. Droese and her family visited a small hillside village in Tuscany that their ancestors hailed from, and by complete chance reconnected with long-lost relatives who also happened to own a tiny little bakery.
“We just went to the village that we knew that my mother’s grandparents were from, and we found my mother’s second cousin or some variation of that,” she says. “They invited us to an incredible family dinner and we saw the little bakery they own. That was a very formative moment for me.”
More than 10 years later and Droese has big plans for her own tiny café. While she’s excited to open La Marea’s doors, she’s also eager to expand. Within a few months of opening, she plans to add on dinner service and offer pizzas, salads, and rotating Italian-style specials like meatball sandwiches and polenta with seasonal vegetables.
She also hopes to lock down a beer and wine license and offer a carefully curated selection of minimal intervention wines and local beers. And, if all goes well, next spring she will start construction on a street dining deck to increase capacity for in-house dining beyond the existing 10 person capacity.
But, for now, she’s head-down on remaining preparations—decorating the space, testing and tasting recipes, and ironing out final logistics. As opening day nears, Droese is eager to stand (and cook) on more consistent ground and continue serving up the sourdough pizzas she’s become known for while making a new name for herself and the rest of her culinary creations.
“I’d like people to know this is still Jayne Dough pizzas,” she says. “I was really torn when I changed the name, I didn’t want people to think that Jayne Dough is ending as a business, because it’s very much still alive. It’s just going to be inside this café from now on.”
For More Info:
Follow Jayne Dough on Instagram (@jaynedoughpizza) for updates on opening date and official name change (the handle will change once formally announced).
La Marea Café will be open 8 am – 2pm on Wednesday thru Sunday at 311 Capitola Ave. Capitola.
About the author
Ashley Drew Owen is a writer and Massachusetts transplant. Her passion for learning about local food is only overshadowed by her passion for writing about or eating it. Safe to say, she is a lover of food and words, and also driving very fast in the left lane.
