September 26, 2023 – This qualifies as more than pretty good news. Pretty awesome news, at least.
Pretty Good Advice in Soquel represents one of the best restaurant debuts of the last half decade, and one of the area’s strongest veg-centric spots. Now it’s welcoming a sister into the world.
Chef-owner Matt McNamara says Pretty Good Advice #2 will debut in the former Pacific Thai (1319 Pacific Ave.) on Friday, February 2 and be open from 9am to 3pm daily to start.
After a career spent opening restaurants—including an extended run at Michelin star spots like his Sons & Daughters in San Francisco, before returning to his native South Bay—he’s a reliable source on realistic timing, and on what guests can expect.
“We’ll be doing the same thing we are in Soquel,” he says. “Something for the community where the price point, freshness and seasonality are the focus, very much what I call an honest product.”
In terms of menu items that means:
• All day breakfast sandwiches like the Final Meltdown with fried egg, crispy potato, “melty” mushrooms and pepper jack, jalapeños and a house sauce.
• Sides and fries including coconut yogurt with local fruit, summer tomato soup and apple-and-fennel salad.
• Handmade vegetarian burgers (vegan and spicy versions available) like the California ranch and jalapeño barbecue.
• Vegan soft serve and ice cream in flavors like salted caramel apple.
The foundation for all of the above is the McNamara family farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Summit Christmas Tree Farm.
Across 83 acres appear 250 varieties of fruit trees—35 types of citrus, plus tropical plantings like pineapple, guava and passionfruit—among other plunder.
“We built the farm to have something that I could use at every point of the year. You roll with the property,” McNamara told Edible not long after PGA 1.0 launched in 2019.
The produce, house burger blends and a solid and affordable kids menu helps PGA carve out its own category: healthy-easy.
“I’m not a vegan or vegetarian myself, so I am always excited to have a vegetarian spot where non vegetarians come,” he says. “That’s an objective: To create a place that’s not anti-this or anti-that but a place everyone can eat, whether they’re avoiding glutens or allergens or dairy. It’s just very easy to eat here.”
Part of what makes PGA’s sequel a positive development is its location in the thick of downtown, no trek to Soquel required, on a foot-trafficked block within range of UC Santa Cruz.
“We’re excited about access to a new audience,” McNamara says. “To be able to serve the eastside and westside cements us in the region.”
Page Traeger serves as PGA’s general manager, though McNamara prefers to describe her role as “the one doing everything.”
She highlights another driver beyond diet-friendliness and fresh crop credibility.
“The most rewarding part of working at PGA is the community,” she writes by email. “We have a super tight-knit, hard working crew of friends here who genuinely care about the restaurant and the product, along with awesome customers who have been supporting us since day one.”
She has an alternative working title for McNamara herself, albeit a shorter one: “my best friend.”
“We have a lot of fun here testing new recipes and figuring out ways to make people enjoy their food and experience here more,” she says. “The challenge of opening a new restaurant from the ground up has been both fulfilling and demanding…
“Our mission is to be a place the community is excited to have there.”
She precludes those thoughts by saying, “I am very bad at this kind of stuff.”
Others would say—keeping with the theme—she’s doing pretty good.
More at prettygoodadvicesoquel.com and PGA’s instagram.
Updated Feb 1, 2024 with opening date and time.
About the author
Mark C. Anderson, Edible Monterey Bay's managing editor, appears on "Friday Found Treasures" via KRML 94.7 every week, a little after 12pm noon. Reach him via mark@ediblemontereybay.com.
