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You are here: Home / Archives for pizza

pizza

A Chat with the Owner of Flats Bistro

June 5, 2015 by Seb Frey

Jeanne Harrison of Flats Bistro and Cafe Rio
Jeanne Harrison of Flats Bistro and Cafe Rio

Seb Frey with Aptos Community News ambled down to the new Flats Bistro in Aptos to have a chat with the owner, Jeanne Harrison. We wanted to talk about Jeanne’s new venture, and she shared quite a bit.

We talked about their newest menu item: breakfast pizza ($14). According to Jeanne, It’s like having sourdough toast with either bacon or sausage, an egg done over-easy, some spinach and a little bit of cheese.

Most people order the breakfast pizza in the morning, but you can get it any time of day; it’s been a very popular menu item. The breakfast pizza crust has a very nice flavor, it’s super thin and crunchy. Their crust uses a 100 year old starter for the sourdough, and that could be the reason the crust in their pizzas is extra tasty.

Listen to the Discussion

//siliconhomebroker.com/podcastgen/media/chat-with-jeanne-harrison-owner-flats-bistro.m4a
Download audio file…

Their 60 inch pizza oven was made by Mugnaini, a renown pizza oven maker based in Watsonville. The oven runs 650-700 degrees, and in an oven this hot, it’s really difficult to make some specialty crusts. They tried to make a cauliflower crust but it just fell apart in the oven.

Flats Bistro is proving to be fertile ground for Jeanne’s culinary experimentation. For example, she says she’d never really made pizza before she got the idea for Flats Bistro. On the day we visited, she had just added something new to the display case: stuffed Portobello mushrooms with garlic, onion, gorgonzola cheese and a breaded topping. Every morning they have bacon and egg croissants for $5. On Saturdays and Sundays they do biscuits and gravy, and also offer ham and egg sandwiches with that.

They are working on a gluten free pizza crust, but so far they have been unsuccessful. She has tried 5-6 gluten-free crusts and they “taste like cardboard.” If anyone knows of a great gluten-free pizza crust recipe, she’d love to have it!

They make all the food and pastries right next door at Cafe Rio, starting at 5 or 6 AM. All the cookies, cakes, desserts, and salads are made on site. But they have no plans for breakfast burritos because, Jeanne says, they love their neighbors, and don’t want to take anything away from Pixie Deli which has been selling breakfast burritos for years. They don’t deliver yet and don’t offer catering, but this is something they may look at doing in the future.

The bistro has been open for only two months, but already they are enjoying incredible success and a growing clientele. They’ve been doing an Instagram campaign to promote the bistro, and the campaign ends today, June 5. Just tag a photo with #FlatsBistroAptos showing one of their coffee cups for a chance to win a Flats Bistro hoodie.

One for the road! #flatsbistroaptos #aptos #coffee

A photo posted by Sebastian Frey (@sebfrey) on May 29, 2015 at 9:40am PDT

#FlatsBistroAptos on Instagram

Jeanne Harrison of Flats Bistro and Cafe Rio
Jeanne Harrison of Flats Bistro and Cafe Rio

Filed Under: Cafe, Eats and Drinks, News Tagged With: audio, breakfast, cafe rio, coffee, Flats Bistro, jeanne harrison, pizza, rio del mar beach, sourdough

Flats Bistro

May 29, 2015 by Seb Frey

Flats Bistro
Flats Bistro 3.5 star rating 75 reviews Yelp logo

The Flats Bistro in Aptos is located on the Rio del Mar Beach Esplanade, adjacent to the venerable Cafe Rio. Actually, Flats Bistro and Cafe Rio have the same owner, Jeanne Harrison. While Cafe Rio offers a full bar and a more formal, sit-down dining experience, the Flats Bistro is a much more casual experience.

They open early with fresh hot coffee and pastries, perfect for foggy Aptos mornings and a walk down the beach. Later on in the day, you’ll want to go there for their pizza, cooked in a distinctive gas oven. The ingredients are locally sourced and organic when possible, and the crust is distinctive. Made from sourdough, it’s chewy and flavorful in a way that really stands out in a world of me-too pizzas.

And who says pizza is just for lunch and dinner? Flats Bistro is right on the cutting edge, introducing breakfast pizzas to breakfast patrons.

The Flats Bistro is a welcome addition to the Rio del Mar Beach Esplanade. You might not think that pizza and the beach go great together – but you’d be surprised, especially given all the picnic tables you’ll find a few dozen yards down the beach…the perfect place to munch a slice or two and savor both the pizza and life in Aptos.

See also: Flats Bistro Cafe Facebook Page, Flats Bistro Review in Good Times magazine

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Filed Under: Eats and Drinks, Restaurants Tagged With: coffee, desserts, Flats Bistro, pastry, pizza, rio del mar

Aptos in October

October 12, 2014 by Seb Frey

The finest month of the year in Aptos is in October. The tourists are gone, and the fog is gone. It’s just glorious, warm sunny days and crisp evenings…getting crisper as we head towards the end of the month, of course. This year we had some very hot days at the beginning of the month, which was a nice change, as truly hot days are in short supply here in Aptos.

Here’s a picture I took with my iPhone the other day, as we took one of our evening walks on Seacliff Beach:

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Do you need any more proof that October is THE month in Aptos? #aptos #sunset #iphone #instagram

View on Instagram

Nice, huh?

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day…Cabrillo College hosted a Science Expo so we went to check that out. Despite the publicity on it being pretty poor (we only heard about it the day before, and it seems everyone we talked to also got late notice), it was very well attended. It seems Cabrillo is wanting to connect with kids at a younger age to start getting them interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) studies early. They put on a pretty fabulous exposition…it was only two hours long, seems like it should have been longer. I recorded some video:

We could only stay for about forty minutes, because we had to run off to the polo grounds for soccer. My son plays on the Red Sharks, a U-6 (under 6) team…and actually his team is definitely Under 6, as there are only five players on it (most teams have 8 or more players).

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Soccer super stars (and their mascot) #aptos #soccer

View on Instagram

After soccer, we went home and the boys took a bit of a nap, and then we headed on up to the Rodoni Farms Pumpkin Patch, which is something we do pretty much every year. I am pretty sure that with the cost of gas and everything we spend a lot more on pumpkins than if we just went to Trader Joe’s, but it’s a beautiful spot on the coast with room for the kids to run around, play on hay bales, and just let their freak flag fly.

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The annual trip to Rodoni Farms #october #pumpkins #halloween

View on Instagram

After we got our pumpkins, we headed down to Woodstock Pizza in downtown Santa Cruz, which I had actually never been to before. It was great! I give it two thumbs up, for sure. After dinner, we headed on over to Capitola for the Monte Foundation Fireworks. For years, the fireworks had been in Aptos, but this year they moved them to Capitola…grrrr. But it was a beautiful display:

It was a pretty busy day, but it’s kind of par for the course in Aptos in October. In a small town kind of way, of course.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: cabrillo college, fireworks, instagram, october, pizza, pumpkins, rodoni farms, science, seacliff, soccer

Pizza 1 in Aptos

February 21, 2014 by Seb Frey

Pizza 1
Pizza 1 4.0 star rating 187 reviews Yelp logo

There’s no shortage of Pizzerias in Aptos, but there’s only one Pizza 1. Pizza 1 inhabits the same store front which was previously occupied by Domino’s, and Pizza 1 is a much welcome addition to the Seacliff neighborhood. So welcome, in fact, that local residents voted it the #1 Pizzeria in Aptos in the Santa Cruz Weekly Gold Awards for 2013.

Far from being a typical “cardboard cardboard” chain-store pizza, Pizza 1 is gourmet pizza. You can’t rush perfection – don’t expect to call and have your pizza ready in 20 minutes for pick-up; expect it to take 45-60 minutes before your pizza will be ready.

If you do get there early and find you have some time to kill, they do also sell frozen yogurt, pizza-by-the-slice, and beer.

Tip: The “#4 Most Popular” is most popular for a reason! Get this if you can’t decide on anything else – you won’t regret it.

See also: http://www.pizza-1.com/

Pizza 1
Pizza 1
 

Filed Under: Eats and Drinks, Restaurants Tagged With: pizza, seacliff

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