Business Profile —This Solvang restaurant offers a menu of wholesome dishes from around the world. On a world map, Denmark and Mexico are thousands of miles apart. At Viking Garden Restaurant in Solvang, however, one is right next to the other. Flaeskesteg shares the menu with fajitas, medisterpolse meets enchiladas, and pickled herring sits on [...]
BUSINESS PROFILE In some ways, Los Olivos Grocery Store is a bit of a misnomer. Far from being the typical market, the shop on West Highway 154 is stocked with a dizzying variety of gourmet foods. “We have things that aren’t available anywhere else,” said Z Darghali, one of the four partners who took ownership [...]
Business Profile — The Santa Ynez Valley, long known for its outstanding vineyards and stellar wines, is also gaining a well-deserved reputation as a destination for fine food. Contributing to that sensibility is Fresco Valley Café, which has been open in Solvang for just over a year and brings to the Valley the same menu—and [...]
Business Profile —Man (and woman, of course) does not live by bread alone, as the saying goes, and Patti Wicks takes those words seriously. She is the Patti behind Pattibakes, a Valley bakery known for its spectacular cakes and cupcakes— and muffins, and tarts, and coffee cakes, and cinnamon rolls and cookies and pies and [...]
Dogs, horses, and other domestic pets that have not lived fairy tale lives can still find happy endings under the watchful eye of C.C. Beaudette-Wellman, a proverbial animal fairy godmother. The founder of Happy Endings Animal Rescue Sanctuary (H.E.A.R.S.) in Santa Ynez, Beaudette-Wellman has made it her mission to care for domestic cast-offs—animal victims who [...]
Business Profile At the end of Industrial Way in Buellton lies a restaurant that is, well, not the least bit industrial. Connected—quite literally—to Terravant Wine Company, Avant Tapas and Wine is more aptly described as a gastronomical work of art that pays homage to all the homegrown food and drink the Santa Ynez Valley has [...]
Not everyone is fortunate to know his or her career path at the ripe old age of 17. But when Doug King put on his first pair of eye glasses, looked out the window, and discovered he could see individual leaves on the trees outside, he decided then and there that he wanted to bring [...]
BUSINESS PROFILE Bobbi Kenner has made it her life’s mission to ease stress in the world, one Santa Ynez Valley resident at a time. The owner of Valley Holistic Healing Center, Kenner has brought together a group of practitioners who individually and collectively provide succor to the body and soul. Among them are a Reiki [...]
Business Profile Three young mothers take their successful sweets business to downtown Solvang By their own admission, Tracy Angel, Claudia Contreras, and Shannyn Tupper tend to go a little cupcake crazy when it comes to their children’s birthday parties. Sometimes, however, crazy is a good thing — especially when it leads to a thriving business. [...]
Alyssa Price’s film, The Monstrosity, may be short, but it has a long reach — all the way back to junior high school. Anyone who has experienced those harrowing days will find a kindred spirit in Milly, a sweet thing who just wants to survive the bus ride to her first day at George Adams [...]
