515 Kitchen & Cocktails — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

This place is a good spot if you're looking for cocktails and a lively atmosphere in the upstairs lounge. If you're looking for food it's a different story. We tried three small plates. Crab cakes were very large. Unfortunately, mostly filler and very little crab or crab flavor. Nice spice to it, but more of a bread-crumb cake, or whatever is used as the binder/filler. Lamb skewers were a tad on the tough side. I thought the flavor was just OK.. My companion didn't care for them at all. Lamb flatbread was interesting at first but paled after the first few bites. We didn't finish the small sized one and were glad we hadn't ordered the full sized option. The waitress was very good and didn't charge us(on the final bill) for a martini that definitely overshot any version I've ever had of a standard martini, with a sweet lemon flavor. A Manhattan was OK. We will probably not return for food. A drink maybe, as cocktails seem to be the focus of the restaurant rather than food. The wait staff seemed to be quite good. One side note...when we first sat down, in the lower level, the music had a loud un-melodic thump that was annoying...like one of those cars that pull up beside you blasting a bass beat that makes you want to strangle the driver. Fortunately the music changed after about ten/fifteen minutes, otherwise we...

Arrived last night at 10:23pm and apparently the kitchen was no longer able to accommodate us ordering “large plates” by the time our server got to us at 10:30pm on the dot. This was a blessing in disguise though as the small plates were enough for 3 people to share. We actually ordered more than we needed! Here are the highlights: pork belly, green beans and the side of spicy kimchi fried rice (caution- when they say spicy they done mean it). Only lowlight was the Mac and cheese: creamy but the Mac was over cooked and the cheese was a bit flavorless.

It was my wife’s birthday and we had just drove in from SF so this place being open late, serving well executed late night grub AND pumping out a banging and varying music playlist was an absolute godsend. The doorman checking IDs gave her a nice “Happy Birthday” greeting and our server Ell(ie/a) hooked us up with some bomb ice-cream sandos. Shoutout to Krist(a/ie) for keeping us hydrated and both for the constant attention. We will be back for more boilermakers and maybe a large plate or two if we are literally starving - I’m sure they’ll be enough to stock a hotel...

This was one of the few places where you could get high and food and quality craft cocktails in the area. We went here frequently before COVID. On Halloween we decided to do a drive by and check out their outdoor seating. Every table was full but their tables were far enough apart that we thought we would give it a try. We are so glad that we did! We only had one person approach us the entire time in that was just our server. People were not wandering around and if they were up they had their masks on. It was so great to have our 1st craft cocktail since February! They even do QR Codes For the food and drink menu so that you are not touching any public menus! The menus are limited which I am hoping will change. They did have some great specials. Unfortunately the fried chicken that we got was burnt. We did mention it to the server but we were so hungry and so happy to be there we did not want to wait for a fresh plate. Given the circumstances of them trying to do business we really feel like they were a comfortable...