Santa Cruz is known for exotic and often just plain weird foods and restaurants. Walnut Avenue Cafe serves good food without getting inedibly strange, but still combining interesting flavors.

Locals seem to flock to this breakfast-lunch place in downtown Santa Cruz -- it's always busy, while two-three other similar cafes within a block have half the crowd. Good, solid comfort food, not great. My wife had basic bacon and eggs with a banana nut muffin; good, although I think she really liked the muffin. I had huevos rancheros con carnitas, generally nicely done Mexican pulled pork with eggs, black beans, grilled peppers --- tasty, but not a wow, pork a little dry; dish also needed dressing up with a lot of Tabasco (I suppose to accommodate a variety of tastes the chef needs to keep the lid on a bit, but the consequence is that it was good, not great). Pleasant server, a little harried. It's a worthwhile place but won't knock your socks off.

I read about this restaurant on trip advisor and based on the reviews we decided to try it. The food was amazing - great selection for breakfast - fast and friendly service - definate must when you visit Santa Cruz !!

We were in downtown Santa Cruz and decided to see if there was a wait. Voila, no wait (unusual) but lucky for us. The weather was perfect and the outside seating worked perfectly for us. People with great dogs were outside and it was perfect. We decided to split a scramble which had fresh veggies and cheese and we added turkey. It was cooked perfectly. We asked for crispy potatoes and those were just right without being overcooked. And the special muffin of the day, apple cinnamon, was very tasty! All in all the perfect breakfast in Santa Cruz, just off the downtown mall so active but quiet enough.