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Why are we located in Sand City?  Good question.  At first, it had to do mostly with the building.  After ten years inside an old stone building, we wanted to try our hand at a more industrial-looking cafe environment.  And since we’re a bit obsessed with green design and sustainable practices, the old Couroc factory building offered much potential to pursue such practices.

Another reason we’re in Sand City?  The rest of the communities on the peninsula are stuck in their ruts.
Monterey is run by an anal retentive control freak and his boy mayor; two flickering bulbs who between them haven’t found a good idea in years.  Pacific Grove is an odorous concept in search of a town.  Carmel is an overbred feline choking on a fat hairball of quaintness.  Pebble Beach is a gas-guzzling black hole with 10,000 pacemakers and an ocean view.  Carmel Valley smells like warm horse poop.  Seaside is a car lot.  Marina is…what is Marina?  And Salinas has a rodeo or something.

Yes, yes, we know…Sand City sold its soul to the Big Box Devil.  Massive, ugly, impersonal, mom-and-pop killing retail behemoths (Hey! Wasn’t that you we saw coming out of Costco with the 75-roll pack of toilet tissue, set of radial tires, and a casket?)  It’s too late to cry about it all now.  But there’s another side to Sand City…

The people.

Hidden away in this little community are some of the most incredible people in all of Monterey county.  Artists and artisans, retailers and wholesalers, salespeople and repair people, shopkeepers and 300 residents, and one fool trying to run a sustainable cafe.  All of these people are more commited to their little town than anyone can possibly imagine.  It’s a true community, perhaps the last one left on the peninsula (with the possible exception of Spreckels, but no one knows where that is).  Sand City is bustling on weekdays, yet totally quiet in the evenings.  Someday they might even figure out their parking problem and end up looking like geniuses.

Anyway, that’s why we’re in Sand City.  Why aren’t you in Sand City?
                                                              
www.sandcity.org