The humble 70-year-old taco shop in the shadow of the Santa Cruz boardwalk

A sunny Tuesday afternoon in May finds Santa Cruz warm and breezy, with palm trees rustling and beaches full of relaxed families and trick-bike teenagers. Las Palmas Taco Bar sits tucked between Front Street and Pacific Avenue and has operated for seventy years. The dining room buzzes with construction crews, sun-hatted diners, goths, and foil-wrapped burritos under patio umbrellas. The menu emphasizes simple items like nachos, spicy red salsa, and refried pinto beans. The narrator grew up preferring quesadillas and later embraced Mission-style burritos, remaining skeptical of tacos until noticing Las Palmas during a boardwalk visit.

It's a sunny Tuesday afternoon in May, and it could not be nicer in Santa Cruz: 73 degrees without a cloud in the sky. A gentle breeze rustles the city's palm trees. Teenagers yelp as they chug along the pavement on trick bikes, and parents lazily wander back from the beach, their sunburnt toddlers already sound asleep in their strollers. There's nothing I'd love more than to read my book by the ocean, but my growling stomach leads me through the robin's-egg blue doors of a building in the shadow of the boardwalk.

Inside Las Palmas Taco Bar, a 70-year-old mainstay tucked away between Front Street and Pacific Avenue, the dining area buzzes with activity. There are construction crews just getting off work, their tables crowded with plates of nachos and bottles of spicy red salsa. Women in floppy sun hats chow down on forkfuls of refried pinto beans - the only variation this restaurant serves. A gaggle of goths is sprawled out beneath the patio umbrellas, lingering over foil-wrapped burritos.

Let's get this out of the way: I am no taco expert and do not claim to be one. Maybe it's my Midwestern upbringing, but for most of my life, I was content to chase the crispy-laced edges and molten cheesy interior of a good quesadilla. Then, when I moved out to the Bay Area, I was quickly schooled on the merits of the Mission-style burrito in all of its portable, cost-effective glory.

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