This entry refers to a departed business — a business that has closed or left town. Information here is mostly for historical reference.

These images are from 1987, when Heinz Gross, my good friend and fellow sojourner in life, operated his Pacific Garden Mall delicatessen known as 'Heinz Biergarten'. This site is now simply another ubiquitous 'St**bucks Coffee' outlet (with all the crass, mass capitalistic charm that corporate business exudes!) A number of years later Heinz decided to end his German delicatessen business and concentrate solely on his other occupational calling (licensed representative of high quality Leitz optical goods). I was at the time (1987-88) working at the Santa Cruz Heart Institute (part of Santa Cruz Community Hospital, now absorbed into that monster known as Dominican Health care...but not before an epic pitched battle between Dominican Hospital and SC Community Hospital for the cardiac surgery market share in Santa Cruz County). 

Heinz, like so many among us, is a storied and fascinating individual, having trained late in the Second World War to be a glider pilot in wartime Germany. As the war closed in upon Germany in its final days, those youths with glider training were pressed into training as pilots of the radical rocket-powered Me-163 'Komet' interceptor aircraft and Heinz was on the verge of being sent on operational missions against the streams of Allied bombers that were daily beating Germany into submission. However, the war ended just before he actually flew off in a Komet, which is a fortunate thing, since the Komet was renown for exploding upon landing, due to the volatility of its hypergolic propulsion fuels, and had he actually entered operational status, Heinz would surely NOT have survived the war.

Managing to escape what ended up as East Germany, Heinz immigrated to the USA and eventually set up this business on Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz, where it appeared somewhat incongruously to be a small and pleasantly kitschy slice of Old Germany planted on the Mall as if by a time-warp. Heinz decorated the deli in what I call 'generic German bierstube style', offering a range of imported German specialty foods, bottled beers and other goods. To typical Santa Cruz tourist passers-by it certainly must have presented a startlingly incongruous sight!

As a cardiac surgery technologist at SCCH's SC Heart Institute, I was at the time living in a cottage at Sunset State Beach and assisting in the cardiac surgery program. After work, I'd hop on my motorcycle and spend an hour or two at Heinz's Biergarten tossing down a few cold Spatenbrau before traveling back down Highway 1 to my beach cottage. Over the ensuing weeks Heinz and I quickly discovered our mutual German affinities and became good friends at his 'Stammtisch' ('regular's table') in the rear of his deli. This friendship continues to this day, although I haven't been in touch for a while. There were one or two other 'regulars' in this closely knit 'Stammtisch' group, including a former police officer named 'Doug' (I fail to recall his last name, sadly).

Heinz's place, unfortunately for Heinz, served as a homing beacon for the substantial numbers of Santa Cruz street people who frequented the Mall, back in the 80s, and they would arrive regularly every day to squat at his tables and soak up the sun, rarely if ever buying any beer or deli items. His patio was (and is) a delightfully sunny place, being somewhat protected even during the colder winter months, so it was always filled with these non-paying habitues. Their unsettling presence helped scare off potential paying clientele, so Heinz was constantly bedeviled by this unhappy turn of events and was never quite able to figure out a way to change the status quo.

For my part, as a writer and budding chronicler of the times, it served as a fantastic place to write chapters of my novels and writings; the street people were also an inspiration for me, given their typically 'colorful' character and nature. I ended up with several good short stories and a few other documentaries of late 80s Santa Cruz, while poor Heinz probably ended up with more ulcers! However, that's the way it was, then. 

The interior of Heinz's place was quite colorful, with interesting German murals and a wide range of imported German deli items. Heinz was, however, a product of the austere war years he had suffered in wartime Germany and had a tendency to be...er, shall we say somewhat 'frugal'? One deli item offered that was to be avoided at all costs was a tray of 'Fresh Deviled Eggs' that were so old that they were starting to petrify. 'Waste not, want not' was an operative axiom for Heinz, accordingly. I only tried the eggs once (that was all it took to affirm this fact) and made it a point to have only my regular two bottles of Spatenbrau before zooming down the road for home (Sunset State Beach).

Out back, Heinz parked his battered old 1966 VW 'Kaffer', which was always on the verge of a major breakdown owing again to Heinz frugality (he 'feed and watered' it just enough to keep it alive) and it was a well known sight around Santa Cruz, shuffling down the street now and then. Inside, Heinz regularly hired a few UCSC students to help wait on customers, although the wages were minimal.

Those were magical, wonderful years for me and I count them as being among the most fulfilling and personally rewarding of my life. Heinz's Biergarten occupied a singular place in the lives of myself and a few others in those years who tended to be somewhat Bohemian in spirit and who didn't mind the constant presence of the street people in the patio. As mentioned earlier, Heinz eventually sold his business (to St**bucks) and it is now simply another one of those socially irritating capitalistic hangouts for those clueless souls who do not recognize that commercial business for what it is and think drinking hoity-toity coffee drinks is cool (NOT!). [I say this as a graduate of the Peet's Coffee, Tea & Spices school who cut my teeth on North Beach espressos and Walnut Square caps back in the early 70s. It's actually shameful to think that Sta**bucks originators learned their trade at Mr. Peet's knees before morphing into simply another monster corporation.]

Today, Heinz continues with his Jena Optical Goods business in Santa Cruz, but the memories of those magical years he operated his 'Heinz Biergarten' delicatessen will never vanish and disappear for those of us who lived them and who counted Heinz as a good friend!

Ich grüße dich, Heinz, mit einem vollen Glas guten deutschen Bier und warme Erinnerungen an kinder, bessere Zeiten in Santa Cruz verbracht! Du bist ein wahrer 'mensch' im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes. Um Ihre Gesundheit und Glück!

Ihr ergebener, Kalikiano Kalei

Current site of Starbucks.

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