Former owner of Tea Cup lounge dies - Santa Cruz Sentinel

The Tea Cup was wonderful, it was like stepping into a film noir set.

The Tea Cup was one of those special places of the old down town. Don, his wife and children were great and friendly hosts, its one business that is miss greatly. All the best for his wife and kids.

Oh the memories! I so looked forward to a special friday night when Mom would take me out to dinner at the Tea Cup. We couldn't afford steak in those days, but we sure could afford Chinese food, and the Tea Cup's was the very best. And the warmth and friendliness inside would make you feel as comfortable as being curled up by the heater at home.

My sincere condolences to the family, and a long distant hug to Geof Dunn as well. Then again, Geof was family-wasn't he?

Exactly, Steve! Once a month or every other month, dinner at the Tea Cup. I think I can still taste the BBQ Pork and the wonton soup.
RIP.

The Teacup was the best Beers and Eggrolls. i think I lived on Teacup food for a year. I always was disappointed that it was not viable for them to rebuild after the earthquack

Good memories and old friends.

RIP Don; your restaurant was an unforgettable moment in time that I'll long cherish. My first kamikaze....the cup of fortune telling sticks....the dangerous descent down the steep stairs with the shaky hand rail.

Seeing that old picture is great. Anybody know what happened to Franny?

Hi to all my old bartenders too: Cathy, Melody, Bruce, and Simon. I hope you're all doing well.

...I'll be having a toast in all of your honors tonight.*s*

i meant quake maybe I should be doing my job and not blogging but then the job is not as much fun. The Teacup has been missed for years, great food

I didn't know the denizens of the Tea Cup, and I can't even remember what it looked like inside, but upon entering I very much felt like I was walking into history.

Best wishes to Don's family & friends.

Can anyone tell me, Was the TeaCup upstairs from where Jamba Juice is now on Pacific Ave.(across from the post office)? I seem to remember a restaurant up there before the earthquake.

Missy, Yes.

and Pat... Don hired 'street people'.

Just mentioned it because I thought that would annoy you.

Also what is notable in this story is the lack of reference to Geoffrey Dunn as a LAND DEVELOPER... as one of the people in the consortium of developers who caused the unused hole across the street from the old teacup to be dug, where the overpriced non-luxury condos are going to go...

Unless the city's economy collapse entirely over the next couple of year.

Fond memories of going there even as a young kid with my parents. That was a staple in the old Pacific Garden Mall. Remember when we called it that instead of "Downtown?" If you look at archive photos of Santa Cruz it's always there, makes me wonder if that was an establishment since the old days of the Wild West and railroad building. After all, they DID find a Chinese burial ground after the Loma Prieta earthquake because modern day Pacific Ave. runs directly where the San Lorenzo river used to run before they rerouted it.

In the Big Trees train tunnel on the back side of downtown, about 4-5 'ribs' in on the upper left (going out of town), there's a Chinese ideogram with the number 1910 underneath. It looks like someone lying in a bed with something rising up from it. It appeared a few years ago and is still visible.

I believe it's a memorial but not from railroad building days because there was no railroad there at the time.

The bombed-out-on-purpose-during-W WII tunnel up in Laurel has Chinese graves in the hillside though.

Missy wrote:

Can anyone tell me, Was the TeaCup upstairs from where Jamba Juice is now on Pacific Ave.(across from the post office)? I seem to remember a restaurant up there before the earthquake.

you got it.

SC Midtown wrote:

Fond memories of going there even as a young kid with my parents. That was a staple in the old Pacific Garden Mall. Remember when we called it that instead of "Downtown?" If you look at archive photos of Santa Cruz it's always there, makes me wonder if that was an establishment since the old days of the Wild West and railroad building. After all, they DID find a Chinese burial ground after the Loma Prieta earthquake because modern day Pacific Ave. runs directly where the San Lorenzo river used to run before they rerouted it.

The upper end of the mall was china town for years the tea cup was the last icon of that era. And it will always be the Pacific Garden Mall where the musicians played at the cooper house every weekend

Da Buffalo Amongst Wolves wrote:

Missy, Yes.
and Pat... Don hired 'street people'.
Just mentioned it because I thought that would annoy you.
Also what is notable in this story is the lack of reference to Geoffrey Dunn as a LAND DEVELOPER... as one of the people in the consortium of developers who caused the unused hole across the street from the old teacup to be dug, where the overpriced non-luxury condos are going to go...
Unless the city's economy collapse entirely over the next couple of year.

What happens to tourist industry when the price of gas goes over $6 a gallon. Flush

McClatchy reported a couple of months ago that the hardest hit economic sectors were vacation tourism, designer clothes, and what they referred to as the 'latte drinks', the more expensive versions, or at a bar, a beer instead of a 'flaming organism' or some such.

That's Santa Cruz downtown's whole business model down the tubes, with NO "Plan B"and further, no interest IN A "Plan B".

They built 'condos for commuters' on everything that was formerly 'commercial-industrial' making nearly the whole lower working class of Santa Cruz city homeless by building too-expensive-for-local-worker s housing and driving anything but college student/face work temp jobs out of the town.

I relish the day that will surely come when that CRLA lawsuit gets filed against the City and their "Redevelopment (to what?) agency.

Thanks Jeffrey and Da Baffalo---

Now that we are walking down nostalgia Lane, does anyone remember the name of the Cigar Store with the wooden Indian in front? It had two entrances from the alley and on Pacific Ave. My dad would take me there every weekend for his magazines and I would always get the candy cigarettes that blew puffs of "smoke". Also, how about the old Woolworths on the corner with the diner in the back....good times!

Missy: That would have been United Cigar I believe. Tons of newspapers and magazines and such.
Dang, I can feel the rust crackin between my ears.

JeffR wrote:

Missy: That would have been United Cigar I believe. Tons of newspapers and magazines and such.
Dang, I can feel the rust crackin between my ears.

Haha....thank you, yep, that was the name!

Missy wrote:

<quoted text>
Haha....thank you, yep, that was the name!

Ernie that used to work there in the back with the fishing gear (along with the owners son) now has his own shop in Soquel. United Cigar Agency, spent a lot of time in there as a kid before heading down to the San Lorenzo to try and catch a salmon when you could still. I remember the Tea Cup, used to work down stairs in the Bakery for Eugene when I was in high school as SCHS....years ago...