Santa Cruz Farmers Markets

Delicious Crepes is a relatively new business that was registered in February 2008. However, the unique menu had been developed over the past 10 years during which were spent serving the farmers' market communities under a different company name formerly known as Nina's Kitchen.

Hidden Fortress is a farm based coffee roaster. Coffee helps finance the start-up costs of a new farm which specializes in breakfast items like fruit, eggs, muffins, and of course, coffee! Owner Amelia Loftus started roasting coffee as a hobby in 2000 and has roasted all the coffee she drinks ever since. On a trip to Hawaii a few years ago she picked wild coffee beans and hand processed a small batch of coffee. This experience gave her a profound respect for the amount of labor and expertise required to produce excellent coffee. When looking for a way to reach self sufficiency as a farmer, coffee was the logical choice.

The roasting is done with obsessive attention to detail on a very small scale fluid air bed commercial roaster that roasts just 2 pounds at a time. The roaster uses propane and solar power from a mobile solar power generator mounted on the truck which also powers the coffee booth at the farmer's market. With such small batches the coffee is labor intensive to produce but it is also easy to keep inventory farm fresh.

Peter started baking up on the UC campus in one of the co-ops in 1986 and slowly the business has grown to what it is today.