Business

Twin sisters Jennifer DeVault and Erika Conrad made their dreams a reality earlier this year when they bought Cafe Ella from founder and previous owner Ella King.

WATSONVILLE—First came the coronavirus in March and then the fires and smoke in August. While the CZU August Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains is 100% contained, the Covid-19 pandemic continues. What have the dual disasters meant for Watsonville’s local businesses? So far,...

APTOS—Sometime in the summer, Mid-County will have a new ice cream shop, a walk-up establishment near the heart of Aptos Village. Bruster’s Real Ice Cream—headquartered in Pennsylvania with 200 locations throughout the U.S. and in South Korea—features 24 flavors that are hand-made on-site daily, says...

WATSONVILLE—Monterey Bay Caterers, a long-standing business in the Pajaro Valley which operated as a catering business and a restaurant, is for sale. Owner Ken Schwan said a combination of things led to his decision. He’ll be 64 next month, and his recent motorcycle crash that...

For almost a century, Jansen Music has been a staple in the music community, offering instruments, equipment, lessons and repair services.

WATSONVILLE—Major work is underway at the Valley Public Cemetery to make way for hundreds of garden crypts. The move is part of the Pajaro Valley Public Cemetery District’s needed expansion to create more land for burials, said Bob Tanner, Pajaro Valley Public Cemetery District Board...

There is now a new way to assemble your own bouquet of roses, thanks to a pick-your-own rose venue at Birdsong Orchards in Watsonville. Owner Nadine Schaeffer said she is growing dozens of varieties of roses on her 8-acre parcel where she also tends to...

When Phoenix Artemisia decided to open a yoga studio in Watsonville in 2016, no other location around the city grabbed her attention more than downtown. That was despite some pushback from friends, who had concerns about her safety and that of her clients.  Artemisia, ever the...

WASHINGTON—President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a multistep strategy aimed at rapidly shifting Americans from gasoline-powered cars and trucks toward electric vehicles—a central part of his plan to reduce the pollution that is heating the planet. Biden is first restoring and slightly strengthening auto mileage...