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Dalan Moreno grew up on Santa Barbara’s Westside, and he was a meat-eater.
But around age 15, he watched a video on how animals are farmed and killed and decided he couldn’t partake in the lifestyle anymore.
“After I saw it, I just felt compassion for these animals and didn’t want to partake in the way that our modern industrialization kills animals,” Moreno said. “I just didn’t want anything to do with it. I never went back.”
With a large “Vegan” tattoo on his neck, which he got when he was 19, Moreno wears his passion proudly. And now, the 30-year-old has taken the next step. He has opened his own vegan restaurant, Rascal’s, at 18 E. Cota St. It started as a pop-up on State Street and now is his own restaurant venture. He said he loves being his own boss.
“I started it as a side project and it turned into a full-time thing,” Moreno said. “Being able to make whatever I want, do whatever I want, it is really amazing and liberating.”
He is in a shared space with the Venus in Furs wine bar.
On Thursday afternoon, Moreno showed a reporter how he carefully hollows out a vegan pinguino cupcake and fills it with a nondairy cream. His menu consists of pambazo torta, tempura cauliflower, loaded asada nachos and more vegan options.
Moreno said he is self-taught but has learned a lot from others, and sponges up knowledge whenever he can. He worked for free at Satellite on State Street for a time just to learn. He also took trips to Mexico to master his cooking craft. The flavor in his food comes from the bases and the sauces, he said, which make all of his vegan dishes taste good.
“It’s just on a different protein or source,” Moreno said.
Rascal’s is open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. On Sunday, he makes smash-style vegan burgers. The name comes from his approach and attitude setting out on his own, he said, proving a bit of a “rascal” by voyaging into the restaurant business.
He said he knows that vegan food can be delicious and hopes to enlighten more people to the lifestyle.
“I decided I should try to do my best to make something that I would want as a consumer,” Moreno said.
On the Road Again
Santa Barbara Airbus will return to its full schedule on July 15.
“We are so pleased to see travel demand continue to rise,” general manager Samantha Onnen said. “We very much look forward to getting back to the schedule we knew before the pandemic started. The new schedule will offer passengers additional options when booking transportation to LAX.”
Santa Barbara Airbus closed its doors in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting July 15, Santa Barbara Airbus will offer eight daily trips to Los Angeles International Airport, and eight trips from LAX to Carpinteria, Santa Barbara and Goleta. Schedules have been adjusted to accommodate the additional trips, according to a news release. Passengers who booked trips on the bus for July 15 or after will be notified of the change in schedule times and rebooked on the trip closest to their original time.
In addition to the LAX schedule expansion, the organization also added transportation to the cruise ship ports and day trips. Cruise Ship Connection will get passengers to the San Pedro and Long Beach cruise ports once daily on cruise ship arrival and departure days.
Santa Barbara Airbus also has three unique day excursions and five Los Angeles Dodgers game offerings available. Click here for more information.
WEV Comes Downtown
Women’s Economic Ventures, an organization that helps people start businesses, is moving into a newly leased 3,500-plus-square-foot space on the third floor of the historic El Centro, 19-31 E. Canon Perdido St. in downtown Santa Barbara.
“We’ve been carefully searching for the right location for several years, and we knew what we were looking for was probably the unicorn of office spaces,” Women’s Economic Ventures CEO Kathy Odell said. “It had to be more than a workspace. We wanted classroom space for training courses, a lecture hall for our speaker series, an event space and a community gathering place for our clients and donors.”
Built in 1927, the El Centro building recently underwent a complete renovation and once was the site of a Chinese temple in old Santa Barbara’s Chinatown, according to a news release. The building now houses such businesses such as Board & Brush Creative Studio and Sevtap Winery on the ground floor, and a variety of commercial tenants above.
“Working with WEV to find the perfect home, a truly unique space that would allow them to expand their services to the community, was a dream endeavor,” said Rhonda Henderson of Radius Commercial Real Estate who represented WEV in the transaction.
Luxury Horse Farm in Santa Ynez Valley
Santa Ynez resident ClaudeLee “Elee” Johnson has launched a luxury horse farm and boarding facility.
Fairfield Farm, a 20-acre horse farm, includes a two-story horse barn with 30 stalls, nine all-weather turnouts including irrigated grass paddocks, a jumper ring, an Olympic-regulation size dressage ring, and a 300-foot-by-250-foot grass field.
“It’s a prime facility with huge turnouts,” Johnson said. “It’s ideal living for a horse. This is like a playground for the rider, with the grass field, the jumps and the dressage ring. I built it as I would have wanted it. It’s above and beyond the norm.”
The stalls are lined with rubber mats, equipped with individual fans, custom latches, automated waterers and an automatic fly spray system, according to a news release.
The barn aisles are paved, new fencing has been installed throughout the property, and the barn doors from Pennsylvania’s Amish country add an air of old-world authenticity. Both the jumper and dressage rings are engineered for safe, all-weather riding, including after heavy rains.
Membership starts at $1,500 a month for general boarding and increases depending on whether boarders desire full care and training, or starting of a young horse. Johnson also offers private, advanced riding lessons for adults and children.
Bed Tax Rocking
Transient occupancy taxes continue to rise in Santa Barbara.
The City of Santa Barbara collected $1.9 million in transient occupancy taxes for May, up $1.6 million from the same month last year during the pandemic.
The $1.9 million is up 14% from 2019. City officials said 27% higher room rates in 2021 helped boost the numbers. Overall, occupancy is down 6.8%.
The city has collected $13.3 million through the first 11 months of the fiscal year, which runs from July 1 through June 30.
The city’s adopted TOT budget is $17.2 million. TOT now is projected to end the fiscal year at about $14.7 million, which is 15% below budget, according to a news release.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
