Convincing

Jen and Jim are on a quest to determine whether they will stay in Santa Barbara (Xanadu), or move. They are exploring the Central Coast, the East Bay, Tahoe, Central Oregon & the Oregon Coast. I'd like nothing more than for them to move here - so I pull out all the stops. I took them this morning down to Jack London Square to my coffee Mecca--Blue Bottle, to the roastery. I had pumped up Blue Bottle pretty good, "it's THE best coffee". Expectations were high, but as expected, BBC did not disappoint. "It's creamy. And thick." "Of course" I said, "it's the best coffee--ever!"

After Blue Bottle we drove them around into Berkeley to the Gourmet Ghetto, fully expecting to take them to the Cheese Board for a slice of their pizza of the day. We found parking and began walking down the street past a jammed little take out place when we were approached by a friendly Marinite, "do you know where The Cheese Board is?" I let him know we were on our way too - "You REALLY need to try this place here - it's famous. Get their potato puffs. Look at the line." Clever little man--you're trying to get to the pizza before we are. I let him now I was on to his clever little ruse, but not before I told him to go to the left on Shattuck. He hopped in his car and sped off. We strolled down the street only to find that we went in the wrong direction. "Ooops! I sent him in the wrong direction! More pizza for me!" Except that (cartoon sound: Wah, wah) it was CLOSED! So we walked across the street into a cool little collective where we found "SOOP" and a Kirala outlet, and Gelato, and...we ate, and ate, and ate...

Then we drove them around more, showing them all the best parts of the East Bay - Grizzly Peak, Solano Ave, the Westbrae area of Berkeley, and more. I think we're wearing them down and with all of the fabulousness of the East Bay, we're probably up to a 45% chance of conversion (up from 30%).