Full Belly Files | Keeping It Awesome in Avila Beach

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We weren’t ripping off-road rigs to remote lakes like we did in Bozeman, nor eating ant larvae tacos in the historic haciendas of Mexico City, nor foraging for mushrooms and fairy potatoes in the woods outside Asheville. But the fun still flowed profusely last weekend during my annual guys’ trip, despite taking a brief detour from more ambitious routes to enjoy a laid-back, localized edition based in Avila Beach. (Check all my photos here.)

These trips — which my group of eight connected friends from elementary school, high school, and college call KIA for “Keep It Awesome” — started out in 2010, and we’ve yet to miss a year, save for 2020’s pandemic pause. (We returned with Palm Springs in 2021, which was the first time I started covering them for this newsletter.)

Due to busy lives and scheduling snafus, we were on the verge of missing one this year until I suggested something easy-ish, at least for those of us in California. Of course, the only one who could actually commit at that point was our man in Virginia, but he was down for the mission.

Once we settled on Avila, essentially halfway between where most of these friends live in L.A. and the Bay, that opened doors to those who could drive in as their calendars allowed. All told, five of us made it this year — two for three nights, two for two, and one for one — although all five were never together at once. Voltron be damned.  

Thanks to the government shutdown’s airport impact, the kickoff to our adventure — a Thursday night reservation at Bell’s in Los Alamos — hovered briefly under clouds of stress. But somehow, the Virginian’s flights from Richmond to Nashville to Las Vegas to Santa Barbara stayed mostly on time, and we arrived at Bell’s just as the clock hit 7:30 p.m.

The five-course dinner was storybook as usual, from the urchin-caviar crepe and cauliflower soup to the chicken pithivier and scallops in potage to the cavatelli en bouillon and steak au poivre. We tried all three desserts and did agree with our server that the floating fig island creation was best. Serving as refreshments were bottles of aligoté and grolleau from France. Daisy even came by to say hello.   

Once moved into our modest oceanview cottage in Avila — its decor was decidedly, and suitably, boat-like — we treated our least wine-educated friend to a somewhat hostile wine education. Lessons were learned: For him, about wine, I hope; for me, to watch my exasperated tone when talking to people who can’t read wine labels. Laughter prevailed, and then so did guitar serenades from our Silver Lake filmmaker friend (indeed, the same dude behind this video about me).

The only set-in-stone plans we had going forward were tee times at Avila Beach on Friday morning and at Dairy Creek on Saturday. I’d also talked to the company that rents kayaks out of San Luis Bay about a Friday paddle to the lighthouse and was planning to tour Ancient Peaks (we’d see some of this) on Saturday, but the universe had different ideas in mind.

Avila’s 18-hole golf course could be world-class, but its conditions are far from that. Nonetheless, it was exactly what we needed Friday morning, as two of us were able to cruise through the holes at our own pace, losing an ungodly number of balls along the way. Among the vast array of bird species on display were elegant herons, gaggles of geese, and a redtail hawk with an apparently busted wing guarding a tee box. Among the double bogeys and occasional par, I spread the gospel of the Transfusion cocktail.    

The Virginian needed tacos, so we went to San Luis Taqueria in downtown S.L.O., where he promptly ordered a chimichanga. I got my own taco fix — highly recommended — and was most surprised by a fuschia-colored, watery salsa powered by habanero and red onion juice. We followed that with my first trip to Cheap Thrills, a record-CD-cassette-comic-stereo-video game-everything else megastore. I want to go back to buy Christmas gifts.

Our kayak dreams were dashed by a high swell, so we moved right into what would be the highlight of the whole trip, at least for the wine lovers in the group: a three-hour hang with veteran winemaker Mike Sinor and his kids, Tomas and Esmée, who are all about to open the Shuck Shack Natural Wine Bar on Avila’s main seaside drag.

We started at Mike’s existing tasting room for Sinor-LaVallee, where the Shuck Shack concept emerged about five years ago to showcase Morro Bay Oyster Company’s best along with the wines. We drank bottles of white wine from Chablis, Oregon, and Quebec, and then moved the party to the unopened wine bar on the central strip that overlooks the ocean.

The family recently took over what was PierFront Wine & Brew, and will be opening an establishment soon that serves sustainably minded, fresh-forward wines from both nearby and European producers as well as oysters and Spanish-leaning tapas. It’s essentially moving the Shuck Shack away from the tasting room — which will remain as a tasting room — and has the potential to cement Avila as a must-stop on the Central Coast wine circuit.   

Once seated on the sunny patio, out came German chasselas and chardonnay and pink chardonnays from both the mutated grape variety’s original vineyard in the Jura and Raj Parr’s Phelan Farm up the coast in San Simeon. There were also reds, but at no point did Mike or Tomas try to serve any of their own wine to us. This was strictly a friendly affair, everyone talking wine and life like the old friends that most of us are.

It’s not easy to get a cab out of Avila, especially when you’re just going down the road to Mersea’s on the Port San Luis Pier. If you succeed, you might be forced to hold the driver’s dog, which is what happened to our friend Dr. P and his new lap mate, Cheesy, which licked my elbow the whole ride. Despite the ongoing oddities — the driver offered his various therapy services as evangelical rock played loudly — we kept our collective composure until he sped away from the foot of the pier.

Mersea’s can be packed, but it was mellow that night. We ate calamari and grilled fish sandwiches, fish tacos, steamer clams, garlic fries, onion rings, and coleslaw as the moon floated over Avila, finishing up the night with more wine and music in our rental.

Saturday’s golf was at Dairy Creek, which was in far better condition than Avila but only nine holes, as they’ve turned the other nine into a Top Golf–like venue called Swing Time. (I was told that conversion was due to water issues, but the course must make more money off of that concept anyway.) The morning round was super slow and rather hot, but we’d committed to try 18, so kept on pushing.  

Around the 10th hole is when we learned that our Ancient Peaks tour had run into some complications: The property was hosting 3,000 or so obstacle-hopping participants in a Spartan Race. Our host was still game to take us around, but paired with the heat and the long golf, we figured it made more sense to stay below the Cuesta Grade and hit the beach after lunch on the course at Marcerro.  

Avila Beach was packed with nearly naked college kids throwing footballs, well-dressed families taking portraits, and a clueless couple getting tossed while trying to launch kayaks (I “saved” their bag). Most interesting of all were the people in headphones sitting in a circle around a cloud of incense who then took over a significant stretch of the beach to dance their silent discos while everyone else ogled on. (It’s called Sol Waves, we learned.)

We kept dinner easy by grilling sausages on our deck, then played gin rummy into the wee hours — quite a distinct, you could even say distinguished, change of pace from shutting down Manhattan bars and watching lucha libre in Mexico on past trips. The next morning, we caught up with my friend’s dad Pete Pepper (you may remember him from this story) in downtown S.L.O. over brisket taquitos and breakfast sandos at Gold Land BBQ.   

We finished up with a goodbye drink at Marisol at The Cliffs in Shell Beach, because our friend from Berkeley arrived too late on Saturday to catch any coastal vibes. The fog, of course, was the thickest we’d seen all weekend, so our last hang reflected what we’d really done best the whole weekend: talking about our lives, our families, our memories, and our futures, with friends who sometimes know you better than you know yourself.

It turns out we can do that anywhere.

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From Our Table

Here are some stories you may have missed:

• Ella Heydenfeldt digs into the late night eats scene in Santa Barbara, which is only slightly more bustling than it was a decade ago.
• Callie Fausey tells the story behind Sweet Wheel Farms and how it is getting food to those in need.
• I interviewed the fascinating and lively Toya Banks about the tragedies and triumphs — some Santa Barbara–related — that she endured in making Hermanas Amigas Tequila.
• And in case you missed last week’s issue, here’s my cover story about the humanoid robots at Meet Up Chinese as well as at Vista del Monte, Dos Pueblos High, and elsewhere.