Captain + Stoker, a hip coffee shop across from the Monterey Sports Center, hosted an anniversary festival on July 22 at Jack's Park. There were vendors selling food, clothing, you name it, non-profits, and live music. There were hundreds of people enjoying the beautiful Monterey weather and fun vibe.
One of the most interesting booths was hosted by business folks from the Pearl Works, a co-working shared office community in downtown Monterey. They invited festival goers to join them in the shade of their booth, sitting on comfortable sofas to engage in conversation. How often do you get to talk about real, meaningful things with fellow community members you don't know? We had really nice discussions about what made us most happy and what emotion we most desired, among other topics.
I also stopped by a booth for the Village Project. Village Project is a non-profit in Seaside that offers educational, mental health services and youth counseling, with a focus on underserved African American youth. It's a program that I am familiar with from attending their annual fundraising luncheons, and I know it is very successful at helping students succeed. They had some nice shirts for sale and I got an MLK shirt for next year's MLK day march in Seaside.
There were lots of food options too but I had to get a drink from Nitro Cycle 831. I've known the owner Mike Baroni for a long time. He is a biking and sustainability enthusiast. For years he has run a bicycle delivery service in Monterey as well as operating bike valet at big events, to make it more inviting to bike. Together we worked to pass a pedicab ordinance for the city making it possible to have pedicabs. So far that hasn't happened but I still hope that it will in the future. Now he runs Nitro Cycle, which offers nutritious nitro drinks from a trailer he pulls on his bike.
The music was fun and good and the whole experience of the festival was fun and friendly. It's great to see how big of a community Captain + Stoker has built and I wish them continued success. These kinds of events make Monterey such a great place to live and visit.