Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone offers urban entertainment

ANALYSIS/OPINION

Say it with me: It’s not Funkytown, it’s the Funk Zone.

From the Stearns Wharf pier to State Street, from the oceanfront to the perching Santa Ynez Mountains and their awaiting vineyards, Santa Barbara, California, is the veritable apogee of the Golden State promise, with all of California’s coastal advantages and few drawbacks — save for the notorious traffic, here filtered through only four lanes of highway, and the price tag of paradise living.

Yet in the midst of the glamour, astronomical home prices and the natural God’s country beauty that is Santa Barbara is a formerly downmarket downtown neighborhood experiencing an urban renaissance thanks to investment and new attempts to make Southern California’s pearl of paradise that much more effervescent.

As if the college and retiree town of 90,000, located 110 miles north of Los Angeles and situated atop seaside bluffs, needed any help.

But who said you can’t make heaven that make better?

While Santa Barbara may be the coastal crown jewel of Southern California on the Pacific, the fact remains the town where movie stars have second homes away from Hollywood remains a community where jobs can be difficult to come by, yet someone still has to man the malls, In n’ Out burgers and various eateries that make Santa Barbara — sometimes known as the American Riviera or the Queen of the Missions — rolling. Like many urban centers, this creates a distance between rich and poor and little in the way of middle class opportunity.

However, thanks to Funk Zone, that trend may be changing. In a densely packed few-block area of old warehouses bordered by Highway 101 to the north, State St. — the town’s major artery and vein — to the west, Garden St. to the east and Cabrillo Blvd. to the south, “the Zone” may not look like much from the outside, but inside is a traveler’s and local’s treasure trove of activity but a quick walk from the wharf distrtict.

And, of course, if the Zone’s hope is to bring in the hipster crowd, fresh food and libations must be part of the equation. In addition to drinking and dining at the fooderies, the Zone’s compact urban locale offers craft brewing, the first distillery in Santa Barbara history and, this being wine country, vinos galore.

With the craft beer juggernaut showing absolutely no signs of abating, it was only a matter of time before downtown SB had another player besides State Street’s longtime flagship Santa Barbara Brewing Co. Enter Figueroa Mountain, a California microbrewer with multiple locations up and down the Central Coast — and which has staked a claim to slake the malty thirst of the Funk Zone’s suds-o-philes.

Even by craft beer standards, Figueroa Mountain takes its game very seriously with its ales, stouts and lagers for every taste. The Funky location has become a go-to locale for both the serious drinkers (er, rather, those who take drinking ’seriously’ … ) and the hip alike, who cram Fig for live music on weekends amid the partylike atmosphere.

As a friendly advisement, this place has become so hopping that you may have to wait in line to get in to enjoy their primo suds on weekends. Arrive early, and as always, be responsible.

Just down the way on Anacapa is Cutler’s Artisan Spirits, a microdistillery opened in 2013 to fashion the taste of American whiskey to the city by the sea. Owner Ian Cutler’s great-grandfather Duke got into the distilling game producing moonshine during Prohibition in the Northern California town of Oakdale, and the fourth-generation Mr. Cutler now plies the family secrets into artisanal whiskey, vodka, gin and the dangerously pie-like taste of Grandma Tommie’s Apple Pie, which, at 20 percent alcohol, will make you never so happy to have the sweet taste of dessert on your palate. Curious consumers can pop by Cutler’s for sampling. (Tell ’em we sent you.)

Of course, this being wine country, a true Funk experience isn’t complete without a sample of the prize-winner California flavors vintnered in the nearby Santa Ynez Valley. However, the vineyards are a good 30 miles from downtown Santa Barbara, and an afternoon of tasting among the grapes definitely requires a DD.

However, the Urban Wine Trail winds its serpentine path through the heart of the Funk Zone, with over 25 name-brand Santa Ynez vintners offering up satellite tasting rooms within walking distance of one another. Within the Funky environs one can sample from the wares of such celebrity winemakers as Kalyra (featured in the film “Sideways”), Riverbench and Cottonwood, with their Cab Francs and Pinots. Rather than needing a set of wheels or a limo driver (what, you don’t?) you can simply amble from one tasting room to the next on foot to get a true taste of the magnificence of the best that Santa Barbara’s wine country has to offer.

Lest you come to think it’s all about the alcohol in Funk Zone, the destination offers a bevy of cuisines of all stripe, from Italian to Mexican and all-American. Furthermore, art galleries, shops and various hidden gems avail themselves for you to find in this enchanting urban enclave. The Amtrak train stop can even let you off nearby to get your funk on — all without the necessity of a vehicle.

I’ve been a fan of Santa Barbara for nearly two decades, ever since passing through on my way to San Luis Obispo with my parents as a college freshman at USC. With each visit, it grows on me more. And with the Funk Zone now added to its considerable accolades and offerings for traveler and local alike, the American Riviera now sparkles as brilliantly as the California sun off of the shoreline Pacific crests.