The Ugly Mug

The Ugly Mug, operating as Cafe Ugly at 4640 Soquel Drive, is a small cafe and acoustic music venue hosting the Fiddling Cricket music series, which brings two shows a month to a 30-person room that may be the most intimate listening environment in Santa Cruz County. At this scale, the distance between performer and audience effectively disappears, and the experience of a well-played acoustic set becomes something very close and personal. The cafe setting and the regularity of the series have built a devoted audience that knows what it is coming for, and the Fiddling Cricket series has earned a quiet reputation among local acoustic music lovers as one of the best small series in the region.