••• According to the materials submitted for yesterday’s Zoning Administrator meeting, the plan for 2275 Ortega Hill Road in Summerland is still to renovate the building in an industrial-farmhouse style, with spaces for a restaurant, a café/bar, and a shop, along with a lot of communal seating. This post from fall 2024 gives an idea of what to expect.
••• Come December, Tamsen Gallery at 1309 State Street (Sola/Victoria) will turn into Bridges, “a new multi-generational family gallery, cultural center, and creative club. Owned by Susan and Jeff Bridges, this exciting new venture will be run and directed by their daughter, Jessie Bridges. […] It will be a dynamic cultural getaway featuring rotating, experiential programming—including intimate documentary and movie screenings, live performances, and creative pop-ups.”
••• Need a helping hand around the house? Consider Student Bees, an organization founded by three UCSB students that “connects college students with residents who need an extra hand around the house, whether that’s troubleshooting a printer, organizing a garage, assembling furniture, or helping with errands and yard work.” Hourly rates are $45-$60, with a two-hour minimum. UPDATE: Cofounder Samai Dhaliwal sent over some background.
Student Bees really started in late October 2025 through UCSB’s New Venture Program, which is essentially a Shark Tank-style entrepreneurship competition. We started by doing a lot of customer discovery and market validation, talking with seniors, families, and people in the community to figure out whether there was actually a need for reliable students to help older adults with everyday tasks and technology.
We got our first paying client in February 2026, and from there we started testing the idea in the real world. Over the summer, my cofounders were away, so I ended up running and growing Student Bees largely on my own. That forced me to really learn the business in finding clients, doing jobs, building relationships, marketing, and figuring out what services people actually wanted.
We’re now up to 51 clients, with a lot of our growth coming through word of mouth and relationships in the Santa Barbara senior community.
A big part of Student Bees has also become community education. We’ve done presentations at local senior centers like the Goleta Valley Community Center, especially around technology, and next Monday I’m presenting at Maravilla. That presentation is focused on the history of AI and practical ways seniors can use AI as a resource in their everyday lives.
So it started as a college venture competition idea, but over the past year it’s turned into a real community-based service and something I’m continuing to build out.
••• Selby’s Circles: Art & Nature in Romantic Britain opens October 9 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: “In 1819, a young aristocrat living on the border of England and Scotland embarked on an extraordinary project: the life-size depiction of every type of bird to be found in Britain, on land and water, native and migrant alike. Over the next 15 years, Prideaux John Selby would produce hundreds of large hand-colored etchings which show the plumage, behavior, and lifecycle of birds in meticulous detail. This is the first museum exhibition ever devoted to Selby.”
••• A. wanted the story behind this statue on Santa Barbara Zoo property, as seen from Cabrillo Boulevard, but the zoo was mum. Anyone know? UPDATE: “The Zoo statue looks more like the prepped animals and structures for zoo lights,” commented Kate. “I would guess it’s an Oscar statue, there are some movie reels and popcorn buckets stacked in the staging area by the stage.”
••• I finally got around to visiting two new shops in the Funk Zone, both on a block (bordered by Yanonali, Gray, Santa Barbara, and Mason) that will continue to evolve in coming years. First up: The Huntress, which has a wonderful, secret-like location in the back of the Little Yellow House Studios, across the street from Dart Coffee. There’s lots of appealing stuff for home, garden, body, bath, kids, and more—and the shop will soon expand into the space next door, where the offerings will include apparel. The annex officially debuts on October 17 during a celebration of the fall equinox (2-5 p.m.).
••• The nearby green building, meanwhile, is now home to Scenery. The brand started as a flower cart at The Post, so I was expecting mostly flowers—but there’s so much more. Founder Tedde Minogue told me that her goal was to create a space that feels like it could be in Brooklyn or London, and she definitely succeeded; she has a marvelous eye. She’s also hosting events in the yard.
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The Dart coffee garden is a really lovely spot and interesting that they have two new shops there. The green house used to be a studio for a couple of artists and a few years ago we went to a fun opening with music there.
The Zoo statue looks more like the prepped animals and structures for zoo lights. I would guess it’s an Oscar statue, there are some movie reels and popcorn buckets stacked in the staging area by the stage.