🪱 Eat Your Shapes: Geometry Is Delicious 🦖

Remember when food was fun? When a macaroni dinosaur could hold the fate of your lunch tray in its tiny pasta claws? When you picked cereal based entirely on what shape it turned your milk into? Good news: grown-up you can still eat fun shapes—and at Ava’s, they just come with slightly better ingredients. (Mostly.)

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Take Haribo gummies, for example. Not just any gummy bears—we carry Quaxi the frog (Germany’s gummy prince of sour apple goodness) and Fantasia, a Euro-only mix of unicorns, dolphins, and flying… somethings? Haribo has been shaping childhoods since the 1920s, which means you’re eating history… history that wiggles.

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And as we all know—extinct animals just taste better. Enter: Simulate Nuggs, the dino-shaped, plant-based chicken nugget that’s got more tech startup energy than most of Castro Street. Crispy, meat-free, and somehow healthy, they taste like what would happen if your childhood lunch got venture capital and a designer logo.

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Oh, and speaking of design—Marella’s Orecchiette and Cuori pasta are straight-up edible art. Orecchiette (“little ears”) hold sauce like tiny satellite dishes of joy, and the Cuori ("hearts"!) come in beautiful natural colors, because beets and spinach were apparently just waiting for their modeling contracts. Toss in a few Milka Leo cubes for dessert and you’ve got every shape in the food pyramid, if the food pyramid had a McDonalds playground inside.

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So go ahead—play with your food. You’re the adult now. Nobody can stop you. (Except your mom. Even now, she's still the boss.)

🌈 Taste the Rainbow, Dye Your Tongue 🦓

Color isn’t just for crayon boxes and thrift store blazers anymore—it’s for your lunch. Adulting doesn't have to mean beige-on-beige sad desk salads. At Ava’s, we believe food should look like it burst out of a Lisa Frank dream journal. 🌈✨

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First up: dragonfruit. Bright pink skin, speckled insides, and surprise—it’s from a cactus! That’s right—dragonfruit grows on a climbing cactus that blooms only at night, like some kind of floral vampire. And despite looking like a tropical diva, it’s surprisingly low in sugar and packed with magnesium and fiber. Fancy and functional.

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Then there’s Catalina Crunch Fruity, the high-protein cereal that looks like a unicorn was vaporized into breakfast form. It’s keto-friendly, low-carb, but somehow tastes like the morning cartoons of your childhood. Toss in some Goldfish Colors—colored naturally with beet juice, paprika, and turmeric!—and you’ve got a snack that would be comfortable on a school lunch try AND an adult party platter.

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Don’t even get us started on Marella Linguine Zebra—black and white striped pasta made with dehydrated squid ink and durum wheat. It's slow-dried for up to 72 hours, which helps it hold sauce better and gives it a springier texture. Bonus: it makes your plate look like it jumped out of a Tim Burton movie.

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Still not colorful enough? Never fear… we’ve got boxes of food coloring for your own creations. Blue butter? Purple pancakes? Chartreuse couscous? Go wild. If your dinner doesn’t look slightly radioactive, is it even living?

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Life’s too short for beige. Go bold, go bright, go Ava’s.

👶 For Hungry Babies… and You, You Big Hungry Baby 🍛

Sure, Once Upon a Farm’s Organic Meal Starters say they’re for “6+ months,” but unless you’ve Benjamin-Buttoned yourself into oblivion, you qualify. And let’s be honest: when you’re hungry, you turn into a lazy, whiny, picky gremlin who refuses anything that doesn’t come in a pouch and isn’t immediately microwaveable. (We’ve seen you glare at your stove like it personally betrayed you.)

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These little packs of veggie-packed magic are basically the Michelin stars of baby food. Perfect for your little ones, sure, but hear us out—they slap. The Curried Carrot & Beans is cozy and warm, like eating a blanket. The Mango & Veggie Medley tastes like a smoothie went to finishing school. Greens & Beans is what your digestive system dreams about while you eat nothing but beige snacks, and the Veggie Burrito Bowl? It’s a burrito bowl. In a pouch. Science has gone exactly far enough this time.​
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They’re steamed and blended whole foods, with zero junk, and they’ll save you from your next meltdown faster than a juice box and a nap (although those still help). Just rip it open, heat it up, chow it down, and get back to your regularly scheduled doom scrolling like the emotionally mature adult-child you are.

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Pick up a few next time you’re in Ava’s. Because you may be grown, but when you’re hangry, you’re 11 months old with a driver’s license and a Venmo account.

🥭 He Visits My Town Once a Year 🥭

— Amir Khusrow (1253-1325 CE)

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Fun Fact: This little gem is a classic Keh Makarni ("say-and-deny")—a traditional riddle-poem popular in India and Pakistan, where two people hint at something interesting and provocative, only to reveal that it was innocent and mundane all along. Just like most tech startup pitches.

Upcoming Events​
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• Every Wednesday, 5-7pm — 🎵 Music on Castro​
  ​Enjoy live performances right in Downtown Mountain View! Come for the tunes, stay for the vibes, and don’t forget to swing by Ava’s to grab dinner from Poké Bowl or Simply Sabor, or just pick up a box of cookies to munch on while you vibe to the music like a very classy raccoon. 🎶🍪🦝
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• Every Friday, 6-7:30pm — 🎵 Concerts on the Plaza​
  ​Didn’t get your full music fix on Wednesday? Perfect—because Friday night, Concerts on the Plaza is bringing the beats that make lawn chairs bounce and dads attempt the moonwalk. 💃🕺 Stop by Ava’s first for a snack, a chilled drink, or a quick wine tasting to fuel your feet and unlock those secret dance moves.
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• Sat/Sun, Aug 2 & 3, 11am-2pm — 🤖 MadeBy Grand Opening​
  ​Just a block up from Ava’s on Castro St, MadeBy is throwing a grand opening party you won’t want to miss—DIY projects, live music, and good community vibes. After you're satisfied with your own brightly opinionated color choices, stroll down to Ava’s for a juice box (or a grown-up version).
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• Tue, Aug 5, 5:30-7:30pm — 🚓 National Night Out​
  ​Eat a free popsicle, high-five a firefighter, and pretend you understand how municipal government works 🧊🔥📋. When you’re done drawing weird stuff on public pavement in front of several cops nodding in approval, roll into Ava’s for groceries and some gentle air conditioning.
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• Thu, Aug 14, 5-7pm (ish) — 🍺 Beer Tasting​
  ​Come sip some seriously smooth, no-nonsense brews from Richmond’s own East Brother Beer Co.—a bayside brewery named after a lighthouse and fueled by classic styles that don’t need a grapefruit explosion to impress. Show up thirsty and leave slightly more nautical. ⚓️
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• Fri, Sep 12, 5-7pm (ish) — 🍺 Beer Tasting​
  ​Free beer tasting with the legendary Anderson Valley Brewing—because nothing says “community bonding” like sipping craft brews near the kale. 🍻 Come for the beer, stay for the awkward eye contact with your neighbors over a crisp IPA.