An upcoming one-night-only menu at Eye on I challenges diners to eat as much pizza “as you can stuff into your stoned face.” April 20 falls on a Wednesday this year, but that isn’t stopping the Lompoc eatery from celebrating its inaugural 4/20 dinner with an open-ended time frame, from 6 p.m. to “whenever you have to go home,” the menu reads.
The notion to host the event was partly inspired by a lack of 4/20-themed promotions offered by other restaurants in the area, Eye on I manager and chef Heather Rae Hovey explained.
“The idea came up because Lompoc has a huge cannabis and wine community, and I believe these people need a place to gather and celebrate. We thought it would be a fun tradition to start,” Hovey said. “I don’t think any other restaurant has thrown a cannabis-themed celebration as of yet.”
Menu items featured at the celebratory gathering, described as “an evening of wandering and grazing,” include oysters, caviar, chicken wings, shrimp, steak, mushrooms, herby greens, and the aforementioned all-you-can-eat pizza.
The pizza station will be one of several spots in the restaurant where diners can line up and fill their plates. The diverse variety of pizza options will include chanterelle brie pizza, pork belly and kimchi pizza with a fried egg on top, and “whatever other weed-inspired pizza creations that a day of celebrating high might conjure up,” Hovey said.
When looking for inspiration on what to include in the 4/20-centric dinner menu, Hovey simply imagined being in the shoes of a hopeful customer.
“It’s what I would want to eat after a day of getting really high,” said Hovey, who described the menu as a whole as an attempt to achieve “over-the-top deliciousness.”
“Food stations will be set up around the restaurant, inside and out,” including the pizza station, a walk-up oyster bar, and a fry station for koji-cured chicken wings and coconut shrimp, cooked upon request, Hovey said.
If the chef was in the customer’s shoes again, the food station Hovey would be most stoked to frequent is the steak slicing station, which features wood-fired rib eye, aka “big slabs of meat,” as the menu calls it.
“That station would be where I would be first in line,” Hovey said.
As for beverages, attendees of the dinner, which costs $75 per person, can look forward to sipping terpene-infused spritzers, made from a mix of terpenes provided by a local cannabis farm, Eye on I’s fermented fizzy drinks, vermouth, and bitters, Hovey explained.
And the spritzers won’t be the only products of terpene infusion available at the dinner, the chef added. The last item listed on the menu is “terp-infused sweet treats,” which Hovey elaborated on.
“I’m thinking over-sized, homemade peanut butter Oreos and ice cream sandwiches,” Hovey said.
Pre-sale tickets to the multi-course 4/20 dinner are currently available in advance (hopeful attendees can make reservations by calling Eye on I at (805) 735-6393 or sending an email to eyeoni2323@gmail.com). The restaurant’s regular day-to-day offerings can be found on theeyeoni.com.
As the eatery’s chef and menu creator, Hovey—who has worked at Eye on I since it first opened in March of 2021—usually starts the average work day about three hours before Eye on I opens.
“A typical day starts at 9 a.m., finding cool ingredients from local farms, going in and prepping for the day,” Hovey said.
The restaurant is open daily, starting at noon. After customers start rolling in, Hovey would describe the remainder of the work day as “basically hanging out with like-minded individuals, doing what we love every day—making sausage, kimchi, and making people happy.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood could use a spritzer. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 14-21, 2022.
