Downtown San Diego Stories
Cabo Café & Grill 808 West Cedar Street, Downtown 619-595-1618 Ralph Rubio of fish taco fame helped raise a million dollars to get this restaurant up and running, for good reason: Homeless kids from the …
Shelton Free-Range, Antibiotic-Free Chicken At: Chive 558 Fourth Avenue, Gaslamp, www.chiverestaurant.com, 619-232-4483 Fio's, 801 Fifth Avenue, Gaslamp, www.fiositalian.com, 619-234-3467 and others The chefs at Chive and Fio's are among those who've discovered the virtues of …
San Diego Women's Bean Project 1954 Fifth Avenue, Downtown www.sdwbp.org 619-230-1151 You can cook like a local chef with a soup mix from the San Diego Women's Bean Project, a program that has helped San …
Westgate Hotel 1055 Second Avenue, Downtown 619-239-8566 There's over 100 years of barbering experience in the three-chair shop in the lower level of the Westgate Hotel. The shop maintains the Parisian theme of the rest …
A tarnished little plaque is embedded in the sidewalk at the corner of Fifth Avenue and J Street. It bears a small legend: “Shirley Bernard, Gaslamp Pioneer.” Thousands of extravagantly attired feet heading for bars, …
If you're looking for a quiet spot to contemplate the great mysteries of the day -- such as why the current stock market is so speculative -- you might take a seat at San Diego's …
One councilman huffed about 13th and the rest being left out. First through Twelfth are the only downtown streets that extend, uninterrupted, north of Balboa Park, so they were taken care of first.
Loaded La Jollans boost a downtown museum.
Cost Plus World Market 372 Fourth Avenue, Gaslamp Quarter 619-236-1737 8657 Villa La Jolla Drive, La Jolla 858-455-8210 5500 Grossmont Center Drive, La Mesa 619-466-2991 What are you gonna do when your grocery store turns …
Juke Joint Café 327 Fourth Avenue, Gaslamp www.jukejointcafe.com Louisiana gumbo is not a Campbell's soup. Thick and spicy, somewhere between a soup and a stew, and between the devil's lure and heaven's reward to good …
El Poblanito/El Imperio del Supertaco 549 25th Street (at Market), Downtown 619-239-9379 You may as well reconcile yourself: everyone you tell will come out with "Urgh! You kissed a cow??" Just invite them to try …
Bayou Bar and Grill 329 Market (at Third Avenue), Gaslamp Quarter 619-696-8747 Bayou specializes in Louisiana cooking -- except for desserts, which only use the sweet, heavy pastries of the South as points of inspiration. …
Safe Deposit Box Vault, Courtyard By Marriott 530 Broadway, Downtown 619-446-3000 This is the place to hold the meeting where the family lawyer tells you you've inherited Grandma's entire La Jolla waterfront estate. Yippee! And …
St. Joseph's Cathedral 1535 Third Avenue, Downtown 619-239-0229 Catholics who want to go to confession often can't wait for the one-hour available at their parish on Saturday afternoon, and many are afraid that the priest …
Buca Di Beppo 705 Sixth Avenue, Downtown 619-233-7272 If you go to Buca Di Beppo for your birthday the servers won't bring you cake and ice cream. However, if you catch the right group of …
Hornblower Cruises 1066 North Harbor Drive, Downtown 619-686-8700 Hornblower offers the only three-hour dinner cruise in San Diego aboard its 150-foot yachts with a chance to meet an authority on the local sights -- the …
Hajji Baba's 1065 Fourth Avenue, Downtown 619-595-7887 During the daytime, Hajji Baba's is a normal Mediterranean restaurant. Shish kebobs, Greek salads, gyros. But Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the place transforms. Musicians arrive. Tablas (bongo-like …
Body Beautiful Downtown 2045 Pacific Highway, Downtown 619-544-7070 All of the Body Beautiful Car Washes do excellent work, but the crew at Pacific Highway and Hawthorne Street are a little more outstanding. Like most other …
Drew Hubbell 930 Orchard Lane, Santa Ysabel 1970 Sixth Avenue, Downtown 619-231-0446 www.sandiegoart.com Hubbell is the architect son of the revered artist-designer-builder James Hubbell. Father and son work together on what they call "the architecture …
Dave's Display World 1306 Kettner Boulevard, Downtown 619-232-3097 Since 1959, Dave's Display World has been the most comprehensive, all-encompassing store for holiday and party decorations in San Diego. If they can't find it in the …
G.I. Joe's 544 Sixth Avenue, Downtown 619-531-1910 799 El Cajon Boulevard, El Cajon 619-401-7589 G.I. Joe's carries products honed from 200 years of military survival insights. Like Meals Ready to Eat -- military rations -- …
Orange Cab 3911 Pacific Highway, Downtown 619-291-3333 or 619-291-4444 The drivers at Orange Cab are independent operators who pay a fee for company services like radio dispatch. Being self-employed (Orange owns no taxis), the cabbies …
Gen Lai Sen Seafood Restaurant 1065 12th Avenue, Downtown 619-239-5478 Across from City College, right by the trolley stop, Gen Lai Sen looks like a forsaken dive and has the standard endless pan-regional San Diego …
Anthony's Star of the Sea 1360 North Harbor Drive, Downtown 619-232-7408 "Chilean seabass," as fishmongers like to call it (its real name is Patagonian toothfish), has been fished nearly to extinction, thanks to the unbridled …
Candelas 416 Third Avenue, Gaslamp 619-702-4455 "Langosta Baeza" is the signature dish of Candelas' chef Eduardo Baeza. Although the name sounds like it might be a local spiny lobster, but it's really a Maine lobster …
Royale Brasserie Bar 224 Fifth Avenue, Gaslamp Quarter 619-237-4900 If you've a yearning for the life of a moneyed fin de siècle Paris bohemian, then surely in some past incarnation you must have frequented restaurants …
Café de Paris 819 C Street, Downtown 619-234-2559 For starters, Faiz (or Frank, as he's known) looks the epitome of the legendary French cook. Jutting jaw, well-wiped apron, hands on hips outside his little place …
Dim Sum Kingdom 730 Broadway, Downtown 619-239-1782 Most places, there are steaks, and then there are breakfast steaks. Your typical breakfast steak's so thin it's translucent. But not at Mr. and Mrs. Lee's. The Lees …
“These cranes are pretty nice rigs,” he told me. “They handle nice. It’s kind of like a car. [Just like little cars], the smaller the crane, the whippier it is — the quicker around.”
"The people that come out of these places in the Gaslamp are pretty bad, but not as bad as people who come out of the local bars. Like in Imperial Beach.”
The Downtown Information Center, a service of the Centre City Development Corporation, occupies the ground-floor lobby at 225 Broadway. The center exhibits sketches and charts detailing the area's redevelopment. Its showpiece is a 200-square-foot model …
City Operations Building 1222 First Avenue, Downtown There is a tendency in modern buildings to look as though the concept models upon which they are based were constructed from Legos, a childlike blockiness and friendliness …
de'Medici 815 Fifth Avenue, Downtown (619) 702-7228 For the 20 years that Mario Valerio was the manager of Anthony's Star of the Sea Room, the fresh petrale sole was one of its most distinguished offerings. …
Athens Market 109 West F Street, Downtown (619) 234-1955 Say the words "lemon chicken" and diners think of the Chinese version, in which the breast of chicken is breaded, deep-fried, and doused with a lemon …
Landlord Jim's 1546 Broadway, Downtown (619) 233-9998 The bar's only sign is a blue neon outline of a glass with "Cocktails" written in pink across it. Eleven blocks east of the Gaslamp, this is Landlord …
4th & B 345 B Street, Downtown (619) 231-4343 Men don't like to be pampered. We like our wood unsanded, our underwear scratchy; we prefer barbers over hairdressers, and don't put those froufrou little pieces …
Eveoke Dance Theatre 644 Seventh Avenue, Downtown (619) 238-1153 Call them dance/theater or text/movement/music pieces: each is distinctly Eveoke: plural voices and signs, charged with energy and whirling motion, committed to social action. Artistic director …
Spreckels Theatre 121 Broadway, Downtown (619) 235-9500 There's no finer place to enjoy a show than the balcony seats perched five stories above the Spreckels Theatre stage. Built in 1912, the Spreckels Theatre was in …
Top of the Hyatt One Market Place, Downtown (619) 232-1234 "The highest waterfront bar on the West Coast," Harbor Drive's 40th-floor cocktail lounge -- commonly known as "Top of the Hyatt" -- offers floor-to-ceiling panoramic …
Wetdream Monthly Cruise Parties 1050 North Harbor Drive, Downtown (619) 331-4262 When you board this late-night (11:00 p.m.2:00 a.m.) harbor cruise you'll notice three different decks: on the main floor and out on the deck, …
Urban Outfitters 665 Fifth Avenue, Downtown (619) 231-0102 www.urbn.com Indestructible wind-up alarm clocks, portable blow-up furniture, and housewares are described as an "eclectic mish mash of modern meets India," by merchandise manager Angelo Wilimek. Imagine …
Pontiac Seratto's Shoe Shine 138 Broadway, Downtown "There's nobody within a five-mile radius who stays in business competing with me," says Pontiac Seratto, at his stand in front of a barbershop downtown, "because I give …
The Computerized Cobbler 13 Horton Plaza, Downtown (619) 231-3736 The shop sits on the exterior of Horton Plaza, fronting First Avenue at F Street. Businessmen on lunch breaks come in with the day's paper and …
California Electric Automobile Company1055 G Street, Downtown (619) 232-0595 "After we're done, you can zip by the gas station and laugh. You'll never be dependent on them again." Of course, he's not alone in his …
Art-Te Company 945 Broadway, Downtown (619) 232-7231 It says something that the major music stores are stocking some major Mexican and Latin American music stars. But Robert Highsmith, the bilingual walking encyclopedia of Art-Te, says …
FAO Schwarz 514 Horton Plaza, Downtown (619) 702-7500 The remote-control sailboat ($119.99) can be launched and operated in almost any pool or lake. A working fire engine model ($79) measures 32 inches long and comes …
Wahrenbrock's Book House 726 Broadway, Downtown (619) 232-0132 The musty smell, the economical buzz of the fluorescent lights, the industrial brown carpeting, the cozy-bordering-on-cramped spaces, struggling to remain free of books. Books in stacks, books …
Gourmet Delicatessen in the Westgate 1055 Second Avenue, Downtown (619) 557-3698 Place reeks of gentility. Your feet sink into deep pink carpets, chandeliers clank above you, you sit on gold-braided chairs at tables covered by …
The Snack Galley, Greyhound Depot, open 24 hours 120 West Broadway, Downtown (619) 234-4522 Dead is not the word for downtown San Diego in that 90 minutes, 3:30 to 5:00 a.m. So it's 4:00 in …
Greg's Corner County Administration Building, Fourth floor, 1600 Pacific Highway, Downtown (619) 233-9605 Everything is politically correct (muted mustard colors, rattan walls) and you're surrounded by rumple-suited buck-passers. But the view is great and the …
Chef's Table in Sally's Kitchen Sally's Restaurant, Hyatt Regency Hotel, One Market Place, Downtown (619) 687-6080 Dining at Sally's private kitchen has little to do with Norman Rockwell paintings and less with homespun American food. …
Octopus Garden 314 Fifth Avenue, Downtown (619) 233-1653 For those food adventurers in restless search for the new and the stimulating, Octopus Garden, a Japanese and Continental restaurant, is just the ticket. The accomplished chef, …