Hillcrest Stories
South Mission Hills to Hillcrest This mile-long stroll will take you from the bottom of the Laurel Street hill to Hillcrest. Along the way you'll pass under the First Avenue Bridge, an impressive sight from …
I’ve watched a great many changes take place in Hillcrest over the years. At this point in my life it’s a neighborhood of ghosts. I’ve been through a few relationships there, and each had certain …
Kazumi Sushi 3975 Fifth Avenue, Hillcrest 619-682-4054 Most smoked salmon available locally (whether it's the precious Scottish or Irish product or the Lasco packages in the supermarket) follows the same model as Nova Scotia lox: …
Lloyd Ruooco's 1950 Design Center Fifth Avenue, north of Brookes Street, near Hillcrest It's hard to believe this glass-dominated redwood and cedar complex is 50 years old. Certainly it has been restored and rebuilt after …
Egyptian Court Apartments 3772 Park Boulevard, Hillcrest Egyptian Court on Park Boulevard has no Jacuzzi, no swimming pool, no tennis courts, and no meet-your-neighbors barbecues. But its 12 apartments have hardwood floors and horsetail ferns, …
Uptown Farmers' Market DMV parking lot, 3960 Normal Street, Hillcrest Sundays, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. A Sunday-morning outing extraordinaire, Uptown Farmers' Market offers a large and eclectic mix of crops and goods. Stalls are abundantly stocked …
House of Clocks 3748 Sixth Avenue, Hillcrest 619-298-1345 There was a time when a house clock had more inner works than a battery unit on the back. House of Clocks specializes in the repair and …
Babette Schwartz 421 University Avenue, Hillcrest 619-220-7048 Babette Schwartz's taste stems from a fascination with pop-culture campiness, and this is the hook upon which her toy store dangles. After paying her dues, and her rent, …
Rite Aid 535 Robinson Avenue, Hillcrest 619-291-3705 Rite Aid's Hillcrest branch dispenses drugs 24 hours, with three pharmacists during the day and one working the graveyard shift. The evening crew is also limited to one …
Park Boulevard Pharmacy and Medical Supply 3904 Park Boulevard, Hillcrest 619-295-3109 or 619-295-9505 When your health is at stake, the last thing you feel like doing is waiting in line at Rite-Aid or Sav-On. When …
Gulf Coast Grill 4130 Park Boulevard, Hillcrest 619-295-2244 Trust KC Jones to create a fantasy. The guy was a budding lawyer who wrote scripts for Hollywood before he got to this point. Perfect combo! Walk …
Trattoria Positano 142 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 294-6995 When you read a menu, and the lamb chops are listed as New Zealand lamb, you know you're getting a better product. Whether it's the feed or …
Whole Foods Market 711 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 294-2800 8825 Villa La Jolla Drive, La Jolla (858) 642-6700 "Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese," croons Wallace to Gromit in Nick Parks's A Grand …
Bread & Cie 350 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 683-9322 Charles Kaufman's mother raised her three children as if they were members of royalty. They attended private schools, often had a live-in French cook, and some …
The Alibi 1403 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 295-0881 "If this wasn't Hillcrest, you'd never think this is a gay bar," says one bartender (name withheld by request) at the Alibi. "A lot of business people …
Village Bar at City Deli 535 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 295-2747 City Deli's new liquor license was fought by nearby bars who feared the competition of another bar/restaurant in Hillcrest. The Deli prevailed and its …
Off the Record 3849 Fifth Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 298-4755 www.offtherecordvinyl.com One of San Diego's oldest record stores, Off the Record is one of the few that carries records, a commodity scarcer nowadays than Phil Collins's …
Wear It Again Sam 3922 Park Boulevard, Hillcrest (619) 299-0185 Kristine Anderson first started noticing the trend 20 years ago. Men, mostly, business types, as well as those who plunged into the swing-dance craze started …
La Compagnie De Provence 3870 Fifth Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 295-8322 With the advent of matrimony, a man ceases to be merely the object of his beloved's affection; to this pleasant relation comes the added status …
Hai's Auto Repair #2 4040 Park Boulevard, Hillcrest (619) 542-0922 Located on a wedge-shaped lot on Park Boulevard that used to be a Shell station, Hai's is a diploma-mill for cars that need their credentials. …
Cathedral 435 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 296-4046 It's stocked with candles, holders, baubles, and hand-painted Mexican Day of the Dead doohickeys. But it is the fragrance, wafting out the door, that hooks its fingers in …
The Village Hat Shop 853 West Harbor Drive, Seaport Village (619) 233-7236 3821 Fourth Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 683-5533 www.villagehatshop.com Fred Belinsky, owner of the Village Hat Shop, travels the world for hats, from Ecuador to …
Metropolis1003 University Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 220-0632 After you've fallen in love with Martha Stewart (good taste for the masses!), gone through a bitter breakup with Martha Stewart (controlling, antiseptic monster!), and learned to give Martha …
Seabreeze Organic Farm 3909 Arroyo Sorrento Road, Carmel Valley (858) 481-0209 Also at Farmer's Markets in O.B., Encinitas, Del Mar, Hillcrest You stand at the supermarket veggie display. It looks too good to be true. …
Ferino's Music 736 Robinson Avenue, Hillcrest (619) 296-6455 The sign outside Ferino's in Hillcrest doesn't mention accordions, but inside the tiny shop a couple dozen of them --some for sale, some in for repair -- …
Matmail: What is that UFO-looking thing behind the Design Center building at Fifth and Brookes in Hillcrest? -- Rachel, UCSD The green spaceship in the canyon was one man's dream of the mobile home of …
On a Friday or Saturday night, when a gentleman comes through the door and I’ve never seen him, I just want him to be aware of what kind of bar this is. A lot of times guys are sent here as a joke.
“In my neighborhood, people are removing aluminum siding and stucco from the 1950s and 1960s. They’re stripping the paint from their homes’ redwood shingles. And they’re pulling up wall-to-wall carpeting to expose the hardwood floors.”
The crest of the Brass Rail rises into the sky, an insistent purple and flesh-pink-deco-kitsch rectangle, colors mounting colors. It might be the prow of a ship — a purple, flesh-pink, and terracotta ship, with …
To: Matthew Alice: Every time I drive down Sixth Avenue to 163 north, I see a strange pinkish building on my left on the grounds of Mercy Hospital. It's strange because the highest five or …
The reason coyotes survive in San Diego, he says, is our canyons. "L.A. is just one big flat ancient ocean basin. It doesn't have coyotes as we do. San Diego is an archipelago of canyon wildlife islands."
Twenty-four hours later, it was official. The loose cannon full of secrets had safely - for the closeted, the monied, and the nervous - checked out of the equation.
When asked if Ray considers Hillcrest a dangerous area, he says, “It’s a bad area. A bad area. Hillcrest five years ago was a beautiful area to live in. Now...Hillcrest is going to the dogs.”
Murphy Canyon was named for Jack Murphy. Not the 1960s sports columnist who led the fight for a new ballpark, but a pioneer rancher who acquired about a hundred acres of the San Diego Mission land grant.
We moved to 13th and Island because we found a mortgage we could afford near our office. We expected we would assert our turf. We brought a gun and a bad attitude from Gaslamp.
The Chicken Pie Shop and the Mayfair are big hits, even with jaded L.A. people, who think they’ve seen all the world's freaks. Other high spots are the side-by-side bookstores down the street.