“How many times have I driven past this place?” I muttered to myself. Too many to count. A better question might be, “How long have I been missing out?” The answer to that, I now …

What I considered a failure of April weather, my wife took for an opportunity to visit a tried and true staple for lunch. So with gray clouds firmly fixed over a cool, windy City Heights, …

One Season Brewing Co., San Diego’s newest nanobrewery, is now pouring — inside a small Grantville coffee roaster shop that sells bikes, skateboards, and house-made kombucha. About the only thing that could make the place …

“Try our smoked ribeye,” read the small, hand-painted sandwich board sign on the sidewalk out front. And if there’s any hand-painted sentiment more likely to win my attention, I can’t think of it. Which isn’t …

Count me among the many thousands of young transplants who, upon first arriving in San Diego, took a look around the city, and all it has to offer, and decided to settle first in Ocean …

Taylor Fields started small in 2018, parking her compact Nostalgia Coffee trailer at weekly outdoor markets and corporate campuses, to sell coffee by the cup. The former CPA says she “decided to leave the audit …

I’d gotten word about a spot in Chula Vista where food trucks gather daily outside a third-party DMV registration shop. And, sure enough, one day I found myself just a couple blocks away from the …

What I learned this week is that soup dumplings will get me out of the house. For months, I’ve been eating mostly at home, opting for take-out and a little bit of outdoor dining. But, …

Professional sports have returned to San Diego, and beer and spirit sponsorships have returned with them. Although we’re all accustomed to seeing “tastes great, less filling” ads during televised games, and light beer logos on …

They didn’t know it at the time, but Alexandra Garcia and Jorge Santillan were about to start a ghost kitchen.Garcia had lost her cooking job to the pandemic. She wanted to open her own place, …

A couple of youngsters I know were on spring break and asked if they could go out for a special treat. Muffins. Granted, I haven’t been a kid for quite a while now, but I …

Whichever cuisine they serve, planned restaurants that went ahead and opened after the pandemic started deserve a special kind of acclaim. The business is notoriously tough under normal circumstances — well publicized studies contend as …

Right about now, I’m supposed to be indoor dining somewhere and reporting how great it feels that we’re trending back toward normalcy. But not so fast! Yes, restaurant owners and their bottom lines may be …

San Diego’s wine industry had its best year ever in 2019, $46.2 million in gross sales marked a nearly 13 percent increase over 2018. Then came 2020. A year of pandemic closings and service restrictions …

Birria must be rising in popularity around San Diego, because it’s gotten easier, not harder, to find the stewed meat dish during the pandemic. Mainly, we’re talking about Tijuana-style beef birria (Jalisco, the Mexican state …

A pandemic has tested our collective love/hate relationships with delivery apps — enough at times to warrant government intervention. But before we all decide (or decide not to) return to indoor dining this spring, I …

Back in 2016, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians established a 15-barrel craft brewery on its reservation near Valley Center. Called SR76 Beerworks, the brewery and tasting room operated alongside the Rincon Harrah’s casino. The …

With any luck, my quest to try all of the best donut spots in San Diego will never end. But for a moment there, it looked like it might have, and in an unlikely spot. …

I know indoor dining is supposed to be back, but some outdoor dining options are just too good to give up. Like one I recently checked out in Normal Heights. I’d driven by Ska Bar …

“You’re going to Spring Valley?” she told me, “You know, the best kept secret in San Diego is a Spring Valley meat counter. It makes the best carne asada….” A couple nights later, a wide …

UPDATE: Effective Saturday, March 13, California has removed the meal service requirement for breweries, distilleries, and bars. Until 8pm each day, customers may order adult beverages without also ordering food, for on premise, outdoor consumption. …

Don’t let anyone tell you the pandemic has scared everyone away from the restaurant business. Against the odds, we’re still seeing new restaurant openings happen in 2021. One of them even persuaded me to drive …

This week, I cracked open a cold one. Pulled the tab of a 12-ounce can and heard that satisfying cshhht sound that usually presages enjoyment of an ale or lager. Except it wasn’t beer inside, …

Scoring a weekend table at a decent outdoor dining venue has become something of a post pandemic sport. Go to any restaurant with patio dining on a sunny Saturday afternoon and you can expect a …

Spring wouldn’t technically arrive for another few weeks, but the sun was out. After what has nearly been a full, cooped-up year of covid, that was all the encouragement we needed to have a picnic. …

When a friend of mine started working as an eighth grade teacher, he reported a wave of addiction sweeping through his classroom. The kids, as he told it, were hooked on Flamin Hot Cheetos. The …

Back in the fall of 2019, O’Brien’s Pub co-owner and general manager Tyson Blake was manning the bar, catching up with a regular customer. O’Brien’s is well known as one of the city’s oldest and …

The food trucks in South Park seem to be multiplying. Alongside the usual Mariscos/fish taco truck holding down the Target parking lot, there’s now a Sonora-style grilled taco truck. The Shawarma Guys truck is a …

I felt like a kid in a pizza store, looking through the front window of Gelati & Peccati. Rather than post a menu, the North Park eatery lays out its colorful spread of Roman-style pizza …

Third-generation San Diegan Kaylee McLaughlin married her high school sweetheart. When his Navy career sent him to a remote corner of Nevada, she and their two young children followed. For someone accustomed to having ready …

About ten years ago, young mom and aspiring personal chef Starr Edwards started bringing her food samples to farmers markets in Leucadia and San Marcos, hoping to drum up business.The Bitchin name took off, and …

I’ve tried not to write about it, because I haven’t wanted to encourage readers to seek them out. But since December, despite state and local covid regulations restricting on-premise dining, hundreds of San Diego restaurants …

I'm not sure which happened first. Did we drive into City Heights because we had a craving for egg rolls? Or did the urge arise because we realized how close we already were to Á …

This year marks the first I spend Valentine’s Day as a married man. Not to gloat too much, but I hit the jackpot. My gorgeous and successful bride happens to be an accomplished home chef. …

White dude with beards. That’s the impression most have about who works within the craft beer business, and it’s often accurate. Within San Diego and the industry at large. Statistics offered by the Brewers Association …

A couple weeks ago, I got a headline wrong. After mayor Todd Gloria limited the fees delivery apps can charge restaurants, I wrote: “Delivery fees are capped, but don’t expect to pay less.” Problem is, …

The sun came out, making the return of outdoor dining a hot ticket all over town. At least, as we drove across town, we saw packed patios and parklets all over, and lines forming at …

Though he once described a favorite Wisconsin farmhouse ale as “nutritious,” J.J. Watt probably did not become three-time NFL defensive player of the year by drinking craft beer. But he has apparently enjoyed a few …

I’m always on the lookout for a new kind of soup to try, and yet for some reason I’m always surprised when I find one. What’s not surprising is that most of the unfamiliar soup …

The clock was ticking towards the inauguration of the new president, and a look inside the fridge confirmed what I already knew: we were out of eggs. And any other breakfast protein. And bread. And …

Someone finally did something about the excess fees charged by third party delivery apps such as Doordash, UberEats, and GrubHub. And that someone was the new mayor. Recently inaugurated mayor Todd Gloria issued an executive …

Like most San Diego breweries, Deft Brewing resumed drink service last week, when the three-week stay-at-home order issued in early December finally lifted (after seven weeks). The Morena neighborhood beermaker offers a shaded patio and …

It figures given the year we’ve been having that fate, and/or the state of California, picked the coldest, windiest time of the year to re-institute outdoor dining in San Diego. I’m sure there are plenty …

Scores of San Diego restaurants have closed permanently during the pandemic, but there’s at least one subset of eateries that only seem to be growing stronger: those serving Nashville hot chicken. I’ve tried so much …

North County’s Aztec Brewing Company will celebrate its tenth anniversary this year — no small milestone. But it will also spend the year celebrating something bigger: the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Aztec Brewing brand. According …

It’s kind of surprising that I haven’t written before about Bahn Thai. I’ve been eating at the University Heights restaurant since it opened, going on ten years ago, and I’ve returned often. The most likely …

I’d seen enough photos to know Cesarina offers one heck of a romantic dining destination. A lot of good that does anybody now, though. Or so I thought. Truth is, in the past couple years, …

Peering in from the sunny sidewalk, my eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. Once they did, I found a room half filled with customers, belly up or seated at tables near …

They bill themselves as virtual restaurants, available to order through all the usual delivery apps. But there’s a little more back story to TJ Burrito Co. and Blue Luna Café & Deli. Including a walk-up …

From a diner’s perspective, one of the more amazing aspects of the past year has been that a handful of entrepreneurs have gone through with new restaurant openings. Most don’t have much choice in the …