If BEACH TOWNS never offered better than fish tacos and carne asada fries, we'd all be fat and happy. But gentrification always brings a taste for something more, and even the Beaches Ocean and Pacific …
September 9, 2015
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Stories by Various Authors
Feast! Beach Towns
Feast! Uptown
From Mission Hills to Kensington, in Heights both Normal and University, and in Parks North and South, UPTOWN residents don't rest on good looks or thick pocketbooks. They thrive on personality and artful presentation. So, …
September 9, 2015
Best restaurants in the Gaslamp and East Village
The ultracompetitive restaurant landscape around the DOWNTOWN neighborhoods of Marina, Gaslamp, and East Village leaves little room for error in what's already a risky enterprise. The mere fact these restaurants survive recommends them. That they …
September 9, 2015
Feast! Little Italy-Old Town
These days Little Italy offers some of the best food in town, or at least the most photographed. The neighborhood keeps serving up hits, almost eclipsing the tried-and-true eateries that sit between its shiny new …
September 9, 2015
Feast! North County Coastal
Along 20 miles of coastline between Del Mar and Oceanside you can find food aimed at surfers, yogis, young families, and millionaires. Del Mar and Solana Beach give fine dining spectacular views, Carlsbad embraces the …
September 9, 2015
Feast! Best of the rest
Foodies living close to the city's center are waking up to the fact that there are excellent reasons to drive all over this county. Reader feasters have caught on to worthy spots in East County, …
September 9, 2015
Our clothes, our bodies
When Shirts Talk Clothes make a statement. I have this shirt because my husband says that I'm the slowest mountain biker in the world. [The shirt] says, "Behold the Turtle." By Cruz Medina, June 30, …
September 6, 2015
World history pawns
For Whom the Bell Tolled A Spanish Civil War story Dave Chriss balances a Scotch and water on the arm of a crushed-velvet chair in his Mira Mesa living room. He awaits the arrival of …
August 29, 2015
Most popular
Apple Knows Who Stole Your iPod Anti-Big Brother attitude runs through technological community "Apple could go so far as to mess up an iPod internally, making it useless." By Cruz Medina, Aug. 31, 2006 | …
August 24, 2015
Editor's picks
Stay Away From Pinto Canyon Surreal signs of life in the desert. The drawings were stick figures of men, rectangular grids, and most notably, a tall sailing ship, complete with a mast and furled sail. …
August 16, 2015
Investigative reports
What You Do To Get Ahead Juan Vargas’s lobbyist love-fest Vargas has continually hit up industry lobbyists for campaign cash, although he runs virtually unopposed in a safe Democratic district. State disclosure records show Vargas …
August 9, 2015
Neighborhoods
Block Party In 8 years, home prices went from $320,000 to $750,000 and back. How to build an old-fashioned neighborhood. By Matthew Lickona, Nov. 10, 2010 | Read full article North Park vs South Park …
July 27, 2015
Nature
The World Is a Cactus The dramatic evolution of evolution. “A cactus will take a bullet just like a person, because of the thickness of their skins and all the water in them.” By Geoff …
July 18, 2015
Religion
There Is One God We’re not Arabs or Hindus or Muslims, we’re Sikhs. "The equality of all people and all religions is central to our faith. We didn't want to seem as though we were …
July 11, 2015
Our bodies, our clothes
More Than Support Breasts and bras. “I first started to notice breasts when I was ten years old. Not my own, because I didn’t have any yet, but my mother’s. I had seen my mother …
July 5, 2015
The Reader's funniest stories
The Smell of the Crowd Who goes to theater and classical music concerts, broken into types. "Her pierced earlobes hold up elaborate, finely wrought mobile sculptures with the most cunning miniature Japanese temple bells in …
June 27, 2015
San Diego history
American Primitive A Julian shoot-out Memorial Day is the anniversary of a gold fields shootout [in 1989] known in the Julian back country as "The Chariot Canyon Massacre." Five men opened fire with assault rifle, …
June 20, 2015
Editor's picks
Follow Me What’s going on in City Heights’ Waldorf School? On a hilltop playground in City Heights, a woman in a pink wraparound apron and straw hat is walking. She looks like an American mother …
June 13, 2015
Urban adventure
Old Town to Downtown Based on the TV show Amazing Race, this scavenger hunt is designed to put a little excitement and adventure into what might otherwise be your average tour of the town. Create …
June 10, 2015
Backcountry
Fish Lake Cuyamaca About an hour’s drive from San Diego, Cuyamaca is a 110-acre, manmade lake situated in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. Lake Cuyamaca is stocked with over 38,000 pounds of trout annually. Due …
June 10, 2015
Ocean and bay
Seal Tours When you’re on a boat with wheels, you can tour both the streets of San Diego and splash through the bay without ever having to change seats. Similar to Duck Tours in other …
June 10, 2015
Suburban
Cactus Park BMX Cactus Park BMX is a 900-foot-long dirt race track with banked turns and jumps located in San Diego’s East County. First-time visitors can purchase a temporary membership for $25, good for 30 …
June 10, 2015
Beach town
Ride a Segway through Coronado Lookyloo at the lush landscaping and gorgeous homes of Coronado from your perch atop a Segway. Because such experiences are best enjoyed with a friend, opt for the deals for …
June 10, 2015
Mexico
Tour with Let’s Go Clandestino San Diego, Tijuana, Valle de Guadalupe, Ensenada Whether it’s Baja’s food, breweries, or wineries you’re looking to cozy up to, Chula Vista native Angel Mirón has had you covered since …
June 10, 2015
Stories from San Diego neighborhoods
Nowhere Zone The rise, fall, and rise of Normal Heights “I’d been renting an apartment over on Georgia Street, the sort of border area between North Park and Hillcrest. From one month to the next, …
June 6, 2015
Mother Nature
Marathoners of the Sky Hormones speed pigeons. Today, Hamilton and his “grandson,” John Timmerman, have about 750 pigeons in Jamul, the largest collection in San Diego County. As we sat on the deck of their …
May 30, 2015
Investigations
From the Archives is the Reader's new series spotlighting articles from over 40 years of the Reader's journalistic history. This week's theme is investigative reporting. Masters of Deceit Padres' bribes of councilwoman Valerie Stallings “On …
May 21, 2015
Brush with fame
For author celebrities, click here. For thinker and artist celebrities, click here. For public figure and fraud celebrities, click here. For sports celebrities, click here. Janet, My Mother, and Me A story about author William …
May 15, 2015
Tributes to Steve Kowit
Steve Kowit, leader among the San Diego poets and editor of the weekly poetry column in the Reader since 2006, passed away in his sleep April 2. The following are among the tributes to Kowit …
April 7, 2015
San Diego Reader 2014 Feast issue
Reader eaters graze their way around town for the 2014 Feast! issue: Europe would be impressed — Ian Anderson My fantasy food day — Mary Beth Abate It'll probably involve offal — Brandon Hernandez The …
September 3, 2014
Sixty years of Godzilla
Celebrate Godzilla’s 60th birthday with the wonderful Godzilla Collection from Classic Media. Featuring gorgeous packaging, this set includes seven remastered and individually packaged Godzilla films in both their American and original Japanese-language versions. Invasion of …
May 30, 2014
100+ Places to Go After Dark in San Diego
Nighttime to-dos: Speakeasies, dive bars, hipsters, art exhibitions, brewskies, craft cocktails, and more!
August 1, 2012
Film Festival Producer Faves
Kevin Leap, President, board of directors, San Diego Film Foundation Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!: Can’t get enough of this so-wonderfully-bad-it’s-good black-and-white 1965 Russ Meyer film about three race-car-driving go-go–clad vixens tearing across the desert and …
August 1, 2012
Artsy Funsy
San Diego's late-night art scene: Art in the Park, Drink & Draw, Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, Pasaje Rodriguez, and more.
August 1, 2012
A passage from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is …
July 18, 2012
God Says Yes to Me
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said it sure is I asked her if I …
June 20, 2012
Tabloid, Masques, Something Wicked This Way Comes: Watch It at Home
Daria Matza Producer of Styria Into the Abyss is an intriguing documentary by Werner Herzog about a death-row inmate days before his execution. While the interview with him doesn’t yield much, the other people that …
June 13, 2012
Have Fun on Land
Reader writers explore the elements of America’s Finest — water, air, fire, land. Urban Irving If it’s true that San Diego is America’s Biggest Small Town, then it is certainly fitting that our most famous …
May 2, 2012
Seek Adventure in the Air
Reader writers explore the elements of America’s Finest — water, air, fire, land. Up close with birds of prey Let’s face it, the closest most of us will ever get to a true bird of …
May 2, 2012
Explore a Water Wonderland
Reader writers explore the elements of America’s Finest — water, air, fire, land. Underwater hockey Underwater hockey (sometimes called Octopush), has been around since 1954; it’s played in a couple of dozen countries. It involves, …
May 2, 2012
Stoke Your Creative Fire
Reader writers explore the elements of America’s Finest — water, air, fire, land. Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School At Dr. Sketchy’s (held the third Saturday of every month at the Ruby Room in Hillcrest, 1271 University …
May 2, 2012
DVDs from the Whistle Stop
Sam Chammas, owner, The Whistle Stop, whistlestopbar.com The U.S. vs. John Lennon: Some may say they know enough about John Lennon already through his songs, but this documentary will blow you away with how much …
April 11, 2012