Bringing out Lakeside's best at Eastbound

Author

By Chad Deal

Publish Date

June 12, 2013

“We said, ‘Let’s see if we can make it happen in Lakeside.’” (Chris Woo)

Place

Eastbound Bar & Grill

10053 Maine Avenue, San Diego

Lakeside. Unless you live there, you probably only know it as that rodeo alcove of tweekers, rednecks, and Klansmen out past Santee. Often the butt of the joke, Lakeside touts a handful of merits that tend to get overlooked in the punchline: picnicking at Lindo Lake Park, fishing at Lake Jennings, and hiking on “El Capitan” — named after the iconic Yosemite attraction that it resembles.

Now you can add quality drinking and dining to the list with Eastbound Bar & Grill, located on the historic Maine Avenue strip of downtown Lakeside. Looking like a sports bar that had a summer fling with a craft-beer joint and gave birth to a family restaurant, Eastbound was started just over three years ago by a trio of friends from El Capitan High School.

Co-owners Marco Rodriguez, Ben Clevenger, and Jason Nichols met playing football during their freshman year, and, a few years later, began tossing around the idea of opening their own bar. Inspired by Nichols’s grandmother’s place, Waterfront Bar (a downtown San Diego landmark that holds the city’s earliest liquor license), the three amigos inaugurated Eastbound in February 2010.

“We said, ‘Let’s see if we can make it happen in Lakeside, because there aren’t really any great spots out here,’” Rodriguez recalls. “People don’t come out to East County for a drink and karaoke, so we wanted to give people an option in this area.”