City Heights Stories
I’ve always imagined the Til-Two Club as the kind of haunt where you might have found the late author Charles Bukowski buzzing around. If he dressed in black leather and ...
People get attached to their favorite dim sum. That’s certainly one reason many San Diegans who seek out the dim sum experience are happy to drive to the Convoy District ...
San Diegans are switching to mopeds and motorcycles for transport to work to deal with California's highest gas prices in the U.S. and limited street parking throughout the county. But ...
Between 2016 and 2020, San Diego County saw a 92% increase in methamphetamine-related deaths. According to the San Diego Medical Examiner’s Office, many of those deaths occurred in people over ...
City Heights Stories
My plan for the day had been to check out a roast duck shop I wanted to write about, one that recently opened up in the suburbs. But first, my wife insisted, I needed to ...
KAHLEE I rock a dark hoodie when I walk these streets. A scribe with streaks, no heat. My steps discrete. Brass knuckles for these suckas with beef. I need graffiti in cities surrounding me to ...
Is San Diego finally becoming more of a breakfast taco town? Nobody’s suggesting that tacos haven’t long been a part of San Diego’s balanced breakfast. They may not be what middle America would call breakfast ...
A clatter against the window of my second-story room in Golden Hill awoke me. Then, shouts. What the hell? “Eh, Miguel.” “Miguelito.” “Barba de Chivo, levántate, cabrón.” Only Rodolfo called me Barba del Chivo, followed ...
Editor’s Note: Aphorisms be damned, we judged Adam Gnade’s book by its cover, which was designed to look like something you’d find in the dollar paperback box in a used bookstore, complete with water stains ...
In the middle of February, the Reader got word regarding an upcoming rally at Teralta Park in City Heights. Kwame from the San Diego branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) wanted to ...
In the days before Covid, piano virtuoso Irving Flores was one of the busiest cats in town. “Yes, I was playing every day,” recalls Flores. “But, just like that, it all collapsed from all that ...
Night has clanged down on City Heights like an emergency curtain at a movie theater. It’s easy to get lost in this gloom once you’re out of the #7 bus, but, just past Happy Bubbles ...
San Diego’s active Haitian Pastor Johny (sic) Oxeda has a new weapon: his food truck. He uses it to reach out to his flock, to give them a taste of home. Also, to spread Haitian ...
“We got a tiii-iip!” sings out the cashier, after the customer at the front of the line drops cash in the jar. “We got a tip!” sings back the makeshift kitchen crew, in unison and ...
Major nonprofit thrift stores in San Diego have been around for decades. Then along came Covid and took its toll. Two longtime San Diego Rescue Mission thrift stores (North Park and City Heights) closed down. ...
Jerk chicken, goat curry, oxtail, brown stew. Having spent fifteen years sampling dishes from at least that many Jamaican restaurants, I’ve come to view these as staples of the island cuisine built upon the pleasures ...
On April 25, at about 11:30 p.m., a man wearing long dark shorts, a white-black-and-gray striped tank top, and a black-colored baseball cap entered Cam Pascale's City Heights home — uninvited. "This is where he ...
In the last two weeks, Azalea Park locals were surprised yet thankful for the city's recent repairs of their Columbine and Pepper cross streets. "That street [area] has been bad since we moved here in ...
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, ...
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 ...
A feeling of déjà vu struck John Sears and perhaps his two mules when county sheriffs recently escorted them out of the Poway city limits. "It was about a week ago," Sears said to me ...
On January 5, Sand One pulled into an undisclosed Tijuana strip mall where a questionable "doll" is depicted on an eyelash extension salon's signage. She activated her phone's camera, then zoomed into the doll's larger ...
Tender shredded beef birria, swimming in reddish brown broth that leaves an orange ring ‘round the edges of the Styrofoam cup containing it. That’s the Tijuana-style specialty of National City’s 664 TJ Birrieria. But it’s ...
I got lucky this time: there were only two people in line. It would still take five or six minutes to reach the front, but considering the near 30-minute wait I found on my last ...
Brendan Boyle began his vinyl education while working at a record shop in Sacramento. Following that, he went solo and spent about ten years selling vinyl online. The combined experiences gave him a 20-year education ...
Ricky Schmidt, bassist of local band Hey, Chels — comma included — never expected a giant German stinky dog to cross his path. But life is full of surprises. “Day two [of the tour] took ...
You won’t see it from the street. Samarkand Uzbek Café has an El Cajon Boulevard address (4201 B, El Cajon Boulevard, City Heights), but when we pulled up for dinner, the building was dark. We ...
In the city’s quest for park space, mid city neighborhoods Kensington, Normal Heights and City Heights are among the least served, according to the San Diego Foundation’s 2010 Parks for Everyone report. The report defines ...
In March, to mark their fifth anniversary, Ike and Yulia Gazaryan decided to renew their vows with a small event where they originally wed: at their Pushkin Russian Restaurant & Bar. With the pandemic and ...
Stay-at-home orders may keep us from going out to restaurants, but it doesn’t mean they can keep us from trying new things. Early on during this age of social isolation, my cravings went for the ...
It's everywhere, taking over like the weeds it's meant to kill. Now glyphosate, the bestselling weedbuster of all time, has become a pest. "Everybody in this room has glyphosate and other components in Roundup in ...
How many times can you drive past a donut shop without going in? That’s the question I ask myself in the waning moments of 2019, as I once again roll past the little pink shop ...
For a restaurant in City Heights, FireBirds Chicken has come up a lot in local foodie conversations over the past three weeks; especially surprising because that’s about how long the place has been open. There’s ...
I’m up near Euclid, on University. Looking round, choosing the place that’s gonna fill my belly. Ethiopian? Cambodian? Mexican? Chinese? I swear. This underrated neighborhood has just about any food you could ask for. At ...
Martial arts instructor Matt Armstrong and his “Trash-Vengers” crew picked up thousands of pounds of trash from their Azalea Park streets and canyons in the last couple of years — free of charge. On June ...
On August 2, Steve Taylor direct messaged me a link to a YouTube video titled Scoot Safe – Emergency Physicians’ Tips for Electronic Scooter Riders. “Dang, they gotta commercial for kids,” he said. “Notice the ...
A mile east of all the beer Stacy Keck tells me she can’t function at 6 am. So we decide to meet instead at 8:30, and she gives me an access code so I can ...
I can’t explain exactly what led me to attend the Maha Sangkran Festival the third weekend of April. Better known around these parts as the Cambodian New Year, or Khmer New Year, the two day ...
Nhà Hàng Chay Hoa Từ Bi Tâm may the toughest restaurant name most of us will ever try to remember, but I’d recommend trying. While the English portion of its sign reads, “Organic-Veggi Restaurant,” only ...
“It’s a camel, but what is the point of this?” asked Kee. “Ohhh, it’s a bike rack.” She was referring to a new red colored bike rack that measures about four feet long, on the ...
So what is the difference between Ethiopian and Somali food? Last week, when my friend Annie and I were in Addis, a newish Ethiopian eatery on El Cajon Boulevard, two ladies came to eat at ...
Cold night. I’m walking down El Cajon Boulevard, fully intending to cut north and head for Rosie O’Grady’s pub on Adams Avenue for a solid Irish stew. What’s making me hesitate is this Ethiopian place ...
No offense to all the people in Arizona who got snowed on, but where it really got cold this week was San Diego. It’s been the kind of Southern California winter where your nose is ...
A year and a half ago, one of Teri Siciliani’s neighbors called to alert her to a homeless encampment on the back side of Siciliani’s property in the Fox Canyon neighborhood of City Heights. From ...
It’s a large plate, draped with a plantain leaf, atop which sits a stunning variety of foods. There are rice and stewed pinto beans, and potatoes. The rice is topped with a fried egg, encircled ...
On November 6, Gloria Muriel received news that a mural she painted in City Heights was restored to original by a “mysterious master restoration artist.” It originally took her and Tijuana-based artist Alonso Delgadillo about ...
On September 10, 2018 APR Construction Inc., a small business from La Mesa, won a $202,000 jury verdict against the City of San Diego, which fired them from the Central Avenue Mini Park and Skate ...
When I get in at 6:50 am,” Jeffrey said, “it’s already here: fresh poop.” Almost every morning, Jeffrey opens up the Valvoline Instant Oil Change shop in City Heights. “When I see people with dogs, ...
On September 21, between 12 noon and 2 pm, I noticed over 75 yellow Ofo bikes around town; about half were still being used. “It’s a score,” Joey G. said, “if you find them unlocked, ...
What do you order when there are 219 items on the menu? I should probably just ask the room. It’s the Monday lunch rush at Minh Ky Restaurant, a small Chinese joint in City Heights, ...
Although, in March, Mark Kersey ended his candidacy to become California’s 38th District senator, he may be forgiven for still bragging about all the recent street resurfacing in his San Diego city council District 5. ...
On July 24, at around 7:30 pm, Matt Armstrong exited I-805 to Home Avenue and saw smoke on the way to his City Heights home. “I saw like seven-eight fire engines,” Armstrong said, “the car ...