La Mesa Stories
For many attendees, the annual Island Vibe Music Festival at Downtown’s Spanish Landing on August 13 radiated a hearty homeland vibe from the get-go. For others, the evocation of the ...
Performing Hawaiian slack key guitar music takes dedication, focus, respect, and of course, only the best Hawaiian shirt patterns. “I really like our white-and-red rayon and beach-green shirts with outrigger ...
Skyline Church Contact: 11330 Campo Rd, La Mesa 619-660-5000 www.skylinechurch.org Membership: 5,225 Pastor: Jeremy McGarity Age: 51 Born: San Diego Formation: Christian Heritage College (now San Diego Christian College); Azusa ...
For a moment, the two big ice cream scoops of rice resemble eyes looking back at me, and I imagine my plate lunch sort of looks like a smiley face ...
La Mesa Stories
As Lakeside fades in my rearview and Ramona’s foothills loom in before me, I inhale my surroundings. Despite 20 years of living in San Diego, my Midwestern heart has yet to normalize the Western movie ...
In the Middle East of San Diego County, there lies a kind of marijuana Mecca, a place to which pot pilgrims may peregrinate on a high hajj in their quest to elevate themselves — not ...
Considering it’s shaped like a sauce pan, we rarely see a cooking tradition attributed to Oklahoma. Yet, sure enough, when I google the term “onion burger,” all results credit the Sooner State. I might never ...
Crosspointe Life Church Contact: 8809 La Mesa Blvd, La Mesa 619.464.3077 www.crosspointelife.org Membership: 160 Pastor: Craig Osborne (Co-pastor with wife, Renee Osborne) Age: 45 Born: Alberta, Canada Formation: Northwest Bible College (now Vanguard College), Alberta ...
Dem-on-Dem race gets expensive Serious special interest money continues to pour into the Democrat-on-Democrat 80th District special election race to replace resigned Assembly Democrat Lorena Gonzalez on April 5. Georgette Gomez, an ex-member of the ...
The city of La Mesa is planning to turn a 2.84-acre lot on the northwest corner of Waite Drive and Murray Hill Road (just north of Highway 94 near Massachusetts Avenue) into a new community ...
Only 19 days into 2022, I managed both to contract Omicron and have my car stolen. When I attempted to pinpoint the origin of my terrible car-ma, the only thing I could come up with ...
The Reader’s editorial staff was gratified and frequently delighted by the response we got to our writing contest: 347 non-fiction stories, 31 pieces of fiction, and no less than 199 poems. It’s good to know ...
La Mesa goes live : “My mom was on welfare,” says Dean Velasco, who was raised in a La Mesa household with little money. “We had government cheese, and when we ran out of that, ...
It’s been a couple years since the alt-weekly San Diego CityBeat and its blend of local news, irreverent columns, and cultural coverage went silent. The paper disappeared after a cascade of events, starting when Times ...
If there’s a fine line between tradition and cliché, no action straddles it better than ordering Chinese take-out on December 25th. Noodles, dumplings, mistletoe — all swirl together in whichever part of the brain nostalgia ...
If you’ve happened to cruise Lake Murray Boulevard on a regular basis in the past couple years, it might be easy to presume that ten-year-old eatery The Vine Cottage didn’t make it through the pandemic. ...
The past couple years have brought plenty of changes to Split Bakehouse. When Vanessa Corrales launched the brand in 2018 with acclaimed pastry chef Kristianna Zabala, the idea was to offer a wholesale pastry menu ...
It’s not a huge place by any means. The pandemic sidewalk parklet probably holds as many customers as the dining room, if not more. We’ve grabbed our seats out there, sunglasses on, to bask in ...
Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church Contact: 10842 Fury Lane, La Mesa 619-670-7656 www.svlc.org Membership: 200 Pastor: Marcus Lohrmann Age: 33 Born: Walla Walla, WA Formation: Valparaiso University, IN; University of Chicago Divinity School; Lutheran ...
For several years now, Narumi Sushi, at the Fletcher Hills end of La Mesa, has been a favorite of my family. We’ve gone there for birthdays, when out-of-town relatives visit — any occasion we decide ...
In the last week, rallying between local tennis players and pickleball players moved outside countywide tennis courts, two of which share the Collier namesake. "At the Collier Park one in La Mesa off of Spring ...
There aren’t too many exciting things that can be said about sandwich shops these days. Most of them carry one of two or three deli meat suppliers — usually Boar’s Head or Dietz & Watson ...
Nicholas Friesen is a 38-year-old native San Diegan – he grew up in Southeast – who has been working in used record stores all his life. “I’ve got this 10,000-hour thing going for me,” he ...
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’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 ...
“Konnichiwa!” I love how all the crew in some Japanese eateries stop everything when customers arrive or leave and shout out “Konnichiwa!” Kind of “Hello!” “Good bye!” “Thank you!” “Good day!” I don’t know about ...
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 ...
San Diego musicians don’t often count off their seminal musical influences in terms of musical theater. But La Mesa-raised Morgan Hollingsworth — the son of Grossmont High’s drama teacher — loved musical theater before practically ...
It’s been a hell of a year, and it’s not over yet. First, in San Diego County as elsewhere in these Divided States, we’ve been treated to a masquerade ball, courtesy of a generous host. ...
The pale blue, two-story stucco and cinderblock building squats in a parking lot along Broadway in Lemon Grove between a Walgreen’s and an Eyeglass World. It houses Rock Liquor (Beer Wine Grocery) and a Western ...
When last we saw Brielle Clark, she had secured a cottage license allowing her to roast coffee in her North Park kitchen. She and her bandmate/husband Scott used it to launch Dane Coffee in 2014, ...
San Marcos City Manager Jack Griffin begins his annual June letter to the mayor and city council, “It is kind of my pleasure to submit the Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Operations and Maintenance Budget.” That “kind ...
Maple muse “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” — W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” “And you know something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” — Bob Dylan, “Ballad ...
Trombonist Mike Benge has been a director of music at Helix High school for ten years, and the 40-year-old musician was also hyper busy leading the San Diego Latin Jazz Collective and touring with the ...
A big white banner hangs on the La Mesa Police Department’s headquarters; the blue letters read, “We are one strong community.” There is something to the claim of community. It was impressive to see people, ...
La Mesa, six in the evening. This is 48 hours after “the events.” People are still cleaning up, boarding up, cheering each other up. After the human tsunami that swept through downtown La Mesa, it’s ...
They named Mt. Helix after a snail Frank Arredondo has seen them, romping down his La Mesa street as if they owned it: coyotes. “I sit out on the front porch, and I smoke and ...
I was late to the protest in La Mesa on Saturday night. I hadn’t intended to go at all — what could I possibly add that social media and TV news would not have covered? ...
I’m witnessing something this week I never imagined I’d see: local restaurants, already hurting due to the covid-19 shutdown, are openly promoting other restaurants. It’s due to the fact that injustice against African-Americans is on ...
More than a thousand protesters marched outside the La Mesa Police Department Saturday, May 30. Stretching down University Avenue and Baltimore Drive they held signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe,” words ...
There have been differing opinions about how the police reacted to violence from some participants at the protest in front of La Mesa police headquarters, near where I live. The teargas went across the crowd ...
La Mesa harpist Tasha Smith Godinez came to her instrument as a child growing up in the East County. “I actually started with the violin when I was three years old. My older brother was ...
“It’s very odd, being here playing alone in your house, with no audience, even though we know they’re out there,” says Ron Wheeler. Until the coronavirus, he led one of the best-loved cover bands in ...
The first time I ate at Surf & Soul Spot, it was operating as a pop-up restaurant, serving fried fish and soul food select days per week at a church banquet hall in the southeast ...
Grabby headline, no? Not quite as gloriously specific as “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar,” but still eye-catching. And catching eyes is how you stay alive in these dread latter days of content overload. So, ...
Access to local food is among La Mesa's health, wellness, and climate goals. But for some residents, fresh eggs were just out of reach. While they live in single-family homes, and chickens are allowed in ...
It's La Mesa's turn to tackle 5G, which might as well be the I-5 coming down their street, as some residents see it. To build the network, AT&T, Verizon and Crown Castle want quick and ...
Several months back, I wrote enthusiastically about a plate of stuffed cabbage made by a local market vendor and caterer. One reader responded by recommending the same dish, made by La Mesa restaurant, The Village ...
“I hear them screeching” Frank Arredondo has seen them, romping down his La Mesa street as if they owned it: coyotes. “I sit out on the front porch, and I smoke and drink coffee. Usually ...
The City of La Mesa has launched a program called City Walks and Urban Trails as part of their Urban Trails Mobility Action Plan as a way to help connect the community. One of these ...
It took one extra vote Tuesday night, July 23, to end heated public discord surrounding the La Mesa Farmers Market. The city council voted 3-2 to keep the current location in downtown on Fridays for ...
Nearly 31 years ago, Jamie Peters walked into his mother’s home in La Mesa and dropped off his house keys. It was a brief nighttime visit. He paused long enough to look around the familiar ...