North Park Stories
Imagine a near-future trip to a central San Diego neighborhood reshaped by the zoning plans proposed by Mayor Kevin Faulconer. 12-story buildings line 30th Street, University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard – and up to …
At noon on Thursday, May 21, for the first time in more than two months, Mike Hess Brewing opened its North Park, Imperial Beach, and Ocean Beach taprooms to customers, allowing them once again to …
It will be interesting to see what it’s like to hang out at Solomon Bagel Company. North Park’s newest donut and bagel destination has been open a few weeks, only since the shutdown started. So …
The initial push behind the Slow Streets project launched by Mayor Kevin Faulconer on Wednesday evening – at the behest of a coalition of cycling and climate change lobbyists – was opposed by all but …
It was about three years ago next weekend that I got my first taste of the Corazon de Torta food truck. It was parked towards the back of the Reader’s Tacotopia taco festival, but buzz …
Whether for work, fun, or plain hunger, I reckon I’ve tried a good six or seven hundred San Diego restaurants over the years. But at remarkably few can I claim to know the whole menu. …
On El Cajon Boulevard, just about the point North Park becomes University Heights, the new taproom for Serpentine Cider was originally slated to open this weekend (2311 El Cajon Boulevard). The coronavirus had other ideas. …
A gluten free cinnamon roll shouldn’t taste this good, I tell myself, before taking another bite. Then I recall what the woman behind the counter had told me. “We sold out of the iced cinnamon …
Ten of us, seated around a long restaurant table, sharing whatever bits of news we’d heard about this disruptive pandemic coronavirus. The St. Patrick’s Day parade canceled. The Padres season delayed. Costco out of toilet …
When TapRoom Beer Co. hired Bill Batten, the North Park brewpub was months from opening: its corner suite in a new, mixed-use development on El Cajon Boulevard still under construction. Freshly unemployed following a stint …
Pancakes make up maybe two percent of the menu, but they’re clearly the lead focus of North Park’s newest breakfast restaurant. You can tell because the center of each table in Flap Your Jacks is …
The great North Park revival was teetering toward critical mass in 2008. It had exciting new clubs, restaurants, coffee shops, an art scene pumping blood back into the neighborhood, but it was thirsty. There were …
North Park residential housing lots often feature a diverse array of habitats crammed into a space intended for a single home. An old, craftsman house may be complimented by a granny flat behind it or …
Although I tried to fight it for many years, when winter rolls around in San Diego, it’s time to put the flip flops and sandals away. This is the time of the year when San …
Pierogi, sambusa, calzone, pupusa: the world has come up with a lot of cool sounding words to describe what the English would call a pasty, and what we here in America might rather mundanely call …
As I approach what used to be a Starbucks on University Avenue, a corner unit of the historic North Park Theatre building, a sign written in large letters announces a welcome change: it’s now a …
It’s not even two years since The Friendly dusted off an old pizza joint in North Park and started smashing patties for a legion of raving burger fans, but it feels like a lifetime when …
My weekends have become a series of food-driven escapades. As such, I spent a recent October Saturday with friends indulging in local cuisine during Taste of North Park. While sampling at one of the stops …
We are Naples. That’s what the name means of San Diego’s latest Italian restaurant operated by people from Italy, means. Siamo Napoli recently picked up where Il Postino left off in a large North Park …
The Louisiana is a mixed-use complex on the corner of Louisiana Street and University Avenue in North Park. There is a hip restaurant (Louisiana Purchase) on the bottom level that, according to its website, “was …
North Park and North Escondido dwellers have recently reported of “more” spiders crawling around their homes. Natelle Bracken lives in North Park closer to the 805 freeway. In 2019, she has seen seven black and …
It’s tough to believe at this point, but North and South Park made it through about four months of 2019 before terms such as floating parking, sharrows, bollards, and NIMBY entered their daily lexicon. The …
A hunk of thickly breaded, fried chicken sitting atop a pile of mashed potatoes, all smothered in gravy. A Rueben of marbled rye bread loaded with corned beef, melted cheese, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing. …
A few weeks ago, I was startled to find an unwelcome visitor climbing up a wall inside our North Park garage—a rat. My wife and I had dealt with mice at our last house (also …
Sales, production, and the proliferation of satellite tasting rooms may be on the rise in San Diego, but at least one aspect of the local brewery industry has slowed down considerably: new brewery openings. We’re …
After several years of hard work developing bike lane plans, Normal Heights business groups and the city parking district were stunned when City Councilman Chris Ward – and then the mayor- launched their own plan …
For over thirty years, Mama's Bakery & Deli has been dishing up Lebanese food just off El Cajon Boulevard in North Park, and I’ve been ordering chicken shawarma there nearly half that time. However, it …
The term meatless has got to be one of the biggest words of 2019. Every other time I check a news feed, or turn on the radio, there’s more news about the rise of meatless …
If you’re going to like Son of a Toast, first you’ve got to appreciate the concept of toast. It’s the same thing we used to call an open faced sandwich, except, explicitly, the bread in …
Over Memorial Day weekend, dozens of people gathered at North Park’s Mike Hess Brewing Company to shave their heads bald. And in doing so they raised over 60 thousand dollars for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a …
“That puppy is too cute, I just want to eat it up!” We’ve all heard someone say this and never taken them seriously. And then somebody went and made puppy-shaped mousse a thing. I found …
It had been too long since I’d come around to visit my favorite neighborhood butcher shop, North Park’s Heart & Trotter. In addition to the whole animal cuts and house-made sausages found in their butcher …
While cruising North Park’s Festival of Arts last weekend, I was surprised and happy to stumble upon a vendor serving authentic Polish food. To my knowledge, no dedicated Polish restaurants currently operate in San Diego; …
The main roadway connecting North and South Park may be on the eve of a massive transformation. Councilmember Chris Ward is spearheading an ambitious plan to improve the bikeways on 30th Street that run from …
Sausage. Steak. Burgers. Those are the kinds of meals beer fans have grown accustomed to eating at craft beer bar Toronado over the past decade or so. But times have changed. When I bellied up …
If you walk into 619 Spirits without knowing better, it’s easy to mistake the place with any other North Park bar and restaurant. A kitchen turns out dishes including wings, loaded fries, burgers, and wraps. …
The first food story I ever wrote in San Diego covered then newly opened hole in the wall Carnitas Snack Shack. That’s hole in the wall in the original sense: just a window facing the …
On April 5, motorists traveling southbound on the 805 prior to exiting on El Cajon Boulevard were greeted by a Caltrans changeable message sign that reads “FEELING DROWSY? EXIT AND REST.” Some drivers may have …
Joan LaRose has been to the new Target store in North Park three times since it opened on March 12. She and her neighbors "love" the convenience of having a 35,200 sq./ft. "small-format" Target nearby; …
It’s just too easy to make fun of the paleo diet, otherwise known as the paleolithic diet or the stone age diet. Blame whoever started calling it the caveman diet for the jokes. The term …
The last time there was a seemingly life threatening conflict behind Claudia’s Spanish Revival home in North Park, she didn’t swipe her smartphone to dial 911 — instead, she pumped her 12-gauge shotgun. “Expecting the …
I like a good pun almost as much as a good bowlful of noodles, so when The Nood Bar opened in North Park a couple months back, I grabbed a stack of one dollar bills …
The poet Ezra Pound coined the word melopoiea as a way to describe how verses or even individual words may charged with musical properties, bringing their own sense of rhythm and melody to spoken language. …
It doesn’t look like a restaurant that’s about to close. Four parties have shown up at once during lunch rush, and the staff hustles to turn over red leather booths as they become available. But …
Has there been a better time to be a boozehound in San Diego? As the craft beer scene has matured, some locals are branching out into other liquor areas and creating an intoxicating distillery scene …
The art competition launched last year to add new murals to the North Park parking garage had a stated installation of Fall 2018. Obviously that did not happen. The fading original artworks by artist Blair …
The value of Mexican food in San Diego keeps rising. I don’t mean the cost, because the costs at all our restaurants have been going up alongside property values, energy costs, and minimum wage hikes …
“I attracted a lot of women, yes,” Shyrehl Wesley testified in October of 2018. “I do believe that men are the dominant ones in a relationship with a woman.” Wesley turned in the witness box …
There’s nothing easier to find in North Park than a good IPA. But a good lichtenhainer? Only one place that I know about. So, what’s a lichtenhainer? I wondered too. The unsurprising answer would be …
In the food item as bowl domain, few have impressed me so much as the caramel apple dessert offered by the new North Park coffee shop, Deja Brew Lounge. Situated in a converted craftsman bungalow …
Credit Urban Solace as a building block to the lifestyle destination North Park has become. The neighborhood didn’t yet have that national press cachet when Solace rode a rising comfort food trend into what’s now …
They call this North Park tasting room the “world’s first hard kombucha bar.” Not hard to believe given high alcohol kombucha didn’t really exist prior to spring 2016. That’s when Chula Vista-based Boochcraft took kombucha, …