Old Town Stories
When 2020 began, I did not expect to spend two and a half months writing about take out and delivery. Since dining rooms re-opened in late May, it’s been fun, ...
There was bound to be some awkwardness. The ‘rona closed restaurant dining rooms more than two months ago, and if the intervening weeks taught us anything, it’s to be leery ...
“On this site in 1897,” says one of those joke plaques, “nothing happened.” “Hey,” says Gary. “On this site in 2020 nothing happened either. This is the lamest Cinco de ...
Walking around Old Town last month, I noticed a sandwich board sign advertising afternoon tea at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That’s the proper, British-style afternoon tea, complete with a big ceramic ...
Old Town Stories
General store ledgers tell how people lived in Old Town Finding which store the ledger came from involved detective work. In 1864, there were only two general merchandise stores, one in Old Town, the other ...
It can be fun to play tourist in your own city, but that doesn’t mean we’re obliged to eat Mexican food when visiting Old Town. While traipsing about the historical park the other day, rather ...
“It’s the best seabass in San Diego.” That’s what a server tells me, when I tell her I’m trying to choose between the grilled Chilean sea bass and the teriyaki black cod. Often, black cod ...
Almost five years ago, Bill Lawrence, president of the San Diego History Center, went to Los Angeles to accept an award from the California Preservation Foundation. The purpose of the award was to honor the ...
‘How far?” says my friend Annie. “I’m so sick of these crowds I could croak.” We’re in Old Town, Friday night. We’re at the last gasp of Old Town’s Mile of Bars on San Diego ...
It’s Friday night. Left eating till the last moment. Tramping up Congress. Gonna head up toward San Diego Avenue, the glam street of Old Town. Most of everything here on Congress is closed down. Except ...
‘It’s been vacant as long as I can recall” was the consensus I got when asking about the vacant lot on the corner of Congress and Harney streets in Old Town. An empty lot is ...
Fun fact: the State Department has still been issuing passports during the federal government’s partial shutdown. For this, I am grateful. My renewed documents arrived this week, prompting the return of a favorite hobby: studying ...
Tahona Bar in Old Town is one of those places that is going to get a lot of jokes, just because of its location: next to the Old Town cemetery. “Tahona? I’m dying to go ...
Back in 1966, a young Dave Naylor remembers he and his father attending a dedication of the new Interstate 5 rest area at the La Costa Avenue exit, in Leucadia. He clearly recalls a time ...
Ed. Adam Parfrey, publisher of books from Feral House and writer for the Reader, died on May 10, 2018. The following came by email to the Reader on July 3. It is not generally appreciated ...
Graffiti is nothing new along transit routes. The local trolley's general manager was quoted in 1987 saying graffiti clean-up was a high priority. "When graffiti is noticed, it is our policy to remove it immediately." ...
Metropolitan Transit System or MTS has been hanging Choose Transit posters at bus stops around town. Plus they reached out to ask public opinion in April and May. Shorter commute times, more transit options, and ...
In March, the city rejected all proposals vying to operate the Presidio Hills Golf Course. This was a harsh blow to the Friends of Presidio Hills Golf who spent a lot of time and money ...
When we last saw Ceviche House, chef Juan Carlos Recamier's business had graduated from farmers market stall to a tiny counter service shop in North Park. Not even two years later, Ceviche House took another ...
It’s been 26 years since Joe Flammini opened Java Joe’s, one of the few coffeehouses back then that offered live music with your latte. In 1991, Java Joe’s was located in Poway. The shop moved ...
A half-acre of Old Town State Historic Park, located at the junction of Taylor and Congress streets, is a native plant landscape that focuses on coastal native plant restoration. The San Diego Chapter of the ...
Sixties time-warp! I’m sitting in the friendly gloom, watching Lisa Sanders and Karen Hayes sing personal songs in dreamy harmonies. Acoustic, coffee-bar singing, outside. It feels time-warpy in more ways than one. This space is ...
On May 24, a city council subcommittee unanimously recommended to make $14 million available for golf course projects over the next three years. Kris Shackelford, city’s public works department, gave a one-minute presentation. The whole ...
In 1769, Father Junípero Serra along with Gaspar de Portolá established the mission and presidio as the first European settlement on the Pacific Coast. There is minimal evidence of the original site just west of ...
Between the quality shows at Cygnet Theatre and the lighthearted comedy of Old Town Improv, I’ve been finding more reasons to spend time in Old Town, an area that, along with the Gaslamp, I once ...
If ever there were a compelling reason for San Diegans to hang out in Old Town, it’s Home & Away at the former location of Kelly’s Pub. For about two years now, locals and tourists ...
San Diego Unified’s iHigh Virtual Academy, “a tuition-free public high school offering students the opportunity to earn a high school diploma primarily online,” per its website, has an overspending problem. So says a report for ...
"Milwaukee.” “San Diego.” “Milwaukee!” “Saan Diy-egow!” “’Scuse me. Ever hear of Miller? Schlitz? Pabst? Old Milwaukee? And you’re trying to tell me San Diego is the beer capital of America?” Did I mention Saf is ...
A May San Diego County County Grand Jury report accuses officials at the Metropolitan Transit System of refusing to get onboard with the city's bike-sharing program. DecoBike, launched in 2013, has been touted as a ...
He thought they were joking. Even when they had him standing on a horse-drawn dray with a rope around his neck. All he’d done was go for a joyride in a rowboat. He called it ...
Set above Old Town, San Diego’s forty-acre Presidio Park is a National Historic Landmark preserving the first permanent European settlement on the West Coast and the site from which exploratory missions embarked into California's interior. ...
“It’s fresh, not processed, and have you ever seen a fat Japanese guy? Except for sumo wrestlers?”
Cygnet Theatre offers a “double bill” of Noël Coward’s The Vortex (1924) and Hay Fever (1925). Staging his early plays in repertory has advantages. The dark, brittle Vortex is almost a photographic negative of the ...
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 ...
LuAnn Porter attempted to rally the troops on Facebook to attend the Old Town San Diego Community Planning Group meeting on Wednesday, August 12. It ended up being a small affair with six or seven ...
Did Eddie spend four years in Vietnam? Or did it just seem that way?
T’is the season. Count some of the ways: NOW PLAYING: La Jolla Playhouse: Come From Away. The world premiere musical, by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, creates a comedy within a tragedy. On the morning ...
Lights come up, dimly, on a dingy brown old couch with a deep sag in the middle. Close by: a laptop, a TV-tray-like table with rollers, a low slung reading lamp, and a small bookcase ...
The charro and the pioneer lady set the kids into teams. “Now, don’t worry about breaking the eggs,” says the lady. “They’re made of wood. First team back with the egg still in the spoon ...
Two beautifully performed shows must end their runs this Sunday. The White Snake, Old Globe Theatre. Mary Zimmerman does theatrical adaptations of literary works, among them The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, and The Notebooks of ...
“I could’ve donced all night, I could’ve donced all night” — at least half the audience at intermission, it seemed, bounced up the aisles at Cygnet Theatre singing this song, including the accent! And when ...
Cygnet Theatre must close its outstanding production of Sons of the Prophet this Sunday, February 15. Stephen Karam’s comedy-drama is one of those rare plays that are, often at the same time, extremely funny and ...
It’s just a room upstairs, in an old two-story house. They say when it opened, on December 1, 1868, 150 watched the Tanner Troupe perform a song and dance revue at the “Brick Building.” A ...
Kahlil Gibran wrote one of the best-selling books of all time. Translated into over 40 languages, The Prophet (1923) records the poetic observations of the Lebanese mystic Almustafa on self-knowledge, good and evil, death, and ...
For several years, Cygnet Theatre did a popular version of A Christmas Carol as a live, 1940s radio show — 100 years removed from the original. Sean Murray’s world premiere script returns the durable Dickens ...
These shows must close this Sunday, November 2 — aka “Black Sunday,” given their high quality. The Royale, Old Globe Theatre One of the year’s best directed shows is so well done you’d think Marco ...
Cygnet Theatre Shep-reps, staging True West and Fool for Love
Cygnet Theatre is running two of Sam Shepard’s plays in repertory: True West and Fool for Love. In Cygnet’s opening day/night double bill last Sunday, True West came off the stronger [to be reviewed 10/15]. ...
Scoping the new-old and admiring Wisconsinite appetites at Taco Tuesday.
What do the tourists see when they come to San Diego? I wondered this as I walked around Old Town, trying to decide in which hokey Mexican spot to have lunch. Fiesta del Reyes seemed ...
From the fluffy curtains to the large G hovering over the faux marble floor, everything’s an ardent pink — the signature color of Glamouresse, whose beauty products include an aerosol that protects the ozone layer ...
It’s a snappy chapeau: reddish with a narrow brim and wide band. The question for Jackie, on parole after 26 months in stir for dealing drugs, is “who’s the motherf--k who owns this motherf--ker?” Jackie ...