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Green Flash unveils its new space dedicated to barrel-aged beer
Poway just got better.
On Saturday, May 16, Poway city officials will gather near live music. Beer will be poured. The first beer. The experimental, barrel-aged beer. The wild yeast beer. The best beer. It’s the grand opening of the 12,000 square-foot Green Flash Cellar 3. It’s the second San Diego facility for Green Flash, with a 2,500 square-foot tasting room dedicated to rare and barrel-aged beers. It’s a tinkering room. An experiment room. A place for beer aficionados to watch barrel master Pat Korn and his staff get creative. Over 30 barrel-aged beers will be on tap Wednesday through Sunday (12-8PM) at Cellar 3, with room for 155 guests. The special releases of Cellar 3 barrel-aged beers will be uncorked here—like Silva Stout (a bourbon barrel-aged double stout), Le Freak Barrique (formerly Super Freak) and sour ale Flanders Drive.
Art and music will be a focus as well, with curator Alexander Salazar kicking the first series off with works by artists Jarod Farver, Sasha K Reibstein and Walter Redondo. The second Green Flash Food Truck will be parked here, serving Italian-style sandwiches, craft jerky, charcuterie, cheese, etc. Enough of the jabber. Please enjoy the first-known photos in the universe of Cellar 3, designed as an ode to urban lofts by Smart Design Commercial Interiors. Cheers. Cellar 3, 12260 Crosthwaite Circle, Poway.
FIRST LOOK: Green Flash Cellar 3
The cozy eatery in Poway is full of touches of Ukraine, a place its co-owners once called home
In a bright, sunny café in Poway, a cartoon goose peers impishly at you over a mirror. The speech bubble above the goose says, “We are so alike.” It’s instantly delightful.
“We were looking for something with a subtle Ukrainian touch, but not something that would feel too themed or unfamiliar to local guests,” says Anton Ocheretin, who co-owns the café with his wife, Mariia, and friends Taras and Natalie Alipin, who are also married. Like many children in Ukraine, the Ocheretins and the Alipins spent their summers in the countryside with their grandparents. I remember similar Ukrainian summers—darting through fields; getting underfoot; and being lovingly scolded for smearing raspberries, blackberries, and cherry juice all over my clothes.
“And there were always geese around,” Anton reminisces. “It’s a nostalgic, cozy memory for us. Geese are always looking for food, and our name is Need to Eat.”

The team behind Need to Eat wear a lot of hats: business partners, innovators, longtime friends. They first crossed paths as a foursome in 2008 as students at Ukraine’s National Science Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (formerly the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute), where they discovered their shared love for food and cooking. “Not just cooking, but the culture behind it,” Anton adds. “We started going on trips together, visited cities, bakeries, restaurants. Talking to people—the best in everything. That’s how the dream slowly took shape.”
Taras describes the team with terminology reminiscent of a heist crew. Everyone has their specialty: Mariia is the “pastry guru” and Anton is the “paper man” and barista, juggling the business side of the café and its drink menu. Natalie is the “visionary” responsible for the café’s look.

Taras calls himself “brain chef,” laughing. “I create the menu, teach our line cooks, and prepare food myself,” he adds. He’s also a dedicated teacher who speaks passionately about the cooking classes that he and Natalie conducted in Ukraine for both adults and children. They carried on the tradition in the US by introducing a gingerbread class for kids during the winter holidays. One lesson he works to impart is that cooking is both an art and a science. Taras describes himself as a “food technologist”—cooking, he tells me, is all “chemistry inside the food.”
I do my best to get a glimpse of the process—where do the ideas for the recipes come from? Like a true artist, Taras shrugs. “From my head,” he says. “Just try things.”

Co-managing Need to Eat isn’t the quartet’s first time working together. In Ukraine, Anton and Mariia ran a pastry shop before connecting with Taras and Natalie to help a friend open a restaurant. “We made it, I think, six months working together before we started working separately,” Taras shares. The experience opened the door to a shared dream and partnership.
As conflict loomed in Ukraine, the team decided to make good on that vision by opening a café together in San Diego County. “When the war started, we decided [that] we had to leave Ukraine,” Anton says. “Unfortunately, we had to rebuild our lives somewhere new, and we wanted it to be a place where it’s possible to start a business—it’s our major goal.” Need to Eat Cafe became the child of both opportunity and necessity, merging the team’s culinary interests and Ukrainian roots.
When you visit, Anton suggests starting with a plate of syrniki—similar to an American pancake but made of cottage cheese. “I honestly think they have a potential to become a global breakfast favorite,” Anton promises.
I have to be honest with Anton and Taras—syrniki are my family’s signature breakfast dish, and it’s tough competition (even though I can’t remember the last time that my papa’s syrniki weren’t just a teensy bit burnt). It’s a true Ukrainian breakfast. The cottage cheese that comes to mind is not the packaged, pasteurized, and TikTok-ified protein hack. I remember my great-grandmother’s hands as she milked our cow each day and hung up the cheesecloth, turning it now and again, and then shaping the syrniki into the delicious patties that I would dip in honey or milk in the morning. “Everyone in Ukraine eats it for breakfast,” Taras says.

Now, that’s true not just in Ukraine—in Poway, syrniki arrive drenched in caramel and summer berries. Guests and geese with a savory tooth can enjoy Ukrainian-style dumplings stuffed with potatoes and mushrooms, meat, or (a real childhood delicacy for every kid being fed by their grandparents in Ukraine) sour cherries. The spread of pastries is tempting behind the shop’s glass case. Anton and Mariia are “passionate about desserts,” he tells me, and they are continually “experiment[ing] with unusual flavor pairings.” The menu changes seasonally, inviting patrons for a return visit.
The team is planning to bring the café to San Diego proper. Anton shares the vision for a new location in downtown: “A cute breakfast place with a friendly atmosphere [and a] great breakfast selection, which also contains some Ukrainian-style breakfast,” he says. The rest of the plans are a surprise—it might have a different concept, a fresh design, and even a brand-new menu.
This means that the goose may not be visiting San Diego along with the new outpost. “That’s still an open question,” Anton says.
A part of me is rooting for the goose—many of them are migratory birds, after all. They spread their wings and travel with the chill of autumn, like the magic swan-geese of Ukrainian fairy tales, carving the path to a new home. Need to Eat Cafe’s friendly goose followed the team to San Diego, built a nest here, and laid the table for guests.
Inna is a California native with a passion for local art, literature, and a really good salad. Her favorite pastime is visiting furniture exhibits at museums and wishing that she could sit in the chairs (even once!).
Sinner Buns is building a following for its slow-made, seriously gooey weekend treats
When I was pregnant, my food craving was singular and intense. If I didn’t eat at least one thing doused in cinnamon every day (ideally, more than one), I was—to put it gently—a complete monster.
Since then, my obsession has tempered somewhat. But cinnamon buns still perch high on my top treats list, so I’m always on the lookout for the next great place to indulge. IMO, The Huddle in Mission Hills’ mondo cinnamon roll remains top-tier, but after eyeing the ooey, gooey goodies from Sinner Buns, we might have a contender.
Originally from Ukraine, Daria Nadar had already done everything one can do at a bakery—business operations, wholesale contracts, actually baking, you name it—so during the pandemic, she started dabbling with perfecting her cinnamon rolls. After she got a couple fans over social media, she threw her first pop-up to see how they’d be received. She sold out.
After a few false starts with a couple storefronts and business deals, Nadar officially launched Sinner Buns in October 2025 with her partner Filipe Pazi. After making it through an unexpectedly hectic season stuffed with holiday orders, the team closed temporarily to get everything in line and reopened this April. Business has remained in full swing ever since.
There are only so many ingredients in a cinnamon roll, but “the process is what makes it special,” she says, adding they use fresh yeast rather than powder and a 48-hour process for each batch of brioche dough made to order. (Thus the need for pre-orders.) Customers can preorder until Thursday each week for pickup Friday, Saturday, or Sunday from Sinner Buns’ ghost kitchen at 780 Hollister Street, just east of Imperial Beach.
You can also catch her at various pop-ups around San Diego, the next one taking place on Saturday, August 22 at Infusion Lab Coffee in Pacific Beach. Eventually, Nadar opens to offer nationwide shipping (once she figures out the logistics and quality control) and one day, her own storefront.
But it’ll be on her terms, not the whims of social media. “We already learned how to not only rely on virality of the product, because you go viral and then it fades,” she says. “It’s a slow burner, and I know eventually, it’s going to grow much more.”

Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
From her Rancho Peñasquitos kitchen, Yanira Majano is sharing family recipes through San Diego’s growing home-restaurant movement
When San Diego launched Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations (MEHKO), it changed everything. Riverside County first established the experimental program in 2019, with San Diego introducing its own countywide pilot program in 2022 and granting it permanent status in 2024. The new category allowed people to launch at-home retail food operations—basically, home restaurants—with special requirements and restrictions to ensure food safety and smooth operations. Over two dozen counties across California have since adopted their own versions with over 1,200 permits issued, around 100 of them in San Diego alone.
Some have a dizzyingly long waitlist (Warung RieRie), others are still getting their name out there (The Hidden Gazebo Eatery), and still others use MEHKO for pickups rather than fully opening their home as an onsite dining facility. Love Pupusas falls into that category.
Yanira Majano came with her family from El Salvador to the United States when she was 11 years old, bringing a love of cooking and desire to share the country’s cuisine along with her. “There’s a lot of similarity [between Salvadoran food and] Central, South America, even Baja Mexico,” she says. Salvadoran cooking tends to be less spicy than some Mexican cuisines, with an emphasis on ingredients like corn, staples like yucca root (cassava), meats like crispy pork (chicharrón), and sides like curtido, a tangy cabbage slaw that’s typically either naturally fermented or vinegar-based.
And of course, the signature dish of El Salvador—pupusas.
In San Diego, Salvadoran food lacks the widespread availability of other Latin American cuisines like Mexican or Peruvian food, but Majano says she’s seen pupusas gain popularity over the past few years. But she likes to think her recipes, which have been passed down by her mother and kitchen partner Martha, contain a certain special something.
Some pupuserías use rice flour to create the handheld stuffed tortillas, but she prefers the more traditional gluten-free corn flour. Still, it’s what’s inside that really counts. “That’s where we put our own touch,” she explains. Most of Majano’s pupusas come with cheese and different fillings like carnitas, black beans, mushrooms, or zucchini, but she also offers vegan options. Every one comes with a side of curtido and salsa, each made fresh daily.
Showing people the magic of home-cooked food might not have been possible without the MEHKO program or The Cook Alliance, a MEHKO support and advocacy coalition. Opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant requires a huge amount of start-up capital—at least six figures, generally. Not exactly pocket change. “But when the MEHKO program started in 2022, I said, ‘Oh my God, this is for me,’” says Majano.
Now with four years under her belt, she says she’d love to bring Love Pupusas to more food festivals, host more pop-ups, and eventually open a food truck to keep serving the humble dish of her homeland, taking pride in every bite. “[I put] a lot of love in everything I do. You see it when you taste the food,” she promises.
Pre-order Love Pupusas for next day pickup in Rancho Peñasquitos between noon and 5 p.m.
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Behind every beautiful space is a thoughtful process, and ASID San Diego is helping homeowners understand the value of professional design.
A perfectly designed home rarely happens by accident. Those kitchens that feel effortless and rooms that seem to tell a story the second you walk in? They’re usually the work of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
It’s knowing which ideas will actually work, which materials will hold up over time, and how to turn a collection of choices into a space that feels intentional. That’s where a professional interior designer comes in.
For the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) California San Diego Chapter, the goal is to help people see interior design as more than just the finished look. Behind every well-designed space is a process built on technical expertise. Designers are educated in everything from professional software and construction details to building codes, space planning, materials, and functionality.

“People don’t always realize how much goes on behind the scenes,” Kirsten Recce , current president of the ASID California San Diego Chapter, says. “Our designers are not just doing furniture placement and color selection and picking out new fluffy pillows. That’s not what they’re trained for.”
ASID members bring formal education, continued learning, and industry knowledge to their projects, helping create spaces that are not only beautiful, but designed to work. A paint color that changes completely depending on the lighting. A material that looks beautiful in a showroom but doesn’t make sense for everyday life. A layout that photographs well but doesn’t function for the people living there. These are the details where professional guidance can make all the difference.
Still, one of the biggest misconceptions about hiring an interior designer is that it’s reserved for massive renovations, luxury homes, or people who already know exactly what they want. The process can feel intimidating. Where do you begin? Is a designer worth the investment? What if you only need help with one room?
ASID’s answer: start with one hour.
ASID’s Spruce Up events break down one of the biggest barriers between homeowners and professional design: knowing where to begin. Held twice a year, the community program gives homeowners the chance to work directly with an ASID designer through a one-hour, $125 consultation in their own home. Whether you’re looking for advice on furniture placement, window treatments, kitchen and bath updates, remodeling ideas, vacation rentals, color selections or something else entirely, the upcoming September 2026 event offers an approachable way to get expert guidance before committing to a full project. Signups are open through Sept. 7, with consultations taking place Sept. 21 through Oct. 31. Proceeds benefit ASID San Diego’s educational and community programs. Register here!

“It’s a great opportunity for people who are in that exploratory phase,” Recce says. “Maybe they’re not sure they want to hire an interior designer yet, or they think it sounds daunting or expensive. This gives them a chance to discover what working with a designer is actually like.”
Design is personal. A good designer isn’t just creating a beautiful room; they’re helping create a space that fits the way someone lives.
“We’re a resource to all of San Diego County,” Recce says. “It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the phone and call and ask. We’ll answer.”
Follow ASID San Diego on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook for updates on upcoming events, or connect with the chapter directly at [email protected] or 619-548-8847.
After two years of farmers markets and pop-ups, the San Diego baker is bringing its Korean-inspired pastries to University Heights
The folks at Kairoa Brewing Company must never be lonely. It seems like there’s always a local pop-up or event at the University Heights space, from Bincho Taco slinging Japanese coal-fired tacos on the rooftop patio every Tuesday to Yipao Coffee serving coffee from a window on the ground floor. Later this year, the New Zealand-inspired brewery will bring yet another resident into the fold—Mon Chourie is launching its first bakery counter service window along Park Blvd.
Mon Chourie owner and baker Kelly Kim first started selling her Korean-style cream puffs at farmers markets and places like Pizza Kaiju, Pho Ga Go, and Mixed Grounds, collaborating with a myriad of other makers (like Amor ice cream and Ming Oun’s) before nabbing a regular spot at Michi Michi Bakery every Wednesday. San Diego Magazine readers even voted Mon Chourie the Best Pop-Up for 2026.
In French, the word for an airy puff pastry is “choux,” which is pronounced generally the same way as “syu,” the Korean word for the same item. (Both sound like “shoe.”) Mon Chourie plays with both iterations with a dash of whimsy by referencing the song My Cherie Amour by Stevie Wonder, which translates to “my darling love.”
As long as all the permits and inspections move forward without issue, Mon Chourie should open in Kairoa before the busy holiday season. She’ll continue appearing every Wednesday at Michi Michi and other pop-ups in the meantime. Once open, expect best-selling flavors like the savory potato croquette (a collaboration with Karanchi chili crisp) and a sweet Dubai chocolate choux au craquelin, a version of puff pastry with a delicate cookie crust.
Classic cream puffs are fluffy, softs and often filled with custard cream in the United States. “What makes a difference for us is we use a very light version of diplomat cream, which is my mom’s recipe,” she explains. Diplomat cream is a lighter French pastry cream that uses whipped cream for a lighter, airier end result.
Choux au craquelin’s signature crunchy top comes from adding a thin disc of cookie-like dough on top of the pastry, which crackles as it bakes, leaving a thin layer of crispiness atop the final product. “It contrasts with the creamy, fluffy cream inside, so it gets that better, deeper texture experience,” she says.

Along with her popular cream puffs and her bite-sized “mini-choux” options, Kim is also planning on offering more of a newer-to-her item: salt bread, a rich butter pastry topped with sea salt that originated in Japan, but went completely viral in South Korea. There are a few places to get it in Los Angeles and New York, “but I know that a lot of people here are interested in trying out new stuff, or maybe they had it in Korea or Japan, and they came back, but they couldn’t find it anymore,” says Kim. At first, she didn’t really get why it was so popular. Then she tried it in South Korea earlier this year.
“I was in love,” she laughs. “This is what the hype is about.”
Ideally, Mon Chourie will eventually open its own storefront and introduce more events in North County to satisfy demand. “I would also love to have our own drink program that reflects what’s popular in Korea,” she says. And to mark two years of puffy pastry prosperity, Mon Chourie is throwing a two-year anniversary party at Easy Does It (5375 Kearny Villa Rd., Suite 112) on Wednesday, August 25 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with drink specials like a misugaru latte (a Korean roasted multi-grain powder with espresso), a DJ, photo booths, special ceramic merch created by local ceramicist Whale Tran, and a few other vendors. Get there early.
Mon Chourie will open inside Kairoa Brewing Company by the end of 2026 and posts the next week’s schedule of upcoming events and pop-ups on Instagram every Monday.
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Bring home a taste of the city with local coffee, conchas, chili crisp, hot sauce, and other suitcase-worthy finds
Snacks are the best vacation souvenirs. You get all the novelty of having something to unwrap without any of the burden of keeping random crap around. I’m always game to try some chips from a place I can’t find on a map with ingredients I can’t identify by taste. Gimme that spice mix from that Southern barbecue pit whose wine list consists of light beers from lesser-known appellations. Don’t think I won’t lick the inside wrapper of some chocolate bar homemade by a grandma at a farmers market you stumbled upon in a small Midwestern town best known for giant yarn balls.
Even though San Diego is best known for our thigh-sized burritos, fish tacos, and craft beers, those travel about as well as room-temp mayo. So we gathered some of the city’s best food souvenirs: snacks, spices, and sauces worth sliding into your carry-on or gifting to a lucky out-of-towner.

Inside Bread & Salt—Barrio Logan’s old Weber Bread Factory turned into one of the city’s most vibrant art, culture, and community spaces—there’s a cafe in front of a giant, now-defunct bread mixer. Mexican-owned specialty brew shop and roastery Provecho! Coffee started as a pop-up in 2020, but its success quickly bricked-and-mortared. Although Provecho! specializes in sourcing and roasting Mexican coffees, its consistency is variety: The lineup changes regularly as Provecho! finds new sources around the world. Get a to-go taste via the coffee bags that range between 250 g and 2 kg.

Superlova!’s Chinese-inspired, seed oil–free sauces are grocery list mainstays for San Diegans. The sesame sauces (Dan Dan is spicy, May May is tame) pair with noodles, dumplings, or any meal that could use a little more oomph. They don’t have tahini, which is de-hulled; they have Chinese sesame paste, which is dark-roasted for a nuttier flavor and packed with fiber and calcium.

San Diego is known for beer, sure. But real locals pour from a different tap. JuneShine’s low-sugar, yet still refreshingly sweet, hard kombucha is an SD favorite. The brand has joined the canned cocktail tidal wave and now sells vodka mules, tequila palomas, and vodka sodas—all with about two shots per can, real juice, and sparkling water. But for a classic food gift, get a variety pack of the booch. Fit it into your checked bag. It’s worth it.

Double entendre is key to hot sauce brand Down To Ferment, aka DTF. (Popular sauces have flavor names like CornHub, Smokin’ Hot Date, and Ghosted.) But it’s no gimmick. The homemade, kombucha-based sauce is seriously good: DTF’s That’s What Shishito Said made it onto Season 30’s lineup on Internet-famous interview show Hot Ones.

As discussed, carne asada burritos travel about as well as a toddler with emotional-regulation issues. But the soul of a truly great, San Diego burrito? It’s not the fillings. It’s the tortilla. You can’t go wrong from any locally owned spots, but our favorites are Tortilleria Los Reyes in Vista, Windmill Farms Market in Del Cerro (which uses Pancho Villa’s old tortilla press), Esperanza’s Tortilleria in Escondido, and Tortilleria Lily in City Heights.

Handcrafted in small batches, Karanchi’s Sichuan peppercorn–packed chili oil comes in two varieties: original and spicy. The original warms your palate and adds depth to your meal, and the spicy is a form of mealtime masochism. Founder Nguyen Le’s favorite way to eat his garlic-studded chili crisp is on avocado toast—which makes an already San Diego meal even more San Diegan—but it’d make old shoes taste pretty good.
Fresh fish ranks low on society’s acceptable realms of carry-on items. But canned fresh fish straight from local fishermen? You’re the best part of a bruschetta. Every Saturday at the docks behind Seaport Village, fishermen step off their boats and sell what they caught as recently as that morning. While getting yourself some fresh sea urchin and squid, grab a couple cans of locally caught albacore tuna for the tinned-fish lover in your life.

Started as a pandemic baking hobby for BFFs Natalie Rodriguez and Lesly Mendoza, Tus Chefs is now a South County favorite spot for conchas with a twist. The menu is expansive enough to get over a baker’s dozen without any repeats—why not get one of each, anyway?—but if you only have enough space in your carry-on for a few, start with popular “chocolate abuelita,” churro, mazapan, horchata, and brownie conchas.
Emma Veidt is an editor at San Diego Magazine. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism. She loves running, hiking, and rock climbing, but really, she mostly loves encounters with the street cats around North Park.
Innovative treatment could offer cancer patients new options with fewer side effects
Chemotherapy and radiation have long been considered gold standards of cancer treatment, but they can cause severe side effects. A promising new approach called theranostics—a combination of “therapeutics” and “diagnostics”—could offer patients with certain types of metastatic cancers new hope. It’s a two-step process that uses a drug that binds to specific receptors on cancer cells. Advanced imaging detects this radioisotope, allowing doctors to then use a second radioisotope that binds to the cancer cells and destroys them. Click here to learn more about how specialists at Scripps Cancer Center are using theranostics.
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