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The story of how a humble movement turned into a citywide ritual
A man is trying to navigate a double-wide baby stroller through the Little Italy Mercato Farmers’ Market. It’s going as expected: like a semitruck attempting to weave in and out of rush hour traffic. Jogging strollers, built wide for stability so children don’t fall out onto the sidewalk, also struggle. Compact, economy fold-ups seem the best for this experience.
The double-widers don’t seem to care. They’ve got a fresh pour-over from Bump Coffee, whose booth attendants might be models. Vista’s Hidalgo Flowers is selling lilies and hydrangeas, their display looking like Georgia O’Keeffe had a burst of inspiration and painted for days. Cute dogs sniff each other’s cute butts and play-wrestle, providing onlookers with some free serotonin. Some of the stroller moms and dads have managed to buy an apple from Escondido’s JR Organics, or that wild, alien citrus from Valley Center’s Polito Family Farms, or the beyond-red strawberries from Rodney Kawano Farms in Oceanside.
My tote bag was a freebie. I’m not even sure what it says. Looking around, I feel woefully under-toted. Many have cute designs and slogans, like “Romaine Calm” and “Your Plastic Bag Can Kiss My Canvas.” Some express the diversity of their owner’s shopping habits, like this woman whose bag reads “Walmart.”
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
Discussing baby strollers and tote bags may seem banal and off-topic in a story about farmers’ markets, one of America’s most booming food movements. But it helps to illustrate an important point. Farmers’ markets have transcended local food. They have become a weekly community ritual for tens of thousands of people in San Diego.
For most of our country’s evolution, the only free weekend gathering that people felt compelled to attend was church. It was the place most anyone could go for a sense of community. A place to connect with neighbors, meet newcomers, express proud opinions on matters of interest, disseminate and absorb gossip, get and provide support, see who’s dating or divorcing whom, coddle new babies, create a collective municipal and moral bond.
According to Pew Research Center, church attendance is way down. Less than 20 percent of us are going, though 40 percent of us claim we are. Meanwhile, farmers’ market attendance has never been higher. According to the National Museum of American History, from 1960 to 2000 the number of American farmers’ markets grew from 100 to over 3,000. Now there are over 8,600. In San Diego County, there are now 48 certified farmers’ markets.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
An aerial view of the Little Italy market, which attracts over 10,000 people every Saturday
Staring down the throng of people at the Mercato on a recent Saturday, it’s easy to see why farmers’ markets have become church replacement therapy for many Americans. They’re a free communal experience that happens every week at a set time, usually on the weekend or after work hours. They are family friendly. Alcohol-free, for the most part. At each booth, someone preaches the virtues of purity and ethics.
Whereas religion has many branches that separate people, food is nondenominational, unless you count organic food as a religion, which some might. Not everyone may love food, but until Silicon Valley solves the issue, everyone still needs it.
So over 10,000 people every week (rain or shine) crowd onto Cedar Street for the Little Italy Farmers’ Market. Some come for the philosophy—to support local farmers and food-makers. For others, markets are simply an alfresco grocery store with better-tasting, in-season goods. Others come for flowers: San Diego has more small farms per capita than any other county in America, a majority of which grow ornamental plants and blooms. Some want to exorcise demons from their dogs or kids. Some come to meet people—like a live-action Tinder or Bumble with snacks. Some buy crafts or jewelry made by the person who’s selling it to them. Some simply come because everyone else is.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
“Grocery stores are depressing,” a friend tells me. “It’s like a long-distance relationship with food, whereas farmers’ markets are intimate.”
She’s got a point. Farmers’ markets are a very intentional reaction to the impersonal, institutionalized experience of grocery stores. Through the genius of innovation—industrial freezers, bar codes, self-checkout kiosks, packaged-food factories, nationwide distribution networks—we took the humanity and local-ness out of what, for millennia, was a very personal, home-grown, neighborhood experience.
Americans weren’t even allowed to shop without a human escort until 1916, when Piggly Wiggly in Memphis became the country’s first self-serve grocery store. Prior to that, our great-grandparents food-shopped daily, for social exercise as much as function. They knew their farmers’ and food-makers’ names, and their children’s names. We sped the process up in 1937 with the grocery cart, invented by Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain in Oklahoma. Grocery store shopping became a rushed, antisocial experience—a race through a giant flourescent-lit box to collect largely shelf-stable dinners.
Until recently, aside from fictional characters (Boyardee, Jemima, Snap, Crackle, and Pop), there was no visible human behind grocery store food. Most of it was packaged and shipped by the truckload from other states and countries—on average, grocery store fruits and vegetables travel over 1,200 miles.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
In California, the re-personalization of food started in 1978, when governor Jerry Brown signed the Direct Marketing Act during his first term. Soon after, California Certified Farmers Markets was formed. Farmers set up tables and tents outdoors, selling produce they’d picked 24–48 hours earlier for cash. The Santa Monica Farmers Market opened on July 11, 1981 and quickly became legend. Chefs and serious food people arrived so early they’d be waiting for the farmers to arrive, competing to grab the limited supply of delicious, super-fresh local fruits and vegetables.
Acquiring them was of the utmost importance for restaurants like LA’s two-star Michelin restaurant Mélisse. Chef Josiah Citrin’s food tasted better, in large part (aside from his immense talent) because the local, in-season fruits and vegetables tasted infinitely better than store-bought. To get an edge at the markets, chefs cut deals with farmers, who would set aside a private stash of the most prized produce for them. Commoners like myself would arrive to find stands looted by chefs, and we were left to pick over the scraps, asking questions like “What is a Meyer lemon, and how the hell do I eat it?”
Even top San Diego chefs were making the weekly trip to Santa Monica. The huge difference in quality was worth the commute—until San Diego’s Hillcrest Farmers Market opened in 1997.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
Oceanside Farmers Market
More than any other state, California’s rise to the top of food and restaurant culture was directly tied to the quality of our local produce. New York had elite European chefs, who seemed to think they’d reached the end of America when they hit Manhattan and had no interest in going farther west. California’s unique selling point was its abundant supply of world-class soil. The temperate climate allows for nearly year-round growing seasons, and the resulting crops are simply better (crops loathe New York winters just as much as New Yorkers do).
California has over 77,000 farms. The state is virtually the nation’s sole producer (over 99 percent) of almonds, dates, figs, olives, peaches, artichokes, kiwi, pomegranates, raisins, pistachios, plums, and walnuts. California grows about 90 percent of the nation’s avocados, and San Diego County accounts for 40 percent of that. Over 85 percent of farmers’ market vendors travel less than 50 miles to sell. Over half travel less than 10.
A short distance from soil to market is beneficial in a lot of ways, but let’s focus on two: flavor and nutrition. Produce reaches full nutritional value when ripe, and starts losing nutrients the minute it’s plucked from the earth. A landmark University of Texas study showed that fruits and vegetables now contain between 15 and 50 percent fewer nutrients than they did 50 years ago.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
So, when we buy a tomato grown in poor soil, picked green, put on a train for 1,200 miles and artificially ripened with argon gas—what are we paying for? Fewer nutrients, and only a portion of the tomato’s flavor potential. Some scientists have even argued that, due to our produce having lost nutritional value over the years, eating them causes our brain to demand more food (a personal favorite explanation for my overeating).
Farmers’ markets also serve a preservational function. Farmers are San Diego’s endangered species. We’re losing them. Every city is. But especially San Diego, where the cost of land, water (tripled in the last decade), and labor are higher than most counties. Last June, Suzie’s Farm, one of the county’s most popular, was forced to close because they couldn’t pay the bills.
“At one point we got up to 62 farmers’ markets in San Diego County,” says Catt White, founder of SD Weekly Markets, which operates three of San Diego’s largest in Little Italy, Hillcrest, and Pacific Beach. “And now we’re back down to 48. That’s not because people don’t want them. We just keep running out of farmers.”
Grocery stores have started selling local produce, at least partially in response to the popularity of farmers’ markets. A good thing, for sure. Their bulk sales help local farmers. But the much-needed profit for the farmer is drastically smaller.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
“If our farmers sell avocados to a packing house or grocery store, they make between 7 and 11 cents per,” White explains. “They can sell them at farmers’ markets for $2.50.”
A study by the Farmers Markets Coalition (potential bias duly noted) concluded that in 2017, farmers received only 17.4 cents for every dollar Americans spent on food, compared to 90 cents on the dollar at farmers’ markets. That’s a 500-percent increase. Some small farmers make only a couple hundred dollars a day, White says, but a few make upward of $250,000 a year selling at multiple markets. Then there’s the effect on the local economy. According to the Institute for Self-Reliance, only 15 cents of every dollar spent in a grocery store stays in the area, while farmers’ markets retain 30–45 cents.
For food-makers—people who make sauces, baked goods, packaged foods, etc.—the markets are a cost-effective way for entrepreneurs to test-market their ideas. White explains that some vendors can get set up at her farmers’ markets for $2,000 to around $5,000 or more for the commercial kitchen space, permits, insurance, marketing, packaging, equipment, signage, and starting inventory. Next month, White will host the InTents Conference, a two-day instructional on how to start and grow a farmers’ market business, including national speakers like New York Times best-selling author Forrest Pritchard and Neal Gottlieb, who started his national ice cream chain, Three Twins, at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
“As a minority and an immigrant, I came here without job experience or references. The farmers’ market was a way for me to start my business,” says Anis Ben, founder of Chula Vista’s Baba Foods, whose hummus and pita chips have been an icon of SoCal farmers’ markets since 1994. “I also don’t need to wait 21 days for people to pay me. When you go through suppliers, sometimes you have to give them 30-, 60-, or 90-day terms, so you need a lot of capital to pay for a large order up front by yourself. At the market, people hand me cash right there.”
Cassandra Curtis is cofounder of Once Upon a Farm, a San Diego company serving high-pressure-processed baby food using in-season fruits and vegetables. While most baby food is shelf-stable because it has preservatives, Once Upon a Farm has to be refrigerated because it uses real, perishable food without the other gunk. It was a gamble. Because no other baby food had to be refrigerated, stores couldn’t stock it where customers were used to looking. The Little Italy and Pacific Beach markets provided her with invaluable market research from the stroller crowd.
“It wasn’t even called Once Upon a Farm when we started,” she explains. “The markets helped us realize we needed to change the name, and the branding, and some of the recipes. Babies would try our flavors and either swallow it or spit it out.”
Once Upon a Farm recently brought on a new partner in John Foraker, who spent 17 years as the CEO of organic food brand Annie’s before selling it to General Mills for $820 million. So they’re doing okay, thanks in part to baby spit at San Diego’s farmers’ markets.
Baby Clydesdale is a sauce company run by the most entertaining man at the market. Dave Mead stands dressed in a blazer, sunglasses, and with a camera-ready haircut. He has a schtick. He runs us through a tasting of four sauces—a pesto, a carrot-habanero ginger, a lemongrass barbecue sauce, and Sriracha—each on tiny squares of bread on a toothpick.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
He and his wife, Justine Marzoni, started their company with the idea of creating an organic version of America’s most en vogue commercial hot sauce—Sriracha. It’s good, although the pesto’s better, damn right delicious.
After people fell for their sauces at markets, Baby Clydesdale expanded—first into local gourmet retail, like Seaside Market and Specialty Produce; then on to San Francisco, Seattle, Brooklyn, Maine, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Another iconic local brand, Bitchin’ Sauce, started at the Pacific Beach market before getting picked up by nearly every grocery in town, including Whole Foods and Costco.
One company, Mush, makes nicely branded overnight oats flavored with dates, vanilla, berries, apples, etc. We try all four, each delicious. We buy two six-ounce packages (apple and blueberry) at four dollars a pop.
Two days later, Mush owners Ashley Thompson and Katherine Thomas appear on the investor TV show Shark Tank. After hearing their pitch, one investor says the food space is too cost prohibitive, so he’s out. Mark Cuban offers them $300,000 for 10 percent of their company. They accept.
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
At Certified Farmers’ Markets, prepared-food makers like Bitchin’, Baby Clydesdale, and Mush have to stay on one side of the affair, away from the farmers who grow their own food. There are rules to this, many good, some downright odd. At “producer only” farmers’ markets—an esteemed designation—you must grow what you sell. You’re legally mandated to have a sign that says some version of “We Grow What We Sell.”
As usual, some rules go a little far. White would love to be able to allow farmers from Valle de Guadalupe and Baja to sell at the San Diego markets, since Baja is a much closer growing region than, say, Fresno. But it’s illegal.
“Our local beekeepers also aren’t allowed to sell their beeswax candles at markets because they didn’t produce the wick locally,” explains White. “Some herb and flower growers can’t sell their holiday wreaths because they didn’t make the twine or metal wire that ties the wreath together.”
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
Visiting San Diego farmers’ markets for this story, I notice I’ve maintained a bad habit. Over 20 years of attending San Diego markets semi-regularly, I’ve often skipped over smaller booths. Guess it’s that old grocery store shopping instinct: I want a big booth for efficient, one-stop shopping.
In doing so, I’ve kind of missed the point, and missed places like Four Sisters. They sell just a few things—scallions, carrots, broccoli, greens, beets, kale—that they grow on four plots of land within San Diego city limits. It’s run by Idzai Mubaiwa, who relocated to San Diego from Zimbabwe with her family. She started farming with her sister, Tsitsi, at the New Roots Community Farm in City Heights, an initiative by the International Rescue Community to help low-income refugee and neighborhood families supplement their incomes and get a good start in America by growing healthy food. Michelle Obama visited the farm in 2010. Tsitsi eventually died of breast cancer, but Idzai carries their legacy.
I sample insane amounts of food. Sampling food is the greatest farmers’ market tradition. A worker takes a knife, cuts a piece of a Honeycrisp apple, stabs it, and pushes the knife toward me. This is their primary sales pitch. A slice of apple so good you realize, after years of shopping at grocery stores, that you’ve never really known what a real apple—grown in good soil, picked in-season at the peak of ripeness, within the last couple of days—tastes like.
It tastes like candy.
At the end of the market operating hours, I watch as farmers and vendors talk among one another. They trade for each other’s goods. Some lemons for some honey. Some fresh-pressed juice for some almonds. They load their trucks with what they didn’t sell, some of which will be made into sauces or jams, some will go to nonprofit hunger organizations.
They clean up, and drive back out of the city. They’ll be back next week. For church.
PARTNER CONTENT
Inside San Diego’s Big Farmers’ Market Boom
Discover eateries, outings, and shops within this inland North County community
Just south of Lake Hodges near 4S Ranch and Poway, Rancho Bernardo is a suburban community that blends residential neighborhoods with industrial pockets, elevated by a decidedly diverse food scene.
Over 60 years ago, this North County neighborhood was once part of a family ranch. Since that time, big tech companies have taken up residence here, including Amazon, Sony Electronics, Oura Ring, HP, Teradata, and ASML. Rancho Bernardo Inn serves as a community hub, with locals frequently meeting at the hotel’s restaurants, golf course, and spa.
Whether it’s work or a round of golf that brings you to Rancho Bernardo, we’ve taken care of the agenda planning with our guide to the area’s best restaurants, activities, and shops.
Sample ingredients plucked straight from Rancho Bernardo Inn’s onsite garden and served at their signature restaurant Avant. One of the neighborhood’s most upscale dining options, they serve a French-inspired menu with nods to California, including many seafood options. Don’t miss their more casual sister restaurant Veranda for al fresco dining.
17550 Bernardo Oaks Drive
Wood-fired pizzas and handmade pastas are standouts at The Kitchen, Bernardo Winery’s counter-service restaurant specializing in Sicilian flavors. Charcuterie boards and bruschetta make for great starters or snacks while wine tasting.
13330 Paseo Del Verano Norte
Fast-casual and family-owned eatery Bushfire Kitchen recently opened a location in Rancho Bernardo, serving sandwiches, bowls, salads, burgers, protein plates, and housemade empanadas. Bushfire prepares comfort food with healthy ingredients, and offers plenty of vegetarian and vegan options.
11962 Bernardo Plaza Drive, Suite 110
Some might call The Cork & Craft an overachiever. This gastropub has an in-house craft brewery and winery: Abnormal Beer and Wine. The more, the merrier. Their sushi menu is definitely worth exploring, but don’t miss other specialties like garlic noodles, chicken wings, and pork belly.
16990 Via Tazon
You don’t have to leave Rancho Bernardo to get a white tablecloth steakhouse experience. Carvers Steaks & Chops has prime rib (their best seller), filet, ribeye, porterhouse, New York strip, and other cuts, served alongside crab-stuffed mushrooms, wedge salad, French onion soup, potato skins, and other steakhouse specialties.
1940 Bernardo Plaza Drive
This no-frills Burmese restaurant is known for its traditional tea leaf salad that’s topped with sesame and sunflower seeds, garlic chips, peanuts, tomatoes, jalapeños, fried yellow beans, and fermented green tea leaf dressing. Tucked into a nondescript strip mall, Burma Place is a great takeout option when you want to eat garlic noodles, fried rice, chicken curry, and samosas from the comfort of your couch.
16719 Bernardo Center Drive, Suite A
Find authentic Vietnamese cuisine at Phở Ca Dao, including favorites like phở noodle soup, vermicelli noodles, broken rice dishes, and spring rolls. One of eight locations throughout San Diego, this family-owned chain uses robot servers for food delivery.
11808 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 100
It’s all about the sauce at fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant The Kebab Shop. Smothering your chicken shawarma, gyro, or falafels in garlic yogurt, cilantro jalapeno, fire chili, and dill yogurt sauce is practically a rite of passage. The hardest part is deciding whether to order a wrap, bowl, or salad.
11980 Bernardo Plaza Drive
Get a taste of South Asian flavors at Casa Lahori, a Pakistani restaurant noted for its grilled meat kabobs. Other best-selling dishes include beef nihari, chicken biryani, and shahi paneer— best enjoyed with naan bread.
11975 Bernardo Plaza Drive
Grill your own meat on the tabletop at Kangnam Korean BBQ, an interactive, all-you-can-eat experience that’s well-suited for large groups. Marinated beef bulgogi, grilled galbi short ribs, and spicy pork are served alongside traditional banchan dishes like kimchi, japchae glass noodles, and flavorful stews. Weekday lunch specials provide a nice discount on these filling meals.
11828 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 117–119
Dig in to your favorite curries and kebabs at Curry & More Indian Bistro. Most entrees are served with a choice of two side dishes, including basmati rice, potatoes with cumin, daal, naan, or mixed greens. Help offset the spice with one of their sweet mango or strawberry lassi drinks.
11808 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 123
Kai Oliver-Kurtin is a San Diego-based writer who covers travel, dining, events, and culture. Her writing has been published in USA Today, Condé Nast Traveler, Fodor's Travel, Marie Claire, and HuffPost, among others.
The city's pet-friendly courses combine scenic greens, wagging tails, and a round that’s as much about your pup as your swing
Golf doesn’t have to mean stiff collars, pleated khakis, whisper-talking on the green, or pretending your sand trap fails aren’t actually hilarious. Around San Diego, a handful of rebel courses are quietly rewriting the rules of an afternoon round, making them more relaxed, more social, and yes, more dog-friendly. These are the fairways where leashed pups pad alongside their people; where a suspenseful search for a golf ball in the bushes or—no!no!no!no!no!—in the water hazards are part of the fun; where every polite golf clap comes with a smiling, panting audience. If your ideal golf day includes a walk, a drink, and your dog riding shotgun, this is your teeing ground.
For proof that a golf course can be approachable without being boring, look no further than Emerald Isle Golf Course in Oceanside. The executive course delivers consistently beautiful greens, rolling elevations, and just enough challenge to keep you engaged, not stressed—unless your pup breaks free and runs for the rolling elevations, in which case you’ll be very engaged and maybe a little stressed. Locals love holes like the canal carry on No. 3 and the wildlife-dotted pond on No. 16, while golden-hour sunsets steal the show most evenings. Dogs are genuinely welcome here, not an afterthought. Grab them a slice of watermelon from the clubhouse, pose in the cart for Instagram cameos with an Emerald Isle scarf (it doubles as an adorable bandana for your four-legged friend), or introduce them to the course’s resident pups like Bogey, the assistant director of instruction, and shop dogs Karl and Frank. Affordable, friendly, and no-frills, Emerald Isle feels like golf you and doggo can’t wait to play.
660 S El Camino Real, Oceanside
The Loma Club is where golf goes social. Set in Liberty Station, this historic 9-hole par-3 course trades country club stiffness for an easy, neighborhood energy that feels distinctly San Diego. The course is walkable and unintimidating, with skyline and harbor views doing most of the heavy lifting. The Loma Club is just dipping its paws into the dog-friendly trend, and welcomes them on the mini course and off the fairways. Though your pup is the epicenter of your world, the patio at Loma Club is the real star, hosting live music, trivia (even the smartest dogs are stumped), and cocktails that rival golf itself. You don’t even need clubs to enjoy it. Show up with your dog, wander the course, grab something from the clubhouse, and stay for hours. You’ll feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
2960 Truxtun Rd, San Diego
Calling Goat Hill Park a golf course almost undersells it. Known as the “People’s Park,” this historic Oceanside staple operates more like a community space where golf happens. Expect dogs strolling alongside the players, music streaming from magnetic speakers attached to golf carts, beginners smacking balls alongside serious talent, and locals and tourists sharing the same teeing grounds with a few four-legged besties trotting alongside. Saved from redevelopment in 2014, Goat Hill embraces a raw, unpolished look that’s both intentional and refreshing. With ocean views, a “19th-hole” fire-pit, and zero pretense, it’s golf at its most human…because: dogs.
2323 Goat Hill Dr, Oceanside
Ready to add your pup’s name to the illustrious list of golf greats? Same. At the iconic The Club at Omni La Costa, the vibe is equal parts championship-caliber and casually fabulous. Emerald fairways so perfect you’ll hesitate to step on them, palm-lined paths practically begging for a golden-hour strut, and rolling greens that ripple in the sun. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, your four-legged plus-one enters the chat: For members and overnight guests, the La Costa lifestyle rolls out the (very chic) welcome mat for your (leashed) pup, turning tee times into a social affair of breezy, citrus-kissed luxury and leisurely strolls. Really—what are you waiting for? Even your dog’s got a standing invite.
2100 Costa Del Mar Rd, Carlsbad
Isabella Dallas is a freelance writer for San Diego Magazine and the Arts and Culture Editor at The Daily Aztec in her final year at San Diego State University. She previously worked as an editorial intern for SDM, but when she’s not writing, you can find her trying the best coffee spots in SD, devouring the latest rom-coms, and indulging in anything and everything pop culture.
Telefèric Barcelona will open its first San Diego location early this summer
Westfield UTC mall is adding yet another “first” to the ever-growing roster of restaurants. The first US location for China’s stir-fry sensation Chef Fei is on the way later this year, Japan already reinvented crispy rice pioneer Katsuya by opening the first Katsuya Ko, and now, it’s Spain’s turn—Telefèric Barcelona opens early this summer.
The family-owned, Barcelona-based tapas joint first opened in the US 10 years ago in Walnut Creek, California, but co-founder and CEO Xavi Padrosa says they’ve had their eye on San Diego for years. Westfield UTC “just clicked,” he says, pointing to the burgeoning collection of world-class eateries already within the mall’s walls. Plus, La Jolla’s breezy vibe echoes Spain’s easygoing tapas culture.
The indoor/outdoor space spans 5,526-square-feet, with seating for 150 inside, 60 on the patio, and 16 more at the bar. Xavi’s sister and co-owner Maria Padrosa designed the Mediterranean-inspired space as a contemporary take on coastal Catalonia, using imported furniture and materials from Spain like hand-glazed tiles and wood accents. And if all the dining spaces are planets, the center of the suite’s universe is the bar.
Padrosa points to signature favorites like patatas bravas (fried potatoes drizzled with a spicy red sauce and house aioli), jamón ibérico de bellota (Spanish ham from free-range pigs raised on acorns, cured for 38 months and sliced to order), gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp), pulpo Telefèric (octopus with potato purée and pimentón XO, a spicy Spanish/Cantonese fusion sauce), and croquetas (a popular fried tapas dish coated in breadcrumbs and made with béchamel mixed with fillings like jamón or king crab.
There are a very small handful of legit paella spots in San Diego (Costa Brava in Pacific Beach and Cafe Sevilla in Gaslamp Quarter come to mind), so I’m personally looking forward to giving Telefèric’s a go—especially the squid ink paella negra, which is perhaps the most goth paella of all. Every location also offers different weekend specials, La Jolla’s being seafood-driven and meant to pair with beverage director Alex Serena’s drinks. There are over a hundred Spanish wines, Spanish-inspired cocktails, sangria, and of course, plenty of twists on the iconic gin and tonic. The restaurant will also have a gourmet market called The Merkat with imported Spanish sundries.
With more US locations in the works (Newport Beach will open soon after La Jolla), Padrosa says the company hopes to open more across California, but are open to anywhere in the country that feels right. “We don’t know exactly what new cities will appear on our map in the coming years,” he says. But in true Catalan fashion, anywhere they go should be ready for big plates of hearty Spanish cuisine.
Telefèric Barcelona La Jolla opens early summer 2026 in Westfield UTC. Opening hours will be Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Most of the time, you have to be 18 years old to change your name. In Arcana’s case, it was about a month. The immersive speakeasy behind Archive in Encinitas updated their moniker to Animga (a play on “enigma”) earlier this month, after what one can only assume was an upset letter from a similarly-named business. However, partner Paula Vrakas promises that the concept remains the same—mystery, cocktails, and a forthcoming bottle locker membership club. Since the only constant is change, Anigma is off to a good start!
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.
The annual event honors middle market companies creating jobs, scaling up, and investing in the region
San Diego is known for its startup culture and innovation economy, but what happens when the company moves beyond its early-stage years? The San Diego Business Impact Awards aim to answer that question, spotlighting the middle market businesses helping drive the region’s economy.
Hosted by San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and JPMorganChase, the second annual awards celebration takes place on Thursday, July 23, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Scripps Research Auditorium. More than 200 executives, entrepreneurs, and business leaders are expected to attend the networking and cocktail event honoring some of San Diego County’s fastest-growing companies.
Businesses headquartered in San Diego County that have operated for at least two years are encouraged to submit their nomination by Thursday, June 18 at 4 p.m. Companies across industries—from technology and life sciences to tourism and consumer products, as well as pre-revenue startups—are eligible for recognition.
For EDC President and CEO Mark Cafferty, the event is as much about building connections as celebrating success. “We’ve had a longtime partnership with JPMorganChase; their work aligns with our efforts to support underserved communities and drive talent development,” says Cafferty. “And the networking was invaluable last year. I’m still in touch with people I met at last year’s awards.”
EDC is an independently-funded nonprofit that works directly with San Diego companies to help them grow the local economy, make the region as a whole more competitive, and attract and retain top-tier talent with quality jobs. Through EDC, companies can get help starting or expanding their business with support for things like site selection, permit navigation, and regulatory guidance, plus connections to local resources and potential business collaborators.
The San Diego Business Impact Awards began as an idea with one of EDC’s longtime strategic partners, JPMorganChase. The two organizations share a commitment to San Diego and are dedicated to bolstering middle market businesses.
“We’re blessed with a robust innovation economy and startup community,” says Aaron Ryan, San Diego Region Manager for JPMorgan’s Commercial and Investment Bank and vice chair of the firm’s’ San Diego Market Leadership Team. “But one of the segments of the business community we felt was overlooked was emerging middle market companies—the businesses that are no longer small but not yet large.”
Ryan says supporting those companies is critical as they scale and decide where to invest, hire, and grow.
San Diego’s high cost of living remains one of the region’s biggest business challenges, making talent recruitment and retention increasingly competitive. But local leaders point to the region’s quality of life, climate, and collaborative business community as advantages that continue to attract employers and workers.
“In order to support thriving households, there has to be enough high-quality jobs for people to be able to afford to live here,” Cafferty says. “Once a company grows and excels past that middle market point in their growth cycle, they become much more likely to pay higher wages and compete globally.”
Both Cafferty and Ryan proudly tout the unique collaboration that exists among San Diego County businesses. Bringing together top universities producing high-quality talent, cutting-edge research institutions, a robust military and defense presence, leading ocean science and environmental organizations, and a binational, cross-border identity creates a distinct business ecosystem that defines and strengthens the San Diego region.
Last year’s San Diego Business Impact Awards celebrated nearly 60 honorees from 49 industries, representing a total of 8,232 jobs across eight sectors, including: software and technology, healthcare and life sciences, consumer goods, professional services, finance, construction and manufacturing, defense, and hospitality and tourism. On average, honoree companies doubled their revenues over the previous year, employed more than 145 San Diegans each, and offered an average annual compensation of $192,415.
Top honorees included defense contractor Innoflight, environmental consulting firm Bancroft Construction Services, life sciences startup Element Biosciences, defense technology contractor GALT Aerospace, organic grocery store chain Jimbo’s, and biopharmaceutical company LENZ Therapeutics. During the event, Innoflight Founder and CEO Jeff Janicik held a fireside chat offering his insights on investing in the community and embracing San Diego culture.
This year, organizers hope to continue highlighting the middle market players driving economic impact across the region. Nominations are now open through June 18 at 4 p.m. Get your tickets to the San Diego Business Impact Awards celebration to enjoy drinks by Snake Oil Cocktail Co., light bites, live music, and networking.
From San Diego’s coastline to Los Angeles stadium and fan zones across the region, here’s how to experience soccer’s biggest event
When three nations and 16 cities come together to host the FIFA World Cup 2026, the scale stops feeling like a tournament and starts feeling like geography. A continent becomes the stage as borders soften into corridors. And Southern California—shaped by migration, sport, entertainment, and constant movement—sits inside that landscape with all eyes on it.
San Diego and Los Angeles have always felt connected. Hop on the Pacific Surfliner, and the trip unfolds in one continuous stretch of coastline, passing beach towns, neighborhoods, and city centers.
Traveling from San Diego, everything still feels slightly suspended as the Pacific Surfliner follows the coast north with ocean on one side and a slow suburban blur on the other. San Diego stays in exhale. Los Angeles is already building toward something louder.
This summer, Los Angeles will host eight matches of the FIFA World Cup at Los Angeles Stadium, including the US Men’s National Team opener on June 11, while the region stretches into 39 days of programming across stadiums, parks, transit hubs, beaches, and neighborhoods. Instead of one massive fan hub, Los Angeles is embracing a citywide celebration, with fan zones spread across its entirety.
But this pattern has been rehearsed here for decades. In 1994, Southern California became one of the defining stages of the World Cup, when matches at the Rose Bowl placed global attention on the region and turned local stadiums into international landmarks, confirming its ability to hold the world at scale.
What distinguishes Southern California is not just infrastructure, but cultural permeability. Fashion, music, film, art, and sport constantly overlap here, creating an environment where identity is flexible and always in motion. From the Venice boardwalk, where skate culture shaped modern street style, to global soccer stars rubbing shoulders with Hollywood celebs, to authentic Spanish cuisine moving up and down the I-5 corridor, everything circulates.
The World Cup is not introducing anything new here, it’s showing up for the summer and showing out, revealing what this city has always known about itself. What follows is a look at the fan zones and how Los Angeles turns itself into a city-wide stage for the tournament, one neighborhood at a time.
As the heart of Los Angeles, Union Station is an official Fan Zone June 25-28 during the World Cup, but in practice it never really stops being one.
It is the city’s circulation point, its meeting ground, its pressure valve. Commuters, travelers, match-day crowds, and everyday Angelenos all move through the same space, and everything mixes, overlaps, and scales in real time. In a way, this is where the World Cup stops arriving in Los Angeles and starts moving through it.
The Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles makes that shift feel almost too easy. No stress or gridlock anxiety, just a straight line up the coastline with ocean on one side and everything slowly becoming more built on the other. It’s one of the rare ways into LA that doesn’t feel like arrival as friction. You can sit with a laptop, watch the Pacific drift past, grab coffee from the café car, and let the city come to you in pieces.
That’s the beauty of arriving at Union Station. Instead of feeling like you’re on the edge of the city, you’re immediately surrounded by it. And, inside, the station already reads like a World Cup nerve center: banners, movement, multilingual energy, the sense that something global is about to funnel through this exact point. The Heart of the City Fan Zone only sharpens that feeling, with simultaneous match screens, DJ sets, meet and greets, and immersive activations built around marquee games like USA vs. Türkiye.
From there, the city splits outward.
ROW DTLA feels like the first exhale after arrival. A converted industrial campus turned creative district where restaurants, retail, and open-air courtyards form a self-contained ecosystem. If you’re looking for the perfect first meal in LA, make it lunch at Pizzeria Bianco. The thin-crust pizza is reason enough to go, but the space leaves just as much of an impression.
What I liked most about ROW DTLA is how quickly it resets you after the train. One minute you are stepping off at Union Station, and the next you are in a space that feels like its own version of LA, a city inside a city with some of the most curated shopping I’ve ever seen.
Bodega hides itself behind a convenience-store front, a sneaker and streetwear space disguised as something ordinary, like LA refusing to make anything feel too obvious. The whole campus moves like that, part retail, part gallery, part neighborhood you are only temporarily inside.
Isabella Dallas is a freelance writer for San Diego Magazine and the Arts and Culture Editor at The Daily Aztec in her final year at San Diego State University. She previously worked as an editorial intern for SDM, but when she’s not writing, you can find her trying the best coffee spots in SD, devouring the latest rom-coms, and indulging in anything and everything pop culture.
Talking farm to table, fraud-to-table, and the feasibility of the movement with the beloved restaurateur who saw it all
Garden Kitchen was special. During its seven-year run on a quiet street in Rolando, even the farmiest-to-table devotees were pointing to chef-owner Coral Strong and slow-clapping. When a dramatic rent-hike forced her to close in 2022, Strong wasn’t sure what to do next.
Farm-to-table wasn’t new by any means—chef Alice Waters spawned the movement at her pioneering restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley in the early ‘70s, and many San Diego chefs did it right. But by the mid-2000s, the idea had been so co-opted by the mainstream that the meaning was almost completely lost.
“In the beginning, I used to get very honestly angry and upset when I would go to other restaurants that were claiming they were farm-to-table, but knowing some of the chefs or prep cooks inside [telling me] ‘Oh no, that comes from Restaurant Depot,’” she says.
Food critic Troy Johnson’s cover story in 2015 documented the fraud, titled “Farm to Fable.” At Garden Kitchen, Strong only used produce and meat sourced from local San Diego farms—an honorable, if not arduous endeavor.
Strong grew up in Cardiff before her parents moved the family to Costa Rica in 1989. They’d bounce between the two countries for months at a time, but when they lived in a motel by the beach while building their own house, she witnessed an incredibly tight-knit food culture. “As a Latin American country, everyone kind of cooks together,” she says. Everyone chopped, prepped, prepared, and served as a unit. “[That] definitely shaped my adolescence as to how I thought about food and the community of food.”
When her father, a commercial fisherman, brought the family back to San Diego, Strong leaned into an entrepreneurial streak, moving from coffee to accounting and eventually bartending to pay the bills. But food remained a passion, especially after she met her future husband, who was working at a farm and ranch in Escondido.
“We were just always disappointed with the vegetables out at restaurants and were like, ‘Why can’t they just make vegetables taste good?” she wondered. She realized that despite having more small farms than any other county in the country, most restaurants in San Diego simply weren’t using local ingredients.
So she decided to do it herself.
Strong opened Garden Kitchen without any formal culinary training—just a commitment to getting the freshest vegetables, meat, fruits, and other produce onto people’s plates. Her first chef quit within a month, telling her it was impossible. “So I got in the kitchen one day and said, ‘I can do this, let’s figure it out.’ I taught myself how to cook.”
She already had connections with farmers, fishermen, and ranchers, and designed a different menu almost daily based on what she could get. “My farmers sometimes delivered in the middle of dinner service,” she laughs.
Garden Kitchen lasted until after the pandemic, but before the current economy cut into already razor-thin margins. Could Garden Kitchen exist today? She’s not sure.
“The biggest thing right now is just looking at the finances and how expensive it is,” says Strong. “Obviously, the cost of food is up right now, gas is crazy right now… it just crushes you.” Despite that, she believes that committing to the true farm-to-table ethos is as easy as one decides to make it.
“If you think it’s hard to order directly from your farmer, if you don’t understand the absolute pleasure in doing that and you’d rather order from a computer, then that’s your own difficulty,” she says. “People say they’re into it, but are they willing to make the effort like I am, to drive an hour to go get my meat, or drive 35 minutes to go to my farm to go pick it up? I don’t know.”
Today, Strong works as a private chef, hosts pop-ups, and offers catering services, all still using seasonally available ingredients from San Diego. And while she has no intentions of opening another restaurant, she says we might see even more of her in the future.
“I have a large property [in Valley Center], and let’s say that there will be more of my food to come,” she promises.
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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.
Scripps study shows that some patients may be able to taper their dose and maintain results
While glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agents have been used to treat Type 2 diabetes for more than 20 years, their recent emergence as weight-loss wonder drugs marked a new frontier in medicine. But their effectiveness has left some patients wondering what to do once they’ve reached their goal. Stopping the medication could mean regaining some, if not all, of the weight. A Scripps Clinic internal medicine physician recently conducted a small study of whether GLP-1 patients who had reached their goal weight could maintain that weight by taking their regularly prescribed injection every other week instead of weekly. Spoiler alert: 30 of 34 patients did. Read more about the study here and what that may mean as pharmaceutical companies roll out oral GLP-1s.
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