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“You had to know how to fight”
Blue Water Seafood brothers
The workers know who’s calling before they answer the phone.
“If the phone rings at 6:45 a.m. on the production floor, it’s a problem with Blue Water’s order,” explains John Principato of Chesapeake Fishing Company. “Maybe the wahoo has a little notch near the tail end, or another little problem. All they want is top quality, and they are super particular about the fish they buy. We have a meeting every single week about Blue Water.”
But, he adds, “that’s why they’re a gem—there are very few businesses like them.”
If this sounds obsessive or annoying, well, that’s what it takes to do business with Blue Water Seafood Market & Grill. And business is finally good. Over the last 14 years, brothers Judd and Matt Braun banked on a zealot’s commitment to quality seafood and slogged their way to the top. They depleted their family’s life savings to open their first janky spot in Mission Hills, and proceeded to go nearly bankrupt multiple times. Through the death of their father and the birth of their kids, through all the frauds claiming to sell fresh fish and undercutting them on price by using frozen—Blue Water earned their reputation as one of the best seafood markets in the country.
“Straight hell on wheels,” Judd answers when I ask about how vendors know them. “To be fair, we were forced into this business model. We were broke. No one would give us ‘terms,’ where they let you have fish and pay later. We had to pay cash or check every single day. Some days I’d scrape together just enough money for the day, and sleep on the doorsteps of the fish company, waiting for them to show up.”
Judd and his brother Matt were raised in Ocean Beach, fishing and surfing with their dad. They went to Point Loma high with the sons and daughters of the city’s famed Portuguese fishermen. They worked on boats as commercial divers, fishing from Greece to the Red Sea. Then Judd took a job at El Pescador, another top seafood spot run by fishermen. They knew, intimately, what A-plus fish looked like.
“So if it wasn’t absolutely perfect, we’d wrap it up and send it back,” he says. “I already paid for it, so give me the right shit.”
Now Blue Water works with various fishermen and seafood distributors. At the cutting station of each vendor is a sign with Blue Water’s strict specs. No one wants to get that 6:45 a.m. call from the Braun brothers.
Blue water seafood fresh fish
“We didn’t want to do Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” Judd explains of when, in 2010, they got the call from producers of Food Network’s biggest show, starring Guy Fieri (disclosure: I work with Fieri on “Guy’s Grocery Games”). “We had no idea how good it would be for our business, and Guy was just such a cool fu*#ing guy. I was so scared when he came in. He told me, ‘Go drink two beers right now or you’re going to come off super scared.’”
Fieri’s flagship show has been known to drastically alter the course of mom and pop restaurants. DDD fans make maps of his stops, travel the country to try them out. The “Fieri Effect” is evinced by the lines outside the San Diego places he’s featured on the show—Hodad’s, Lucha Libre, OB Noodle House. Hodad’s legendary owner Mike “Bossman” Hardin had a tattoo of Fieri on his leg. Before he passed, I asked him why. “He changed my life,” Hardin told me. “He quadrupled my business overnight.”
Judd says the show tripled their business. “Changed our lives—that was the tipping point,” he says.
Producers on DDD warn restaurants. Tell them to be ready. The spike in business is real, and so is the pressure to deliver. Customers often complain about Fieri “blowing up my favorite spot.” The Brauns felt it.
“It was almost too much, honestly,” recalls Braun. “You have gnarly expectations when people are waiting in line for 45 minutes. It’s fearful. Nobody knows how to go from doing $6,000 on a big day to doing $13,000.”
Especially for a local joint that depends on treating its regulars like regulars.
“You love the people who built you up,” Matt explains. “We’re their little honey hole they go to. Which is what we always wanted to be. Now they have to wait in line. How do we balance that?”
Blue Water was started in 2006 on money Judd and his dad had from selling a family home. They had $300,000 and an idea—a true, high-quality seafood joint that would make fishermen proud. No frozen seafood, no corners cut. Judd found their original Mission Hills location through a classified ad in The Reader.
“We had no idea about anything,” explains Judd, who was 27 at the time. “It was me, my dad, and a construction truck. It was a beat, beat spot. Nothing really worked. We had no idea we’d have to bring everything up to code.”
By the time they opened, they had $700 left to their name.
So when their episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives aired, it was the first time they could stop scraping money to buy the day’s fish, stop sleeping on fishmongers’ doorsteps, and—most importantly, they say—take care of their people.
“We had been getting notoriety and praise, but we weren’t getting anywhere monetarily,” says Matt. “I had a brand new kid and no electricity in our house. I was like ‘Well, guess we’ll never make any money doing this but at least we’ll have time with the family.’ What Guy did was help us pay our people. We could step off the floor and take a look at things instead of being knee-deep in it.”
Their manager is a partner. The guy who runs the seafood case is a partner. They invested in people.
Blue Water Seafood exterior
Seafood fraud is rampant. This March, leading industry nonprofit Oceana announced the results of its newest study. After taking 400 samples from 250 locations in 24 states, they found that over 20 percent of seafood was mislabeled (one in every five fish). One out of every three establishments sold mislabeled fish.
I’ve heard it over and over: Operators who do it honestly—pay up for the good stuff—get shafted by the frauds. Shady owners buy cheaper, frozen seafood and pass it off as fresh, top-quality fish. Able to sell it for less, they undercut operators playing by the rules. The government simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to police the practice, and customers don’t know the difference until they taste them side by side.
I ask if they’ve seen fraud, and if it affected them. They shake their heads as if to say you have no idea.
“There are places that say they’re serving fresh fish, and I see the owners every week at Restaurant Depot when I’m buying mayonnaise—and they have stacks and stacks of frozen mahi,” explains Matt. “People look at places like that and say, ‘How come their mahi is so much cheaper than Blue Water?’ It sucks, because I know what it’s like to have no money and put bomb fish out every day, pay my people, and not take a paycheck for myself.”
So how can a customer know who’s honest and who’s not?
“Ask to see their receipts,” says Matt.
I ask to see Blue Water’s receipts for the day. Matt brings it out, lays it on the table, and the proof is there. All top-of-the-line fish, from respectable sources.
“We’re not restaurateurs, dude,” says Judd. “We’re you. We did it how we would want to. We’ve made a ton of mistakes and almost gone broke a hundred times, but I think the reason we’ve been able to be successful is we did it honest.”
How Blue Water Seafood built one of the country’s best fish markets
The Braun boys are from Ocean Beach. Never left. Known as “The People’s Republic,” the hyper-independent beach community is undergoing some drastic changes. It’s still rough around the edges, which keeps the full onslaught of gentrification at bay. But rents are going up, and, despite a loud opposition campaign, a Target just went in on the main drag, Newport Avenue.
“It wasn’t cool to be from here,” says Judd. “We were the wrong side of the tracks kids. It was a great town, but a lot wilder. Bikers ran this town until the ’90s when RICO came and everyone got rolled up.”
Their new location at the corner of Abbott and Santa Monica—directly in front of the beach and main lifeguard tower—is the return they always wanted, just blocks from their childhood home. As kids, they were regulars at this very spot (then Spucky’s Burgers).
“I’ve lived here for 42 years, within the same three blocks,” says Judd. “It was wild, but it was peaceful. The moms knew the dads knew the uncles knew the cousins.
“We had a group of kids and we hung out on those rocks right there,” he continues, pointing to the jetty. “We’d walk from our house with 75 cents in our pocket. We’d surf, and then come spend 50 cents on a Spucky’s burger and have a quarter to call for a ride home if we were too tired. It was the absolute best.”
I ask what changes they’ve seen in O.B.
“The main difference is there was a lot more freedom in the ’70s and ’80s,” says Matt. “We were walking to the beach with our surfboards at 10 years old. You had to be tough growing up here. Not a gnarly fu*#ing animal, but you had to know how to fight. The trustafarians who camp out at the beach now and smoke weed—we didn’t let that happen. You policed your own neighborhood. When you turned 13 here, you knew that was your job. You’d pick up a piece of trash every time you got out of the water. If someone littered, it was your job to say, ‘Pick that up and put it in the trash, dude.’ If someone was smoking weed near kids, you’d tell them, ‘Go do that somewhere else.’”
Blue Water O.B. is very much a Braun family production. Their mom runs the books. Their uncle, in his seventies, shows up to work at 6:45 every morning. The Braun boys pick up cigarette butts in the alley, then wash up, roll up their sleeves, and tend to the fish. It’s the kind of place that would’ve made their dad proud.
“I wish he would’ve lived to see it,” says Judd. “He worked his ass off. He got to see us turn the corner a bit, but didn’t get to see it really become successful. He was all about the family—he’d drive two hours to work in Orange County, two hours back, then load us into the truck with the dog and our surfboards and we’d come here to the beach.”
“One thing that’s always left out of these stories,” says Matt, pointing to one of his managers, “is those guys. We’d be nothing without them. They’ve been in the slop with us for years.”
Blue Water OB is well-designed, with custom ironwork on the covered patio, and tables engraved with various species of fish. But on the walls are simple 4×6 photos of locals, most of them with fish or by water of some sort.
“Every one of those photos is a local person we know,” says Matt. “We didn’t build this place for tourists, we built it for locals. Everyone who’s come through the doors so far are uncles, grandmas, kids we grew up with.”
“It’s what we always wanted,” adds Judd. “Just a quality fish market in our hometown.”
At The Delicate Squash, Shannon English is rethinking cookies, cakes, and pastries with seasonal ingredients and natural sweeteners
Midway through my phone conversation with Shannon English, owner of The Delicate Squash, I hear an alarm shrilling in her background.
“Sorry, I’ve got to pull some cookies out of the oven right now!” she apologizes. After a few beats, she picks the phone back up and laughs. “I feel like I’m bouncing around all over the place.”
After hearing her run through a list of her professions and current hobbies, I’d have to agree. English runs The Delicate Squash, a gluten- and dairy-free bakery; teaches cooking demos; pops up at farmers markets; wrote a book of poetry (Deep Water came out this month from Beyond the Veil Press); hosts a monthly open mic night; dipped her toe into ballet; recently joined a running club; volunteers at local farms; and finally, teaches at a play-based, nature-based preschool.
I’m tired just talking to her.
Surprising no one, English seems to have unlimited energy and enthusiasm for all this work, notably in education. Early childhood education is one of the most pivotal times for nurturing lifelong learning, but she also aims to educate the public on how to eat cleaner, feel better, and support your local food systems. She started The Delicate Squash in late 2023 after discovering she has a chronic illness, going through the typical standards of care and even strict elimination diets, to no avail.
“I’m not going to say I found a diet that has ‘cured’ me, but I have found that taking a more mindful approach to a lot of things, including diet, has made symptoms far more manageable for me,” she says.
Even people with dietary restrictions deserve a little treat from time to time, but she had a hard time finding anything that tasted good and made her feel good. Thus, The Delicate Squash was born.
All of her baked goods avoid gluten and dairy, and use natural sweeteners like coconut sugar or maple syrup as well as herbs, fruits, foraged flowers, and other natural flavorings. Her signature cookie, the “Delicate” cookie, is a sea salt dark chocolate cookie that’s soft, a little salty, a little sweet, and made with oatmeal to keep it gluten-free. Other crowd favorites are thumbprint jam cookies with jams made from scratch with change seasonally; breakfast pastries like orange, dark chocolate and cardamom scones; brownies; orange and black sesame banana bread; seasonal pies; and custom and seasonal cakes (currently, the late summer flavor is a dark chocolate coconut milk ganache with berry jam).
English says some people are surprised she can produce such a variety of goods with the dietary restrictions she adheres to. “A lot of feedback I get is ‘I could never do that,’” she says. But if she can do it, she assures me that anyone can. “I like to say ‘practice makes progress, not perfection.’”
Her advice? Focus more on being present than presentation, and don’t be afraid to experiment to keep things interesting. And if that doesn’t work, you can always hit her open mic night to ask for tips.
Customers can order from The Delicate Squash’s online store, check her upcoming schedule of pop-ups, or find her goods at various independent retailers around San Diego.
Escondido is getting in on the listening bar phenomenon. On September 5, musicians Mat Rakers, Kevin Capacia, and Billy Petty will open Plot Armor, a Japanese-style vinyl listening bar that Rakers says they aim to feel “curated and intelligent.”
“Currently, there are not a lot of ‘cool’ spots in Escondido,” he says. Backed by The San Diego Music And Art Company and The Escondido Music And Art Company, Plot Armor will soon offer sake, wine, beer, and soju cocktails, plus Japanese non-alcoholic options and cold brew. Eventually, they’ll add Japanese-inspired snacks, but the focus will be creating a small place (very small—the seating capacity is 20) where vinyl junkies can come listen, linger, and libate.
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.
After a blind taste test, these four desserts came out on top—see the winners here
Basque grandmothers have not been making it for centuries. If you’re a millennial, there’s a strong possibility you’re older than the dessert itself. Yet somehow in less than 40 years, the Basque cheesecake—a half-pudding, half-cake creation with a top that looks like a mistake—managed to ooze its way onto menus all over the world.
It became the undisputed dessert star of San Diego’s restaurant world this year. So we invited 19 of the top restaurants, pastry chefs, and bakers to bring their best to the San Diego Magazine office for a blind taste test to find the best in the city.
First, a little history and context.
In 1987, after failing to find a job as an electrician, Santiago Rivera started working as a bartender at his parents’ unassuming pintxo bar La Viña, in San Sebastián, Spain. He was a naturally curious, self-taught cook who spent his free time testing recipes, tinkering with ingredients, and tweaking techniques.
So when it came to the cheesecake—which hadn’t changed much since its invention (a rudimentary version was served at the first Olympics in Greece 4,000 years ago, and the modern New York version in 1872)—he got radical with it.
He removed the crust (partly just to speed up the process because time is money for a small business). Without the crumbly crust, the experience was far creamier, less granulated. Then he cranked the oven to 400 degrees, nearly 100 degrees hotter than the normal baking temperature.
The result? The top became deeply caramelized, almost burnt, while leaving the center luxuriously soft and loosely set. The restaurant became a legend because of this breakthrough in the dairy arts, and his father never let him stop making it after that.
Now, 67 years after the restaurant’s opening, La Viña stands out for the unceasing line spilling onto the street, and the remarkable amount of curd cultists standing nearby, hovering over cream-smeared plastic containers. It’s the kind of scene that makes you stop and think: What the hell are they eating?
Now, the blind tasting. To keep things fair, the contenders were divided into four categories: Restaurant Traditional, Restaurant Flavored, Bakery Traditional, and Bakery Flavored. (It’s a tad unfair to pit a baker who specializes in the one glorious thing against a restaurant that cooks dozens of things.) Each entry was served blind and judged on texture, flavor, and number of vaguely inappropriate food moans.
The logistics were chaotic, to say the least. Our fridge—not a walk-in, sadly—was packed to the brim. Each cake was sliced, secretly labeled, and shuffled onto plates while the team gathered in the conference room. The whole shebang was not in any way sponsored by Lactaid, despite our various attempts to convince them of this ripe marketing opportunity.
The judging became gloriously unhinged. We heard it all, from “I don’t care how the cheesecake gets in my mouth, it just needs to happen,” and “Is it supposed to be this jiggly?” to “Kind of a baby throw-up situation,” “Straight cheese,” and “I’m getting vague socks there.”
But four Basque cheesecakes stood out among the rest, earning themselves the title of Best Burnt Basque Cheesecake in San Diego.
A restaurant for the people. Rosarito native chef Juan González and Megan Strom are the ideal married couple to be running a farm-to-table joint. She’s been a farmer for decades, selling top-notch produce to some of the best restaurants in California—which is how the two met. A couple years ago, she started working at the small organic farm in Valley Center run by Mike Reeske, who had spent decades breeding the perfect heirloom beans for SoCal’s climate. He recently retired, and gifted those strains to Strom—who grows them (and other crops) for their tiny Escondido taco/burrito shop specializing in guisados (Mexican stews).
A Basque cheesecake in a taco shop? You bet. Juan’s got family roots in Spain and has cooked in Spanish kitchens.
Mesa Agricola’s winning Basque is by far the most “burnt” of all contenders—so much so that an Instagram follower declared it a mistake. But as Chef Juan notes, there’s an art to hitting the sweet spot where “the bitterness of the char balances the richness and sweetness without turning it into ‘chicharrón.’” Plus, char is a core charm of Baja cooking. It’s the perfect Basque for the people who prefer setting their campfire marshmallows fully on fire.
With red leather booths and a retro steakhouse vibe, Moe’s in Mission Beach is a good cheat day destination. The menu is flavor maximalism—dry-aged steaks, housemade pastas, brown liquors, and sides like the lobster truffle mac ’n’ cheese. Pastry chef Eli Peralta (whom some might remember as the creator of The Patio on Lamont’s “Twisted Elvis”—a peanut butter-banana brûlée stunner) brings that same intensity to the dessert menu.
Baked at sister restaurant Molly’s (6 feet away), his Basque is served on a bed of caramel with walnut brittle and a dollop of whipped cream, an indulgent recipe that converted the pastry chef himself. “I wasn’t crazy about cheesecakes,” Eli admits. “Then I started making different flavors, and I started to like them.” He’s not the only convert: During our blind tasting, one judge likened the cake to crème brûlée, concluding, “I don’t even like crème brûlée, but I like this.”
Every creative pursuit starts with a muse—and Lada Sadovnyk’s has been the Basque cheesecake for years. In Ukraine, she baked them for friends and family gatherings, never imagining she would one day build an entire bakery around them in the US. “When we moved to San Diego,” she explains, “I kept thinking, ‘What can I do? What do I really love to do?’”
The answer is pretty fantastic.
After obsessing over proportion and techniques, chasing that molten center and deeply caramelized top, what began as an online recipe evolved into something entirely of her own.
She moved from her home kitchen to a rented commercial kitchen close to Sports Arena. The orders kept coming, and so did the pressure. “At one point, I was thinking about divorcing my husband,” she says with a laugh (while sitting next to him). The grind paid off: Today, Muse Cheesecakes bakes roughly 1,200 cheesecakes a month and is planning to open its first brick-and-mortar home in Pacific Beach.
For our competition, the expectations met reality. Muse has made a quick name in San Diego as the Basque to beat. In a blind taste test, there’s no bias, no reputational shine to sway a room. The response on reveal: “Oh, of course.”
Husband-and-wife duo Alex and Anastasia Kiperband pulled off the number of failures (and then some) that are required of any search for the best recipe. After adjusting baking temps, sugar rations, and experimenting with different brands of cream cheese and heavy cream—they finally landed on something worthy of a business license.
“When we started this business in America, we were really nervous,” Anastasia says, co-owner of Bite Cheesecakes & Bakery.
Once they won over those first customers, their confidence grew enough to start tinkering. When Dubai chocolate took social media by storm, they developed their own version, making the pistachio paste from scratch before layering the buttery kataifi pastry beneath a glossy chocolate shell to create its signature Dubai Chocolate Basque Cheesecake.
“In a lot of situations, we’re converting cheesecake haters to cheesecake lovers,” they say. “That’s probably the best feedback that we get.”
Camila Ibarra Gallego is a CaliBaja native pursuing a master's degree in culinary journalism at the Basque Culinary Center. Shaped by the culturally rich, bicultural megaregion, she's passionate about sniffing out stories that connect people, territory and culture through food. When she's not tumbling down internet rabbit holes, you can find her pretending to be a wine connoisseur at a local wine bar or nose-deep in a good book.
Casa Del Lobo blends coffee culture with Mexican design, serving seasonal drinks alongside its own handcrafted ceramics
There aren’t many places left in San Diego with a lack of specialty coffee options. This week, we can add La Jolla Shores to that list—Casa Del Lobo has arrived. Life-and-business partners Christine Silver and Saul Moreno came to San Diego the same route so many of us have: coming for vacation and falling in love with the city and each other.
Silver was working on Wall Street in New York City and decided to visit some friends in SoCal after the pandemic clouds lifted. Moreno happened to be visiting from Mexico City at the same time. The two met, moved here, got married, had a baby, and thought, “Hey, why not start our own business?”
Apparently, their whirlwind lives needed more windy whirls. (Windy whirls? They like to stay busy.) Casa Del Lobo isn’t either of their first rodeos, although it’s both of their first forays into the coffee space. “We’re both serial entrepreneurs,” laughs Silver. She runs a venture capital business that invests in women-owned wellness companies, and he runs his own logistics company out of Mexico City. “We keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s the last time we’ll start a business. Then all of a sudden, a year or two later, we can’t help ourselves.’”
The idea to open Casa Del Lobo initially started when the pair began decorating their house in Windansea. After looking for large-scale ceramic planters and outdoor fountains that met their quality expectations without egregious price tags (something Moreno was used to seeing in Mexico), they realized there simply weren’t any comparable options here.
So rather than continuing to drive over the border to go shopping, they decided to bring Mexican ceramic style to San Diego.
The partners now run a manufacturing facility in Tecate, specializing in large-format ceramics and specialty glazes. As they sought out potential locations to open a planter store, they realized they could go one of two routes. One, get a warehouse in an industrial area and rely on marketing to get the word out. Or two, they could diversify by opening a homey retail store where people have to walk through the shop area to get a cup of specialty coffee.
They went with option two, and coffee quickly became their primary objective.
“My husband and I, we love coffee,” she says, adding that whenever they go on vacation, no matter where they are in the world, figuring out where to get a java fix every day is their number one goal. (Side note: I can strongly relate.) Mexico City coffee and design culture lean heavily urban and industrial in feel, mixing both an Old World architecture with modern sensibilities—something Silver says they felt was missing locally, specifically in La Jolla Shores.
Casa Del Lobo, which translates to “house of the wolf” in Spanish, soft opened this week, with traditional coffee offerings like lattes, cappuccinos, and Americanos, along with four housemade syrups that will change seasonally (currently, they are vanilla, lavender, orange blossom, and brown sugar cinnamon). For now, the food is simple pastries from Knead Artisan Bakery, but Silver says they plan to add more options like breakfast burritos, paninis, and natural wine in the future. Eventually, customers will also be able to purchase their signature ceramics online, and one day, they may open more locations along the California coast.
But for now, they’re just getting started in La Jolla. “We’ll be here forever,” says Silver. “We want this to be the first of many.”
Casa Del Lobo is now open at 2246 Avenida de la Playa every Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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.
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
The team behind El Agave and Nómade will open a breezy new restaurant with tapas, housemade pasta, seafood, and plenty of wine this September
After running El Agave Restaurant & Tequileria in Old Town for 30 years and opening Nómade Tapas & Records in North Park in 2025, owner Juan Carlos Gomez wasn’t actively on the hunt for a new project. But sometimes, you have to grab the opportunities as they come, unexpected though they may be.
He was taking a stroll in Bankers Hill last year when he noticed Barrio Star was closing after 17 years. “[It] was a neighborhood staple for a long time,” he says. So he figured he’d take a look. “We were talking with ownership and threw out an offer, and then it was accepted. So we were like, ‘Okay, cool, guess we’re going to get a new concept going!” (Much respect to the YOLO business style.)
That new restaurant is nearing completion. Filo will open early in September. The restaurant’s name, pronounced fie-low, references phyllo, the Greek word for “leaf” and an unleavened pastry dough commonly used in Mediterranean (often Greek) cuisines. Gomez says the menu will range from all over the Mediterranean region.
“I’ve always been a fan of European cuisine, obviously, but I can’t land on just one,” he laughs. “I’m part Spanish, so we wanted to do something Mediterranean, have a little bit of Spanish, have a little bit of French, Italian, Greek… a lot of olive oil, a lot of sea salt, and very, very light seasoning.”
Although the menu feels European, Gomez says expect the vibe and ingredients to feel very Southern Californian. There will be tapas, of course, and other small plates, along with housemade pastas, salads, with lots of seafood (like a whole branzino) coming from local purveyors. The accompanying beverage program will feel equally breezy, “fresh, very light, citrusy, salty,” he says. “We’re going to have a pretty hefty wine list and full bar.”
Gomez’s goal for Filo is for it to feel like a laid-back, seaside eatery on the craggy Mediterranean coastline—light colors, white oak, lime wash, flowing between the indoor dining room and outdoor patio. Personally, a European escape sounds pretty awesome right about now.
Filo opens at 2706 Fifth Avenue in early September. Initial operating hours are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with lunch and happy hour coming soon. (Subject to change.)
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 city's fish taco hero is opening Concrete Cowboy across the street, plus a home-cooked Mexican sandwich spot
You have to be crazy or a genius to name a restaurant Fish Guts. You have to be even crazier to open a restaurant that holds maybe two dozen people at a time—if you don’t mind elbowing one other while scarfing down some of the best fish tacos in San Diego.
And yes, “best” is a relative term. But in Fish Guts’ case, it’s for real—and that’s saying something in a town literally world-famous for fish tacos.
Ever since Pablo Becker opened up his diminutive eatery in 2023 at the corner of Logan Avenue and Sampson Street in Barrio Logan, Fish Guts has been named one of the city’s best new restaurants in 2023, Critic’s Pick for the best fish tacos in San Diego in 2024, 2025 and 2026, as well as readers’ top pick in 2024. It’s like if Rubio’s married into the royal family.
Most of his ingredients come straight from the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean, which happens to be down the street. His de espada (blackened swordfish) taco is the stuff of legend. He’s kept Fish Guts operating at an elite level, which tends to happen when you work for five years in Chicago under chef Richard Sandoval (who, by chance, is also his cousin) and open an ahead-of-its-time high-end modern Mexican restaurant in East Village (El Vitral Restaurant & Tequileria, 2009-2013).
Now Becker is branching out again, opening two new concepts in Barrio Logan this fall.
The first will be upstairs from Fish Guts, which at one point was destined to become an intimate omakase counter. Santo Poco will be a lunch-only sandwich shop, offering takeout and delivery (no dine-in), and the sandwiches will be a little Mexican, a little French, a little Italian, a little from Chicago, a little from New York. Basically, a bunch of different styles all on really, really good bread.
“There’s probably going to be a Cuban-style sandwich in there with a touch of Mexican, some cold cut Italians, too, putting my touch on them,” he says. “That’s what I feel like is my style of cooking.”
Things will be traditional, but inventive. Like his fish & chips taco at Fish Guts: two classic dishes, one killer mash-up. There will also be a hat tip to the late, great Anthony Bourdain, a sandwich called the Antonio Bourdain.
The second will be across the street from Fish Guts in the former Lia’s Lumpia space. Concrete Cowboy will be a taco-driven joint on the same wavelength as Fish Guts (keep it simple, keep it special), but featuring land animals rather than sea brethren. Think tacos made with duck confit, ribeye, pork belly, skirt steak.
The inspiration behind Concrete Cowboy comes from Becker’s father, a lifelong Western obsessive, despite growing up in Mexico City’s urban metropolis. “He always liked that cowboy life, that vibe,” he says. “I always say ‘Dad, you just grew up in the wrong city.”
He’s aiming to open Santo Poco in October and Concrete Cowboy in November. Neither require massive renovations, and while the former Lia’s Lumpia space will keep the cabin-esque aesthetic, he’s creating more of an adobe-style exterior and an interior lined with Western-themed wallpaper and taxidermied animals. He’ll also tweak the bar layout to move from a fast-casual feel to full service.
Local designer Dane Danner is designing both spaces and visual direction for menu layouts, logos, and packaging, going for low-key, but high on vibes. Once Concrete Cowboy opens, Fish Guts will temporarily close to remodel the space to switch its white palette for a warmer feel, plus introducing a refreshed menu featuring some new tacos and other items.
Could another Fish Guts be on the way somewhere else in San Diego? Not likely, says Becker. “Fish Guts is cool, “ he says. “I feel once you start branching out, it’s more forced, not as organic.” So for now, count on Becker staying in the neighborhood.
Santo Poco opens for lunch daily October 2026, 2222 Logan Avenue (above Fish Guts). Concrete Cowboy opens Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner November 2026, 2219 Logan Avenue.
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.
Laika Nur, MD, takes her love of volleyball from the court to the clinic as team physician for the San Diego Mojo
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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