The beer industry is far from out of business—there are still about 140 breweries operating today, with thousands of employees—but around a dozen have closed in the last year alone. This may be the first time local brewery closures and acquisitions outpaced openings in the current craft beer era, and many have cited increasing costs of real estate, ingredients, and labor as reasons for shutting their doors forever.

February 17, 2025

Is Ozempic Killing Restaurants?RELATED ARTICLE

That’s not the case for Half Door Brewing Company. Siblings Stacy and Daniel Drayne opened Half Door Brewing in 2015, leveraging their experience running nearby Irish pub The Field with their parents. Daniel brewed the beers, Stacy ran operations (splitting her time between The Field and Half Door), and business has boomed for a decade, especially during baseball season. 

So why are they closing Half Door and selling their iconic, 1906-era, two-story building in East Village to Anaheim-based Villains Brewing Company?

It’s precisely because the business has been so successful that the siblings decided to get out while they’re ahead. “I feel a little overwhelmed doing two places,” Stacy explains. “The industry is changing, [and] it just kind of felt like the right time.”

While she understands why other breweries have had to close due to economic factors, she says, that wasn’t one of the problems Half Door faced. Plus, she’s quick to add, the transition to Villains is in progress, but won’t occur for at least a few weeks, if not months (permits and license transfers permitting). “Everything is business as normal,” she adds. “I’m preparing for St. Patrick’s Day; I’m preparing for Opening Day. I’m assuming we’ll be here for the start of baseball.” 

She also notes that only the property is for sale, not the Half Door name or trademark. “You never know what the future holds,” she laughs. 

February 18, 2025

30 Women-Owned Businesses in San Diego to SupportRELATED ARTICLE

It’s a bittersweet moment for the pair, and one they didn’t initiate. Stacy recalls that, in the summer of 2024, another business reached out to them to see if they’d be interested in selling their space. That particular deal fell through, but it sparked a conversation between her, Daniel, and their father. “It was kind of like ‘What do we think?’” she says. “The seed was planted.” They decided to put the property on the market, and, after a couple of bids, Villains won out. 

This is the second San Diego entity Villains has acquired. During the excruciatingly slow fall from grace for Modern Times Beer (which is still in progress and, frankly, painful to watch), Villains took over the brand’s former 33,000-square-foot Leisuretown location in Anaheim to launch a brewery and food hall concept. Until they hand over the keys, however, Stacy says they look forward to continuing to brew and serve their house beers to loyal customers as long as they can.

“It’s just a super special place,” she says. “I hope Villains does it justice.”

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Romanissimo Opened This Week in Gaslamp

What’s the difference between Roman food and Italian food? Glad you asked. Italian food encompasses a wide variety of regional cuisines (think Sicilian, Milanese, Tuscan, and so forth) while Roman food hails from Rome (obviously). Roman cuisine’s signature dishes include fresh pastas like cacio e pepe and carbonara; meats like oxtail and seafood; vegetables like artichokes and fresh herbs; and thin, foldable pizza slices. Now San Diegans can get a new taste of the Old World at Romanissimo, which opened at 565 Fifth Avenue this week. 

It’s the latest endeavor for restauranteurs Vincenzo Loverso, Alessandro Minutella, and Giovanni Gargano, who also each have stakes in Roman Wolves, Allegro, and Vincenzo Cucina & Lounge. Minutella tells me their goal is to give guests another opportunity to try the unique culinary traditions of Rome, using traditional ingredients and preparation methods. “We like to say ‘Eat as the Romans do,’” he adds. I say, if Romans are serving a one-pound meatball, then I’m on my way.

Beth’s Bites

• Let it be known that I consider Convoy District to be hands-down the best area to eat in San Diego. So, whenever I see a new business joining the ranks of the already-stacked roster of deliciousness, I immediately add it to my list of “New Places to Eat” on my Notes app. (Everyone has one of those lists, right?) This week, a new listing for Miishien caught my eye, moving into the former Dokdo Sushi spot at 4690 Convoy Street, Suit 108. Despite my internet sleuthing, I didn’t manage to learn much about the forthcoming restaurant, so if you find out, drop me a line at [email protected]. 
• Oscar’s Mexican Seafood is poised to reopen its location at 746 Emerald Street in Pacific Beach in the next week after a remodel kept them closed for a few months. (Luckily, the other two locations remained open.) I wouldn’t presume to name any taco the “best” taco in San Diego—I don’t need the hate mail in my life—but Oscar’s has nailed it for years, and I’ll keep coming back for all the tacos and tortas I can handle.
• Is it me, or is there bagel news almost daily now? Today’s edition of San Diego Bagel News is that Desperado Bagels is now a little easier to get your hands on. The OB-based bagelry just became the official (weekend) bagel provider for Porchlight Coffee at 4865 Cass Street. Yes, you will probably still have to get there early to snag one (or two, no judgement).

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].

The post After 10 Years, Half Door Brewing Company Says Goodbye appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Fisher 

Sunday headliner Fisher is a man of many talents—the Aussie producer spent time on the pro surfing circuit before pursuing a music career full-time in 2012. A Grammy nominee for his 2018 song “Losing It,” Fisher dropped the sunny, feel-good single “Ocean” with electro duo AR/CO late last year.

Justice

French electronic music duo Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, known together as Justice, remixed tunes for Britney Spears, Daft Punk, and other heavy hitters before garnering fame (and a spot on Pitchfork’s top albums of the year list) with the 2007 debut Cross. The pair’s latest work, 2024’s Hyperdrama, is a diverse, ambitious lineup of tracks that pull in elements of prog rock and disco.

LP Giobbi

A co-founder of Femme House, an org that bolsters musicians underrepresented in the production side of the industry, Leah “LP Giobbi” Chisholm studied jazz piano at UC Berkeley before falling in love with EDM. Don’t be surprised if her Saturday set includes a few Jerry Garcia hits—raised by Deadheads, Giobbi pays tribute to the band in a number of jubilant remixes.

Chris Lorenzo

In the December 2024 release “U Should Not Be Doing That,” the corrosive, punk-rock vocals of Amyl and the Sniffers frontwoman Amy Taylor meet Chris Lorenzo’s booming bass house. It’s not the first successful collab for the 36-year-old Englishman, who’s worked with Skrillex and Steve Aoki.

Jungle

Known for frothy, disco-inspired songs and joyous, single-shot music videos, Jungle (British producers and childhood best friends Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland and multi-instrumentalist Lydia Kitto) will flex their DJing prowess on the The Palms stage at CRSSD on Saturday.

Linska

2024 was a big year for British producer Linska—the tech house up-and-comer played her first fest (Palm Springs’ Splashhouse) and hit one million streams on her first single in August. She’s poised to become one of the scene’s next big stars, so catch her on Sunday at CRSSD ahead of her May 2025 stop at EDC in Las Vegas.

François X

François X solidified his gritty, propulsive sound with a 2012 residency at Concrete, the now-defunct (but never forgotten) house venue situated in a barge on the Seine in Paris. The French DJ is known for unearthing underplayed techno tunes, so listen for a new favorite discovery on Saturday.

&friends

Now based in Dubai, Sean Thomas, known professionally as &friends, grew up in San Diego. &friends’ Sunday CRSSD set—full of high-energy club songs marrying the beats of Arabic house with Western hits—will be Thomas’ first hometown show.

The post 8 Artists to See at CRSSD Spring 2025 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Kelly, who asked we not share her last name, lives in La Mesa and used to eat regularly at restaurants such as Farmer’s Table and Brigantine Seafood & Oyster Bar. A typical meal at the latter might include a calamari appetizer, the catch of the day entrée, and two cocktails, totalling upwards of $75 just for her.

She started taking Ozempic last August—purely for vanity, she says. Originally designed to treat diabetes, Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and related drugs, called GLP-1s, have become the biggest weight loss drug trend the US has seen in decades.

Kelly’s experience sounds ideal: She never felt very sick and experienced no side effects, and she’s lost about 30 pounds. The added bonus is her average bill at Brigantine these days—about $15 for an à la carte taco and a water. 

“We just went out to Brigantine and didn’t even use up a whole gift card we’d received,” she says. “And I never go out to lunch anymore, because why would I waste money on something I’m not going to eat?”

“I can see it,” adds Robert Reyes, a San Diego photographer whose work focuses largely on restaurant culture. “I’m taking a GLP-1, and it’s reduced our eating out by 80 percent—on top of eating smaller amounts and ordering less when we do go to restaurants.” 

It’s hard to track exactly how many people are taking GLP-1s like Ozempic, because people can get drugs in a variety of ways. But Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, medical director of the Weight Management Program at UC San Diego Health, estimates that roughly 5 to 10 percent of people with weight problems use them. A June 2024 poll from KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) found that about 12 percent of respondents over the age of 18 have used a GLP-1, and about six percent were actively on one.

If six percent of a restaurants’ client base is eating less and drinking less, the effect on the bottom line is probably navigable. But what happens if that number goes up to 10, 20, or 30 percent of Americans taking GLP-1s?

It just might.

The number of users is predicted to skyrocket—up to 30 million people in the US by 2030, or about 10 percent of the total population. Medicare spending on these drugs shot up from $57 million in 2018 to $5.7 billion in 2022. Markets & Markets estimated that the value of the global GLP-1 industry at $471.1 billion in 2032 (in 2024, it was $47.1 billion). 

Right now, there aren’t hard numbers on the effect on the food and restaurant industry—any reports we have are merely anecdotal. But since we’re dealing in anecdotes, here’s a telling one: We started looking into this idea when SDM food editor Troy Johnson attended a panel of industry leaders. The chief marketing officer of one of California’s largest fast-casual food chains told the crowd that one of his biggest competitors right now is Ozempic.

In absence of hard data, let’s use the common sense algorithm. The US is in the midst of one of the biggest diet drug trends we’ve seen in decades. The drug makes people eat and drink less. That will hurt businesses who sell eating and drinking—that is, restaurants.

So, we’re left to wonder: How much is it affecting the restaurant industry now, and how much more of an impact will we see during the impending boom of GLP-1s—which almost all financial leaders claim is coming soon? 

“Common sense says it’s probably affecting all restaurants to some degree,” says Scott Slater, who founded Liberty Station burger joint Slater’s 50/50 and co-owns the Del Mar cocktail lounge Understory. “I use it, and when I do, I eat out less. Everyone I know who takes it eats less—that’s the point. So if 10 percent of my market is taking it, then I’m sure 10 percent of my market is not spending with me like they used to. But I also think the new gen drinking less and turning to other vices like weed and mushrooms are bigger threats. Still, common sense says it’s nibbling at my bottom line.”

A Cocktail of Challenges

There have been plenty of diet drug fads throughout history—fen-phen and Benzedrine, Obetrol, and other amphetamines, to name a few. Those trends didn’t last, and, in the grand scheme of things, they didn’t spread to that many people. About six million Americans took fen-phen at its peak in the mid-1990s before the drug was withdrawn from the market (researchers found it caused heart valve defects). So, restaurants persevered.

If KFF’s poll is correct, about 20 million Americans are actively taking Ozempic-like drugs (and 41 million have tried them). That’s more than triple fen-phen’s highest numbers, and Ozempic’s just getting started. 

Restaurant margins were also higher in the ’90s, and, overall, there were fewer restaurants competing for customers. Today, it’s a different landscape. Last year was one of the worst years in a long time for restaurants, as they battled inflation that surged prices on almost all of their raw materials—from the food, labor, and rent to table linens. In San Diego, the average hourly wage for restaurant workers was $19.13 in 2023, compared to the national typical wage of $16.58. As inflation soars and the cost of a burger rises, people eat out less. 

So, adding another chink in the armor—a drug that zaps the desire to eat food and drink alcohol—could have a disproportionate impact. Of course, there’s nuance: Drugs like Ozempic are expensive, so users tend to be more affluent, which probably means the effect will hurt restaurants with an affluent client base more (which is to say, the James Beards and Michelins of the world). 

From a pure “business of restaurants” standpoint, alcohol sales are the real killer. From a human health perspective, of course, it’s generally deemed a positive when Americans drink less booze. But most  restaurants don’t make much money from food. The profit is in drinks—alcohol, coffee, sodas, teas. Alcohol sales often make or break sit-down establishments.

Younger generations are already drinking less for a variety of reasons (the unstoppable landslide of wellness influencers, sober-curious trends, budget woes—take your pick). As Slater pointed out, alternative vices (like cannabis and mushrooms) have cut into the alcohol market. In tandem with those trends, Ozempic’s tendency to curb cravings for margaritas or sauvignon blanc create a bigger problem for the existing business model. 

“My very dreamy boyfriend asked me to please stop [taking Ozempic] because I turned into Team No-Fun,” says a San Diego business owner who asked to remain anonymous. “Bars and restaurants are our entertainment and what we do. I would be a nightmare to hang out with because nothing sounded good. Part of what Ozempic does is kill the food noise, but it also made me not want alcohol. I might not be his skinny girlfriend, but I had to quit for the sake of us.” 

Goodbye, Hedonism

Weight-loss expert Dr. Grunvald says the drugs affect three parts of the brain that control our eating: how hungry we feel, how full we feel when we eat, and the pleasurable “hedonic or reward eating” feeling. He adds that there’s now also growing research that shows these drugs dampen addictions and cravings, including for alcohol and sweet and fatty foods. “There’s a lot of overlap between the reward that we get from eating and possibly the reward that we get from other addictive behaviors,” he explains.

The drugs mimic a hormone in the brain that tells us we’ve eaten enough. While, naturally, those hormones only last in our bloodstreams for a few minutes, the drugs last a whole week.

“We all know that feeling, right? After you’ve eaten a large meal and even your favorite foods just don’t seem appetizing because you’re just so full,” Grunvald says. “Imagine feeling like that all day long, where that donut just doesn’t call to you at all.”

Restaurants often appeal to our hedonism, to our sense of joy, and, sometimes, to our overindulgence. GLP-1s tend to make people immune to those decadent charms.

Eric Adler, the owner of Puesto in La Jolla, remembers scrolling the app formerly known as Twitter late one night and seeing a headline about the growth of Ozempic. “I was like, ‘Oh no, eating less food, that’s not going to be good for me,’” he recalls.

However, Adler reports that he hasn’t seen an impact in sales because, he thinks, people still just love to dine out. “There’s a few things that people do socially, and dining out is a special thing,” he says. 

Another owner of a local restaurant chain says he is taking an Ozempic-like drug and still eats out just as often. He just has a lot more leftovers to bring home. 

People eating less because of Ozempic wasn’t on the radar for PJ Lamont, owner of NZ Eats Group (the company behind spots like Queenstown Public House and Dunedin). “I actually asked two of my general managers, ‘Hey, am I living under a rock?’” he says. “Obviously, I know of Ozempic, and I know that it’s popular, but I never thought of it as something that could be a tipping point in the industry. But I also never thought Covid would, and that didn’t turn out.”

Lamont has, however, seen a demand for less food. After a 2024 that “sucked for restaurants,” he says, he asked his customers how they could improve. “A lot of our feedback was about our plates being so big [that] nobody finished them,” he continues. “So, we’ve been slowly scaling them down. I thought that people would be up in arms, and it’s been the opposite.”

Whether they’re on a weight loss drug or not, people are drinking less, paying attention to portions, and going out less, Lamont adds. Regarding the sagging demand for alcohol, he says, “I think it’s a good thing. I mean, it sucks for me; it sucks for my businesses, but I think it’s a good thing. And I think it can be offset in other ways. But I’m not sure what yet. So, we, the restaurateurs, have to be conscious of that and make sure that we are really upping our game on every reason that someone goes out—the quality, the service, everything. It’s made all of us sharpen our pencils, or at least it’s made me sharpen my pencil.”

Most of the restaurateurs we talked to agree on one thing: If people are eating and drinking less, the restaurants that are better prepared for the shift will be the ones who invest in the environment, the design, the whole experience. More than a few pointed to CH Projects and their wild, maximalist design and art restaurants like Quixote, Leila, and Craft & Commerce. 

To make up for the effect, restaurants might also reduce portion sizes (thus saving on food and drink costs), which arguably has been long overdue in the massive-portion US restaurant culture. 

Meanwhile, Lia Hunter, who co-owns Barrio Logan restaurant Lia’s Lumpia with her son Spencer, is choosing to see GLP-1s as a passing fad. “You have the people that are like, ‘Well, one day I’m gluten free, one day I’m not; one day I’m vegan, one day I’m not,’” she says. “For people who take Ozempic, I really see it as a cosmetic procedure.”

But as more people become customers like Kelly, restaurants may need to adapt. Kelly’s advice for places that want to keep her business? Offer smaller portions and foods that are packed with protein, fruits, and vegetables.

“I still like to go out,” she says. “I’m just going to order less.”

The post Is Ozempic Killing Restaurants? appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Food & Drink | Concerts & Festivals | Theater & Art Exhibits | More Fun Things to Do

Food & Drink Events in San Diego This Weekend

San Diego Ramen Festival

November 21

What better way to fight off the brutal SoCal cold than with a piping hot bowl of ramen? The San Diego Ramen Festival will offer a menu of 12-ounce selections to slurp. The festival takes place at the Handlery Hotel this Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. It also features live entertainment, local pop culture vendors, and ramen-inspired artwork. Ticket options include general admission passes ($44.52) with three ramen servings and VIP ($129.89) with perks like unlimited beer and sake samples, six ramen servings and an extra hour of admission (5 to 6 p.m.). 

950 Hotel Circle North, Mission Valley

October 15, 2024

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Parfait Paris 10-Year Anniversary Party

November 23

Parfait Paris is saluting a decade of decadence in San Diego by throwing a street festival packed with sweets. This Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Parisian bakery will offer an assortment of French goodies, along with bites from The Sushi Stand and drinks courtesy of Understory Bar and Hopnonymous Brewing Co. RSVPs are required for this anniversary event, with $5 admission for adults (redeemable for food and drinks) and free entry for children and teens under the age of 15. 

3555 India Street, Middletown

Concerts & Festivals in San Diego This Weekend

Cyndi Lauper at Viejas Arena

November 20

Cyndi Lauper sang some of the defining hits of the 1980s and composed the beloved musical adaption of Kinky Boots. Now, on her final arena tour, Lauper is here to remind us all that “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Tickets are on sale for $55.10 for Wednesday’s concert at Viejas Arena.  

5500 Canyon Crest Drive, Rolando

San Diego Live Aid 

November 21

Many San Diego families were affected by the devastating rain storms that hit the city in early January. To raise proceeds for them, three local tribute groups—All Fired Up, Supreme Legacy, and The Mamas & The Papas Experience—are throwing a special charity concert. This Thursday evening at Humphreys Backstage Live, guests will hear timeless renditions of nostalgic hits. Tickets range from $23.60 to $39.10

2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island

Theater & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Weekend

Your Local Theater Presents: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Again at La Jolla Playhouse

November 19–December 15

In Your Local Theater Presents…, Julliard grad Eddie can’t escape a local production of A Christmas Carol. There will be six preview performances of this world-premiere play at the La Jolla Playhouse now through Nov. 23, with tickets ranging from $30 to $72 before the show officially opens on Nov. 26. 

2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla

Just Like Us at Grossmont College Stagehouse Theatre

November 21–23 

Based on Helen Thorpe’s nonfiction book of the same name, Just Like Us follows four Latina teenagers who, as the children of undocumented immigrants, are impacted by the heated national debate on immigration. There will be four performances of Just Like This, as well as additional shows Dec. 5–7. Tickets for the general public are $18. This Grossmont College production will also have performances on December 5–7.

8800 Grossmont College Drive, El Cajon

Tres minutos at Jacobs Music Center

November 22

Composer Nicolás Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch’s poignant chamber opera, Tres minutos, reckons with the devastation of sudden deportation. The title of the program is inspired by Border Angels’ initiative that grants families three minutes of reunification at the border. The Border Angels documentary Love Has No Borders will be screened before the performance, and ticket-holders can attend an artist talkback after the show. Tickets to this musical program presented by the San Diego Symphony at Jacobs Music Center Friday night can be purchased for $35 here.

1245 Seventh Avenue, Downtown

CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater’s joyUS justUS at Mandeville Auditorium

November 22 & 23

Created and directed by Ana Maria Alvarez, joyUS justUS is a collaborative effort between communities of color in South Los Angeles, who aim to demonstrate joy as a form of resistance. General admission is $40 and can be purchased here.

9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla

It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Spreckels Performing Arts Center

November 22–December 15

Beginning this Friday, the Spreckels Performing Arts Center will host an audio-centric take on a beloved holiday film, presenting It’s a Wonderful Life as a vintage radio play à la Orson Welles’ The War of The Worlds. There will be evening showings Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. General admission tickets are $32 and can be purchased here.

5409 Snyder Rohnert Park, Rohnert Park

PST ART Weekend: San Diego & La Jolla

November 22-24

Free interactive events are popping up all over San Diego this weekend as part of Getty’s PST ART initiative. PST ART Weekend: San Diego & La Jolla will include a festive art party at MCASD in La Jolla (Nov. 23), a hands-on art workshop in Oceanside (Nov. 24), the premiere of five new musical compositions derived from weather data at C You Saturday! (Nov. 23) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Balboa Park, and much more. Best of all, most of the 20 events are free and only require an RSVP.  

Citywide

German Expressionism at San Diego Museum of Art

Opens November 23

Starting this Saturday, visitors to the San Diego Museum of Art can explore the museum’s German Expressionism exhibition, which documents a transformative period in the early 20th century when German and Austrian artists began to rail against tradition. The show will feature paintings, drawings, and prints endowed to SDMA’s permanent collection in 2011 from the estate of collector Vance E. Kondon. 

1450 El Prado, Balboa Park

More Fun Things to Do in San Diego This Weekend

Coin-Op Game Room 11th Anniversary

November 19

Coin-Op Game Room is taking it totally retro for its 11th anniversary bash, with an ’80s-centric, neon-themed gathering this Tuesday from 8 p.m. to midnight at its North Park location. The celebration features tunes from DJ KC Dalton, tattooing from American Gypsy Tattoo artist Sebastian Garcia, caricature art from Dianna Colina, and classic cocktails, from piña coladas to Midori sours. 

3926 30th Street, North Park

Rady Children’s Ice Rink at ARTS DISTRICT

November 21–January 5 

Liberty Station’s Central Promenade will once again play host to the outdoor Rady Children’s Ice Rink, with net proceeds going towards Rady Children’s Hospital’s Thriving After Cancer program. Guests can lace up their skates through January 5, beginning with this Thursday’s opening day from 4 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for children, and you can purchase them in advance here. 

2875 Dewey Road, Point Loma 

October 25, 2024

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Santee Holiday Lighting

November 22

The city of Santee offers a plethora of family-friendly activities from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. this Friday at the Santee Holiday Lighting. Held at Santee Trolley Square, this free event will feature live music by the Bayou Brothers, photos with Santa, face painting, sledding, arts and crafts activities, and of course, the tree-lighting ceremony. 

9884 Mission Gorge Road, Santee

Encinitas Holiday Street Fair

November 24

Explore more than 450 local arts, craft, and retail vendors at the Encinitas Holiday Street Fair this Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. This free community event also includes kids’ rides, two live entertainment stages with local musicians and dancers, and a dog zone. 

Coast Highway 101 between D and J streets, Encinitas

The post 15 Things to Do in San Diego This Weekend: Nov. 19–24 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

It was 1967. While her dusty tire was attended to, Becket wandered off to a dilapidated recreation hall nearby. Inside, she saw a stage caving in, walls covered in mud, and floors warped from flood damage, but as she peeked through the cracked door, the structure whispered to her. We could make magic together.

When the allure of California called, Becket—a lifelong New Yorker who was then in her 40s—answered with a singular passion few have matched. An artist to the core, trained to dance, paint, and play piano, Becket cast aside her Broadway life and moved to Death Valley Junction (population: a handful), setting up shop in the squalor. The place had potential, after all, even if only she could see it. This project would be her opus.

Renting the theater for $45 a month, Becket paid for repairs and got to work painting an ornate mural depicting a permanent audience on the walls, with cherubs rejoicing on the ceiling. She changed the building’s name to the Amargosa Opera House and, in 1968, began performing original dances and acts for a few people at a time—or sometimes none at all. It wasn’t about fame, it was about freedom.

But fame came nonetheless. National Geographic wrote about her, as did Life. People were curious to see the ballerina in the desert. For more than four decades, Becket performed on her fixed-up stage, delighting and inspiring countless theater lovers willing to make the trek to nowhere.

Along the way, Becket became owner of the entire town, which she turned over to a nonprofit organization that now oversees Death Valley Junction, including the opera house and an adjoining hotel.

Becket would have turned 100 this year. Though she died in 2017, her legacy continues. Business operations took a hit during Covid, but the opera house still offers daily tours and hosts sporadic shows on that famous stage.

“Even if you’re not an artist, you have to appreciate what she was about,” Amargosa Board of Directors President Fred Conboy says. “She was a courageous and audacious woman. There’s nobody like Marta.”

The post The Odd Little Opera House in the Middle of Nowhere appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Somewhere Pizza aims to be a true-blue neighborhood pizza joint, with a few other bread and bread-adjacent things on the menu. “Slices and Italian sandwiches for lunch, small seasonal plates, and a menu that is borderline classic ‘red sauce’ spots, but without the kitsch,” Remsbottom says. Sienna Walters of Companion Bread is consulting on how to launch an in-house bakery element, working alongside Scrimshaw chef Jeannette Silva (Pujol in Mexico City, Verlaine in Los Angeles, Communal Coffee in San Diego, and her pop-up La Selva). 

Remsbottom wants Somewhere to meet a need the neighborhood didn’t even realize they had. “Think checkered floors, comfy booths, and an aesthetic that is either brand new nor has been there for decades,” he says. 

It won’t be pretentious or clubby, he promises. “I think the SD ‘scene,’ where every new spot is trying to be Disneyland, is forgetting about the neighborhood restaurant at a rapid clip,” he says. “So that’s what we’re going to aim to be.”

Somewhere Pizza, located at 5540 El Cajon Boulevard, should start serving Brooklyn-style pizzas, natural wines, housemade sodas, and more sometime in December. A crowdfunding campaign is live; you can follow their progress on Instagram at @somewherepizza_sd.

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

It’s Oktoberfest Season, Y’all

My favorite season is upon us—the time of marzens, dirndls, pretzels, and oom-pah bands. It’s Oktoberfest time across San Diego, and there are more than ever to choose from. I recommend checking out whatever local party is closest to you, but let’s not ignore the German granddaddies of San Diego Oktoberfests: I’m always partial to the German-American Societies of San Diego’s two-weekend bash in El Cajon (September 27–29 and October 4–6), but the county’s largest party comes back to La Mesa on October 4–6 and the beachy Bavarian bacchanal returns to Ocean Beach on October 11–12. Really, you can’t go wrong with any of them, so find your favorite Oktoberfest destination and remember to prost responsibly. 

Beth’s Bites

• New restaurant alert: A Mexican eatery is headed to 4566 30th Street in North Park. Smoky Habanero Mexican Cuisine is poised to take over the former Living Tea space along the same delicious block as Chris’ Ono Grinds, The Friendly, and Fall Brewing.  
• Coronado Brewing is getting into the fall spirit with its new cider release, a small-batch cranberry cinnamon apple cider with a refreshing 5.8 percent ABV. If this heat wave ever breaks, I’ll be ready to pair this with a slice of apple pie and my cable-knit sweater. 
• San Diego Cooks, from San Diego writer Ligaya Malones and photographer Deanna Sandoval, releases this month. The hardcover cookbook features 70 recipes from local chefs and restaurants, including 24 Suns, TJ Oyster Bar, Ambrogio by Acquerello, Valle, and many more. Head to Ponto Lago at Park Hyatt Aviara on Tuesday, September 24, for a cooking demonstration and book signing with executive chef Pierre Albaladejo.

Have breaking-news, exciting scoops, or great stories about San Diego’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].

The post Somewhere Pizza is Coming This December to El Cerrito appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

It’s the first time in a few months the women’s schedules have aligned. So they go.

By the time Orr rolls up in the palm-tree lined parking lot, across from dorms where she went to college over 40 years ago, the rest of the women are already there, including Vanessa Kirker, who grew up in North San Diego County. She went to Moonlight Beach every summer but never touched a surfboard until she was her 60s.

Marianne McPherson, 68, is there, too, with her red matte lipstick and a torn rotator cuff. Her doctor told her not to surf, and if she’s honest with herself, she’s dreading this. Nevertheless, she stands by her car (emblazoned with a ‘Bichhin’ license plate) on an artificial grass changing mat Orr gifted her.

Orr, meanwhile, is “vibrating stress.” A 63-year-old third grade teacher—her classroom door has the kid’s names written on bright surfboard cut-outs—her week consisted of incessant rain that kept her students stuck inside. She still has a pile of essays to grade. She shouldn’t be here. But the chit-chat is a distraction, and she welcomes it.

“I have your tennis racket.” 

“Do I need my hat?”

“The booties stick, so they don’t necessarily land where I want them to land.”

Gauzy fog lingers over the ocean beyond the fence, beckoning. The women unzip long, shiny bags and lay their boards down on the wet cement. They pull sweatshirts over their heads and begin the transformation. Ann Wilbanks, who has dirty blonde hair “proudly going silver,” asks if the wetsuit with neon blue calves Orr takes out is new. 

She nodes and jokes. “It’s baggy on me. I was like, ‘Have I shrunk?’” 

The women slip salt-soaked wetsuits onto bodies that have skied mountains, cycled hundreds of miles, raced sailboats, swum in triathlons, birthed babies, and cradled grandbabies, pulling and tugging until the spongy neoprene sticks like a second skin.

Go to any coastline, and you’ll find that women have continued to reclaim their place in the surfing lineup. Look closer, and you’ll see an abundance of laugh lines on more and more faces of women lured by the beauty and thrill of the ocean.

It’s hard to say how many older women surfers there are in California. Nearly a third of the 60 members of the San Diego chapter of The Wahine Kai Women’s Surf Club are 50-plus—a number that tracks with their three other West Coast chapters. The San Diego Surf Ladies Community, a former nonprofit that’s now a Facebook group, also has its fair share. Co-organizer Alexia Bregman, 51, says there’s a circularity that comes with surfing older. 

“There’s a wildness to the ocean that we don’t have in our lives anymore. The wind is in your face and the water is spraying you and the sense of play from being a child comes back,” she says. “It invigorates and reawakens something in your cellular being.”

Despite growing up in the ’60s in the heyday of Gidget, the movie-turned-television-series about a sassy teen girl surfer, surfing came much later for the Santa Barbara women. Careers and children took precedence, with some watching instructors push their kids into the waves instead. 

After her children grew up and she had more free time, Orr, for one, finally decided it was her turn. She discovered Salt Water Divas, a Santa Barbara group created by then-46-year-old Toyo Yamane-Peluso in 2012 with the goal of getting more local women into surfing. To date, there are more than 600 members. Doug Yartz, owner of the shop Surf Country, teaches most of the lessons.

Orr took her first lesson on Mother’s Day eight years ago. She remembers second-guessing her decision shortly after signing up. “[I worried,] What will people think of this older woman going out and wanting to surf? Then I saw this older man with white hair, and he got a surfboard and walked down to the beach,” she says. “I thought, Well, nobody thinks twice about an older man.”

The second lesson went poorly, and she almost didn’t continue. A “Never Give Up” sticker she saw on a car afterward led her to the friends she regularly surfs with now: Nancy Arkin, a retiree from the US Forest Service whose daughter is a global surf photographer; McPherson, a mid-level manager at an aerospace company who always wanted to surf but grew up near Oregon’s frigid waters; and Mary Johnson, a retired physical therapist who is dedicated to keeping active. 

They were a formidable foursome for a few years. The group expanded when two lawyers who changed careers joined later: Kirker, a therapist who often saw surfers while open water swimming and thought, I could do that; and Wilbanks, an art and antique dealer from Connecticut who spends half the year living near her grown kids, including a daughter who encouraged her to surf.

“There’s nothing I’ve ever done athletically that gives you that feeling of power and speed [like surfing],” Wilbanks, 65, says. “It’s like dancing on water.”

The women all took lessons through Salt Water Divas and gravitated toward each other because of their similar ages. They found they also shared athletic backgrounds, a level of comfort in the water, and another trait, perhaps the most important: stubbornness.

“We were taught to accept the world as it sees us,” Kirker, 66, says. “Learning to surf in your 50s and 60s is not accepting the world as it sees you but accepting you for yourself.” 

The parking lot this morning is nearly empty. Campus Point is known for being beginner-friendly, often crowded with college kids, but every now and then the women have had to contend with jerks—teenage boys, mostly, who try to take every wave. Often, they’ll move to another spot or let the boys know it’s time for them to share, with letting a little of their annoyance come through in their voices.

It’s not always the boys, though. Once, at C Street, a more aggressive and advanced surf spot in Ventura, a woman yelled at Kirker for accidentally dropping in on her. Kirker apologized, but the woman still berated her, shouting, “What are you doing? You don’t belong here.”

Kirker said nothing, got out of the water, and cried. As a family law litigator for 30 years in a profession dominated by men, she’d had enough of feeling like she didn’t belong. She didn’t want to surf angry, and her board sat in her garage for four years until the pandemic started—around the time she shifted careers, which she attributes to surfing. She was tired of fighting with people. 

Today, the wet weather holds the promise of fewer people. The women wax their boards, slip on booties speckled with grains of sand, and, one by one, head to the beach path. Their wetsuits squeak as they walk past the humble Marine Science Institute and over a driftwood-laden rocky shore. Johnson, the oldest of the crew at 71, has wasted no time snapping on a surf cap over her short, white hair and is the first one in the water.

Arkin brings up the rear, holding a longboard with a hook she’s attached so she can grip it better. Her forearm has a fish tattoo with a Buddhist design for freedom. She’s headed towards Poles, a left break named after three poles that used to mark an underground water intake valve. A bonus, they joke later, is that it’s out of range of the surf camera that continuously streams on a giant TV in Yartz’s shop. 

Arkin paddles out, the whoops and hollers from her friends already mixing with the screeching of the seagulls.

Women have been surfing for a long time—as far back as the 17th century in Hawaii and other Polynesian islands (the daring Princess Kelea of Maui was legendary)—but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at any surf magazines before the ’70s, when women got their own professional circuit. Even then, it took two decades for lifestyle brands to embrace female surfers—usually ones that were blonde and conventionally attractive—in their marketing campaigns.

Representation in the sport has long skewed young, white, and male, but that’s changing. Women surfers who identify as queer, BIPOC, and curvy have led the way in advocating for a more inclusive surf culture. 

Older women surfers are a smaller subgroup, though no less loud. When they’re not chasing waves, they’re in Facebook groups and Reddit threads, piping up whenever someone asks, “Am I too old to surf?”

The Santa Barbara women might still be outliers, but they say it’s becoming more and more common to see others who look like them—although it’s not something they fixate on. “I forget about the age thing when I’m in the water,” Johnson says, adding that she does get a kick out of surprising people.

Letting go and living in the moment is one of the draws of surfing. But it’s also a practical strategy, as timing is everything. No wave is ever the same. Then there’s the added variable of age, which comes with decreased flexibility or slower reactions that can make it challenging to pop up, ride a wave for a while, and try out fun tricks. 

“We don’t have a pop up. We have a lumber up,” McPherson likes to joke. 

The women have all experienced their share of injuries—broken toes and fingers, head gashes, face cuts and bruises—but it’s not enough to stop them.

Though gravitate toward cruisy waves, aware of their bodies’ limits, they are still addicted to the excitement of getting better and better each year. The friends might never go pro, but they have certain advantages that age brings: acceptance, patience, and unapologetic enjoyment of something they can claim as theirs after a lifetime of caring for others.

“We’re like these little lights out there communing in the surf. We all respect and honor each other’s individual experience. And we’re not in relation to anyone. We’re not someone’s mother, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter,” Kirker says. “It’s really freeing.” 

The waves are better than they expect this morning. The water is glassy, meaning there’s little wind, the smooth sheen ideal for surfing.

The women are the only ones in the water except for two surfers who are far enough away to leave them alone. Johnson paddles to catch a wave. Kirker, the crew’s most vocal cheerleader, yells: “Go left, go left!” Johnson stands up, compact and still as a statue, and rides the wave nearly all the way to the shore. Kirker hollersl “Woooohoooo!”

A big part of the joy of surfing is being with each other. Some of it is a matter of safety, knowing that if they wipe out or have the wind knocked out of them someone will be there to help. But it’s the camaraderie that keeps them going out together week after week; everyone else knows to make plans around their surf schedule.

“There’ll be days when I don’t catch anything,” McPherson says. “But the enjoyment of being together and celebrating your own successes with an audience of people who love you, and celebrating their successes—it’s double the adrenaline.”

Nearly all are partnered, with husbands or boyfriends, but most of their men don’t share the stoke. Surfing has become a defining feature of their identities, met with a combination of raised eyebrows and subtle boasts. McPherson’s cousin will often introduce her to others and say, “This is Marianne. She surfs every day.” (She doesn’t.) 

Now McPherson straddles the back of her board, lipstick still intact. Kirker is nearby and waits with the others for a good swell. Orr also sits close, her brown-blonde bob she has yet to dye now dark from the saltwater. The rocking of the ocean relaxes her shoulders.

“I just feel like the weight’s off,” she says. 

“It’s because I’m here,” Kirker says. Orr laughs.

In an instant, the calm is broken. Orr spots a potential wave. She lies down on her board, turning its nose around toward shore. Everyone cheers. “Go, go, go!”

Careful not to strain knees that need replacing, she pops up for a few seconds before tumbling backwards into the water. “I blew it,” she says when she’s straddling the board again. “That could’ve been a nice, long wave.”

They all flail at some point, limbs flying everywhere, boards bouncing along the whitewash.  “Come on, bitches!” Kirker says one time to the waves, furiously paddling, only to have them fizzle out.

It takes a lot for everything to be in sync, and learning how to cope with failure is one of surfing’s greatest lessons. There’s joy in that, too. 

“You tend to become competent in the things you do at a certain age,” Arkin says. “But what’s been really fun for me is being incompetent at something new.”

Yet Arkin and the other women are far from incompetent, catching numerous waves, a testament to the number of years they’ve taken lessons together not only at Campus Point, but at surf clinics in Costa Rica and Mexico. They’ll also travel around California together—every Memorial Day for the past eight years, they’ve headed down to Beacons in Encinitas. 

Just today, they’ve been out for nearly two hours. Onshore, more people are strolling along the nearby cliffs, while college kids in wetsuits stand at the edge of the water, about to paddle out. 

“I’m getting cold,” Arkin says, metal in her finger from a surf injury stiff. They all agree to stop soon. 

As they wait for the last few waves, Kirker hums The Monkees theme song. “There’s just something about the ocean that makes me want to sing,” she adds.

The women carry the boards back to their cars. The parking lot is busier, and a 20-something-year-old wearing a UCSB sweatshirt walks by with an older couple, presumably his parents. One of them sees the friends pulling terry cloth surf ponchos over their heads and smiles. They don’t notice.

There’s talk of going to Starbucks afterwards. Over coffee and chai, they will laugh at obnoxious men on dating sites, reminisce about raising athletic children, and share their personal surfing stats from the Dawn Patrol apps they all have on their Apple watches. (Johnson had 11 waves, with one at 20 mph, nearly twice the average speed.) And they’ll make plans to go surfing again tomorrow.

For now, the focus is on getting warm. The clouds have parted. “Here’s your sunshine!” Kirker says. 

“Well, I had more good biffs today,” Arkin says, brushing her wispy hair.

Kirker won’t hear it. “I thought you did fine.”

Today, they’ve emerged both tired and triumphant, the ocean leaving them breathless at times. When they go home, they will be unable to fully articulate the feeling—of being themselves, of being together—but it is one they will continue to chase. Because with so much life still ahead of them, they unabashedly want more. Since she began surfing, “my whole world is better,” Kirker says.

She sits down on the side of her white cargo van with a “Soul of a Mermaid, Mouth of a Sailor” sticker and pours a jug of water over her head. McPherson towels off, her shoulder fine, at least for right now. Wilbanks helps Johnson slither out of her wetsuit.

Orr is the last one to return. In the back of her mind are the essays she still needs to grade, but they don’t seem as urgent. And, like the rest of her friends, she doesn’t ever foresee a time when she’ll stop surfing. “When I started, I thought, I’ll probably be able to do this for, like, five or six years, and then I won’t be able to do it anymore. But look at Mary. She’s my hero,” she says. “And now I think, God, I hope I can keep surfing as long as her.”

The post Paddling Out with California’s Older Women Surfers appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Sacramento Valley

Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of the state’s least-visited national parks—a surprise, considering how much it resembles one of the nation’s most popular. In Shasta County, the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Mountains, and the Great Basin collide to form hydrothermal spectacles that make the park California’s personal Yellowstone.

Mercer Caverns

Murphys

Deep in Calaveras County hides an otherworldly network of limestone cave formations. Discovered during the Gold Rush, Mercer Caverns became a popular tourist attraction in the late 19th century. Like generations of visitors before you, you can book a tour to explore winding paths lined with stalactites and stalagmites and descend flowstone staircases.

Hot Creek Geologic Site

Mammoth Lakes

Split by its namesake waterway, Hot Creek Geologic Site lies in a valley within the Inyo National Forest. Underground magma chambers heated up the area over the course of around 1,000 years. Arising from the site’s scalding puddles, geysers have occasionally erupted, mostly during earthquakes.

Fern Canyon

Humboldt County

Humboldt County’s Fern Canyon was a setting in the second Jurassic Park film, The Lost World, for good reason: At 325 million years old, the lush paradise’s ferns inevitably witnessed some real dinos in their day. A Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park secret, the canyon features hanging moss gardens, miniature waterfalls, and chances to splash around. The area’s lollipop-shaped loop trail is a sunrise favorite, with glistening canyon walls and cinematic views.

Fonts Point

Anza-Borrego

Tucked in California’s southeastern corner amongst distinct ridgelines and desert flora lies Fonts Point in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Nicknamed “California’s Grand Canyon,” it’s one of the best spots to view the Badlands’ rugged ridges, casting dramatic shadows over sandy arroyos.

Red Rock Canyon State Park

Cantil

Right where the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada collides with the El Paso Range, Red Rock Canyon State Park unveils its landscape of dramatic rock formations and unique canyons. This secluded valley offers a serene escape with opportunities for hiking, rock climbing, and even spotting ancient petroglyphs.

Monarch Grove Sanctuary

Pacific Grove

Every October, thousands of monarch butterflies migrate to Monterey County’s Pacific Grove, gathering on its pine and eucalyptus trees in bizarre yet beautiful clusters and giving the city the nickname “Butterfly Town, USA.” The Monarch Grove Sanctuary is typically open from October to February, welcoming visitors to observe the flame-colored insects.

Mono Lake

Mono County

Mono Lake’s ultra-salty, alkaline waters rest in the heart of a vast desert in the lake’s namesake county. Peculiar towers emerge from the million-year-old lake’s surface, while a trillion brine shrimp swim below. Birdwatchers, hikers, kayakers, and photographers come for stunning views of mountains and desert, while locals swear a dip in the ancient waters cures almost anything.

Sentinel Dome

Yosemite Valley

Looking for an Ansel Adams view of Yosemite without Capitan-sized crowds? Sentinel Dome, on the south wall of the Yosemite Valley, has remained a criminally underrated spot in one of the nation’s most beloved parks. The two-mile hike is more than worth it for the breathtaking panoramas at the top.

Artists Palette

Death Valley

Never underestimate a modest dusty terrain—behind it might lie rolling hills of rainbow pastels. Part of the Artists Drive Scenic Loop in Death Valley, the Artists Palette is a must-see at sunrise or sunset, when the shifting light and shadows bring out its rich reds, oranges, yellows, blues, pinks, and greens. With no maintained trails but plenty of pullouts for safe parking, it just might inspire you to try your hand at a little landscape painting yourself.

Bodie State Historic Park

Bridgeport

Cue an Ennio Morricone song when you step into Bodie State Historic Park, a former gold mining hot spot turned spaghetti Western–worthy ghost town. Rather than repairing Bodie’s 150-year-old structures or simply letting them crumble into dust, the state park service maintains the buildings in a state of “arrested decay.”

The post 11 of California’s Most Underrated Natural Places appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

A bunch of San Diego’s most innovative Latina bakers and other makers have banded together to form a culinary collective called La Tiendita, throwing pop-up events at places like Home Ec and Friends of Friends (two business which also operate in shared spaces—I’m sensing a pattern here). Organizer Veronica Enriquez says she first got the idea in 2022, when Carynn Pinckney, owner of Home Ec, invited her to provide baked goods to a fundraiser for abortion access. 

“The vibe of all these people getting together and doing something that was important to all of us—it was like a high,” Enriquez says. She’s worked in restaurants and kitchens for years, currently as the pastry lead at Born & Raised. But she didn’t have an outlet for her own creations, and she knew plenty of other Latinas in the same situation. So, riding that high of the first event, she asked Pinckney to provide space for her and eight other Latinas to showcase their stuff. La Tiendita was born in 2023.

The goal of La Tiendita is to cultivate community and connect like-minded Latinas who tend to be outnumbered in male-dominated kitchens. Even the name reflects the tight-knit nature of the group. “It literally translates to the little shop … but it also means your family-owned neighborhood corner store,” she explains. “Everyone goes to that corner store to pick up their milk for the day. It’s very family-oriented, community-oriented.” 

And the family is definitely growing. “Every single time, it gets bigger and bigger,” Enriquez laughs. Makers like Vanessa Corrales (SPLIT Bakehouse Vegan Bakery), Arely Chavez (Michimichi), Helena Quesada (Hell Yeah Helena), and Yajaira Cody (Badu Eats) make up the current roster of 14 creators who now have five events under their belts. The next one isn’t slated until October, but Enriquez they’ll do them as often as they can squeeze them in between their full-time jobs. But for now, her goal is twofold: keep growing and keep inspiring.

“I just want to keep giving Latinas a space and the opportunity to showcase what they can do,” she says. “It can usually be a male-dominated industry, [so] I just want to keep putting it out there and show women, You have the support. You can join in if you want. You can do this, too.”

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Vino Carta To Host J. Brix Wines on Thursday, August 29

Can’t wait for local winemakers Jody and Emily Towe to open their forthcoming wine tasting room? You don’t have to—just head to Vino Carta (2161 India Street) this Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. for a Winemaker Tasting with J. Brix. Twenty dollars gets you four wines and sparkling (okay, at least bubbling) conversation. The next day is Vino Carta’s weekly Friday pizza night, with OMG-F Pizza as this week’s featured pizzeria. (It’s gluten-free. Get it?)

Ponyboy at The Pearl Hotel Launches Dive-In Movie Nights

Every Wednesday, hop in The Pearl’s pool for themed drink and bite specials from onsite restaurant Ponyboy to go with the throwback movie of the night. (Think Blue Hawaiians during The Endless Summer.) Upcoming movies include The Graduate, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Godzilla, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon—which, hilariously, will feature a “killer seafood” special of linguini and clams. Check out all the hotel happenings right here.

Beth’s Bites

• Two San Diegans are finalists in the 2024 Next Wave Awards, hosted by drinks industry media company VinePair. Erick Castro (Gilly’s House of Cocktails) is up for Drinks Professional of the Year, while Derek Gallanosa (GOAL Brewing) is in the running for Brewer of the Year. Best of luck to them both!
• I love Korean food more than any other type of cuisine—in fact, I’m eating some tonight—so I’m very much looking forward to Solsot’s arrival at 8657 Villa La Jolla Drive, Suite 103. It’s hot pot, not Korean barbecue, a nice addition to the already stellar lineup of Korean restaurants we’re spoiled with here in SD.
• Two new restaurants are coming to Westfield UTC. Coconut-centric dessert shop Melo Melo will join the mall munchie roster in October, while we’ll have to wait until November for Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. (I’m quite content making do with SomiSomi until then.)

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].

The post La Tiendita Highlights Latina Chefs & Bakers Through Pop-Ups appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Californian identity is deeply intertwined with the palm, for good reason—along with the Gold Rush, the palm tree was one of California’s early big wins in branding.

Palm mania started slowly, explains Donald Hodel, an emeritus horticulture advisor for the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Canary Island date palms, he says, were first brought over by mission-building padres in the late 1700s. They wanted the real-deal fronds when Palm Sunday came around.

From there, palms built up some serious nonsectarian steam. Hodel tells me that, in the late 1800s, developers used palm trees as a siren song for East Coasters, summoning them westward to seek out paradise. They planted Mexican fan palms around citrus orchards and manufactured postcards depicting California as healthy, tropical, and exotic.

After World War II, young veterans exiting the military came west for “their own piece of the pie,” which included a “postage-stamp-sized lot” with, of course, a palm planted out front, Hodel says.

“They are iconic,” he adds. “Rightly or wrongly, [palms] became associated with the upper echelons of the economic ladder.” A frond-crowned tree in your yard meant you’d made it.

Nowadays, those non-native palms are to southern California what pine trees are to Christmas. They’re culturally entrenched—which explains why governments will go to great lengths to protect them. The Encinitas City Council, for example, recently approved a $382,250, five-year plan to defend the Moonlight Beach heritage palm, which involves dousing it quarterly with insecticides, conducting regular inspections, and removing nearby infestations.

At this point, there is only preventative treatment—spraying and crossing one’s fingers—or doing nothing and just rolling the dice. Either way, the palm may die, leaving tree lovers not only bummed out but broke: A tree corpse can cost $6,000 (or more!) to remove.

It’s been tough for palm people in California. Austin Kolander, an arborist with Aguilar Plant Care and first responder on the weevil front, spends his days breaking the news to homeowners that, due to a weevil attack, there’s no hope for their beloved palms. “This woman today was so distraught,” he says. The dying palm had been planted 80 years before by her grandfather. It wasn’t just a tree to her—it was a tether to her familial history.

Luckily, a seasoned pro is on the case. Hoddle (with the help of his entomologist wife, Christina Hoddle) previously cracked the code on the Asian citrus psyllids’ decimation of California’s orange groves.
He’s now working nonstop to find an answer to this weevil problem before the impending desert date palm blitz.

A predator is helpful to get an animal population into check, but the weevil doesn’t have one in California, so Hoddle began a search. In Brazil, he found a tachinid fly, which would have inspired the likes of Hannibal Lecter. It, like the weevil, deposits its eggs atop the palms, but then the freshly hatched maggots wiggle down and entomb themselves within the weevil’s cocoon. “They eat the larva alive,” Hoddle says.

Then, they pupate, using the emptied-out cocoon as a sleeping bag.

The issue is that the fly currently won’t reproduce in a lab setting. Even if Hoddle manages it, there’s still a long process involved in green-lighting the introduction of a new natural enemy.

But there is some hope: He’s also currently testing a method he calls “attract and kill” in a 10-square-mile area that includes Rancho Santa Fe and Fairbanks Ranch. The process involves a hanging contraption that lures the weevils using their own pheromones—it’s like backstabbing them with their own horniness.

He points to a tiny vessel. “This is weevil pheromone aggregate.”

“What does it smell like?” I ask.

“It smells like weevil pheromone aggregate,” he says, laughing.

I bring my nose in close. Hints of musk, rust, and maybe old BandAid. Not great, but if it was a candle called Weevil Nookie, someone out there would pay 40 bucks for it.

Once the weevil lands on the trap, the insect is dosed with a puddle of potent poison. “Instead of hundreds of gallons of insecticide,” Hoddle explains, “we’d just have to put out a couple of ounces over vast areas.”

It’s still not foolproof. If it works—and, based on the numbers of weevils that have fallen for the traps so far, it does look great—and is deployed widely, the remaining Canary Island date palms will likely only have a 70 percent survival rate. But that’s far better than the 70 percent death rate so far.

The public can help the fight, as well, by reporting any symptomatic palms one observes to the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Invasive Species Research.

As we wrap up our tour of destruction, Hoddle spots a massive palm he’s been keeping an eye on for the past six years. It’s dead, with telltale signs of weevil activity. He can’t completely blame the weevils, though, he says.

Ten new insects are established in California each year, three of which become a problem agriculturally or ecologically. “Don’t blast through signs at the airport asking you to declare produce when your bags are full of mangos,” he pleads. The repercussions can be enormous: increased taxes to pay for eradication programs; higher prices for produce; more insecticides in our water, land, and bodies.

“Bugs don’t stay in your own backyard,” he says. “They spread, and then we all end up paying the price for it.”

The post Weevils Are Coming—CA’s Date Industry is at Risk appeared first on San Diego Magazine.