Colorful collages line the hallways of Best Start Birth Center in San Diego, the squishy faces of hundreds of newborns carefully cut out and framed. A picture of Executive Director Karen Roslie’s son, born in 2003, hangs among the smiling, crying, and squinting babies.
Thirty years ago, Roslie’s mother, Roberta Frank, opened Best Start after training to become a certified nurse midwife. Since that time, state agencies and national organizations have recognized the birth center as a model for alternative birth practices. The Canadian health ministry even visited in the 1990s as it developed plans to fund midwifery services, Roslie says.
But in March, Best Start closed its doors, unable to keep up with escalating costs. TRICARE, a major military insurer and Best Start’s biggest contractor, wouldn’t pay for licensed midwives—only nurses, who can make much more money in a hospital. In a community where the Navy is a prominent employer, it was a debilitating blow to the birth center. The photos Roslie meticulously framed over the years will most likely have to be destroyed to avoid any medical privacy violations—evidence of more than 5,600 births shredded.
(Left to right) Executive Director Karen Rosalie and Founder Roberta Frank at the Best Start Birthing Center in San Diego. | Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
“It feels like I’m mourning a death,” Roslie says, gazing at the pictures. Best Start was the first licensed and accredited birth center in California, and even those credentials couldn’t save it. In fact, they may have hindered the birth center’s survival, requiring expensive renovations that many midwives say aren’t relevant to the care they provide or the safety of their practice. Its closure was one of at least 19 recent birth center shutdowns and reductions in service in the past four years, according to the California chapter of the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC).
Those closures deepen a crisis of declining women’s health services across California. More than 50 labor and delivery wards have closed in California hospitals in the past decade, creating maternity care deserts in rural communities and overburdening the remaining labor wards in cities and suburbs.
Sally K. (left) thirty-eight weeks pregnant, talks to midwife Andrea Bergleen (right), during a check-up. | Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
Consumer health and policy experts have pointed to birth centers as a way to expand capacity in communities where hospitals are no longer delivering babies. The midwife-run clinics deliver low-risk births and direct higher-risk pregnancies to hospitals.
But California has some of the toughest licensing requirements in the country, AABC says, and facilities like Best Start have long argued that California’s onerous regulations and an uncooperative Public Health Department prevent them from succeeding.
Only six operating birth centers are licensed in California. Another 26 are unlicensed. Licensure isn’t required, but it enables practices to work with insurance plans and helps them serve lower-income families who can’t cover birthing costs out of pocket.
Increasingly, only wealthy families who pay cash can afford to have a midwife or give birth outside of a hospital.
“The system is just a mess. It’s flawed. It’s set up to prevent providers that can provide really good care from even getting started,” says Best Start founder Frank.
Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
While most births in California take place in hospitals, birth centers serve a small but growing number of families. The number of planned out-of-hospital births attended by midwives has doubled over the past decade, even as birth rates overall declined, according to data from the Medical Board of California. And a statewide survey conducted in 2018 by the California Health Care Foundation indicated that more than one-third of pregnant people would be interested in having a midwife for a future birth.
Frequently, those who seek the services of midwives and birth centers cite the desire for more personalized care or poor experiences with previous hospital births. Studies show that for low-risk pregnancies, midwife-led deliveries at birth centers are safe and lead to fewer interventions such as cesarean sections.
“Women deserve this,” Frank says. “Every human deserves to find their own strength, find their place, [and] exercise their initiative.”
But even as demand for out-of-hospital births increases, birth centers across the state are shutting their doors, unable to withstand the joint battering ram of financial and regulatory challenges.
California’s health system was too unfriendly to make ends meet. Another Sacramento birth center is also on the verge of closure because it cannot get a state license. In September, Monterey Birth and Wellness Center will close, citing high costs and poor insurance reimbursement.
The California Department of Public Health refused multiple requests for an interview about the licensure process, responding only to emailed questions. The licensing process sets “minimum standards” for patient care, which include regulations around proper equipment and staff competency, the department said in an unsigned statement.
“We cannot speculate or comment on any reason why providers chose to close these facilities [or] aren’t seeking licensure for new [birth centers], or what could be done to improve the process,” the department statement added.
Executive Director Karen Rosalie | Photo by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
Licensing Can Take Years
Nancy Myrick, a co-founder of the San Francisco Birth Center, says it took four-and-a-half years of back-and-forth with the state health department to obtain a license. At one point, Myrick asked for a list of items that an inspector would check and was referred to regulations that had not yet been written.
“In the process of opening, the state bureaucracy was like the Great Wall of China. It was such a horrible barrier,” Myrick says.
It wasn’t until Myrick called her local assemblymember’s office to complain about the inability to get licensed and see Medi-Cal patients that the application was approved, she adds. The birth center was licensed in 2020.
“It literally took calling in the political dogs to get it done,” Myrick says.
Many providers noticed that getting a license became much more difficult after the state centralized the process with the public health department in 2018. Since then, nearly all birth center applications have been rejected, according to data provided by the department.
The department said in a statement the change was necessary to improve “standardization and consistency” in the licensure process for multiple kinds of facilities. Previously, the department’s 14 regional offices processed applications and approved most of them.
Yet midwives and advocates say multiple issues continue to plague the process. It’s slow, often taking years; it’s expensive, costing tens of thousands to retrofit buildings and maintain a license; and the standards are frequently at odds with midwives’ scope of practice. What results is a “de facto ban” on birth center licensure in California, says Sandra Poole, a lobbyist with the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
Without licensing reform, more birth centers will close, warns Bethany Sasaki, president of the state chapter of the American Association of Birth Centers.
A key problem, Sasaki continues, is that birth centers are expected to comply with building standards designed for hospitals. Requirements include negative pressure rooms for infection control and cast-iron plumbing for water supply and drainage.
Many midwives argue the standards don’t make sense because their patients are legally required to be healthy, with low-risk pregnancies. Any condition that would require the additional medical intervention the standards are meant to accommodate, such as surgery, would force the patient to be transferred to a doctor or hospital, Sasaki says.
“There’s no reason to hold a birth center to the same standards as a hospital, because it’s not a hospital, and that’s the whole point,” Sasaki adds.
Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
According to the Department of Health Care Access and Information, which sets building codes for health facilities, it would take legislative changes to make exceptions for birth centers. Poole and a number of groups representing midwives and Black maternal health advocates tried to introduce a bill earlier this year that would ease licensing requirements, but they were unable to find a legislator willing to carry it.
Sasaki’s licensure application for Midtown Nurse Midwives in Sacramento was denied in 2020. The holdup is the ventilation system in her building, which doesn’t meet hospital building code.
In March, Sasaki requested an appeal and emergency license after TRICARE, the same insurer that Best Start relied on, stopped contracting with unlicensed facilities. As of mid-July, she has not received a response from the state, though the department told CalMattersit was past the deadline for her to file an appeal.
Sasaki says that, without the TRICARE contract, which made up about 30 percent of her clients, the birth center will close by November.
“We’ve had to turn away so many people that we stopped answering our phone, because I don’t want to listen to another person cry,” Sasaki says.
Birth Centers Must Get Licensed to Accept Medi-Cal
Why is licensure such a stumbling block for birth centers? Medi-Cal, the state’s public insurance program for low- income families, pays for half of all births in the state, and it requires birth centers to be licensed.
“The single biggest thing that will help with sustainability is if birth centers can take Medi-Cal and if Medi-Cal can actually reimburse appropriately,” Sasaki says.
The majority of Medi-Cal births—more than 80 percent—are babies of color. A statewide survey also indicates that people of color, particularly Black women, want alternative birth support such as midwives and doulas the most. White women and those with private insurance were the highest users of midwives, the survey shows, while those who wanted a midwife but didn’t use one most commonly cited lack of insurance coverage as a barrier.
Caroline Cusenza, a midwife and the owner of the Monterey Birth and Wellness Center, says accepting insurance allowed her to serve a more diverse population in the working-class Latino enclave where the birth center is located. She wanted to take Medi-Cal patients but couldn’t. Though Cusenza applied for licensure twice, she was also rejected because the building didn’t meet ventilation standards.
The birth center will close in September after seven years.
“It was a hard decision to walk away, but we really just could see no path forward,” Cusenza says.
Executive Director Karen Rosalie hugs Kendra Wyatt, while Founder Roberta Frank hugs Jolene Wyatt. | Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
The Western Center for Law and Poverty has pointed to accreditation as a possible alternative to licensure. The Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers is the national organization that sets standards for birth center quality and safety. California regulators have used accreditation to help license other kinds of health facilities, but health department officials see no need to provide birth centers with alternate options. They argue that very few have tried to get a license in the first place. Only 23 birth centers have applied in the past decade.
Holly Smith, a certified nurse midwife and co-lead of Midwifery Access California, contends that the low number of applicants reflects the difficulty of the process. Midwives know licensure is nearly impossible, so they don’t bother applying, Smith argues.
“If [the Department of Public Health] can be much more involved in figuring out solutions to help birth centers exist and be licensed, should they want to be, then we would see a greater proliferation of applications,” Smith says.
Midwifery Access California is working with another state agency to improve access for low-income patients, Smith adds. They hope to convince the Department of Health Care Services to increase Medi-Cal payments to midwives. Right now, a licensed birth center gets about $1,300 per birth, while the midwife gets $400.
Some birth centers say that, at those rates, even Medi-Cal wouldn’t be enough to save them.
“If our birth center were to accept Medi-Cal, we would go bankrupt,” says Trisha Wimbs, owner of the California Birth Center in Rocklin.
Licensed in 2023, Wimbs’ facility was one of only three birth centers to achieve licensure since the public health department took over and tightened building codes. Wimbs says it cost $1 million to build the “hospital-grade facility” to code, including $80,000 to move a fire hydrant two feet closer to the building. The birth center does not take Medi-Cal because it pays too little to recoup expenses. Instead, the birth center caters to cash-pay and commercially insured clients in the affluent Sacramento suburb.
To sustain birth centers, Medi-Cal needs to pay around $8,000 per birth, Smith says. At that price point, delivering at a birth center would still cost less than half as much as a hospital delivery.
Saying Goodbye to Best Start
Eighteen years ago, Ellary Alonso was born at Best Start Birth Center when her mom, a former labor and delivery nurse, sought a more personalized birth experience. Alonso, who was 21 weeks along in March, wanted to deliver her son in the same place, surrounded by midwives she knew, maybe even in a bath. She wanted the emotional support of the team, she says, because her husband is a Marine, and there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to make it to the birth.
But a week before her first prenatal appointment at Best Start, Alonso got a call that the center was closing permanently. There are no other birth centers in Southern California that take her insurance, TRICARE.
“In this time when everything is about choice, you can choose not to have a baby, but you can’t choose how to have your baby,” Alonso says. “Hospitals are the only option.”
Compared to a hospital room, Best Start offered a homey atmosphere and the promise that the midwife attending each birth was familiar to the laboring client. The birthing rooms came with queen-sized beds, floral duvets, and white porcelain tubs for water births. A marble-topped “crash cart” sat in each room. With the doors closed, the cart looked like an end table, matching the décor. Inside, it was filled with medical supplies for conducting emergency resuscitations or stitching up lacerations.
Photo Credit: Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters
Though cozy, the rooms bore the hallmarks of a by-the-book clinic: boxes of nitrile gloves in each room, hazardous waste bins mounted discreetly to the wall. Best Start was the only birth center in the state to have a licensed clinical laboratory to confirm water breakage.
They never lost a mother or baby, Roslie says. Their transfer rate for cesarean sections was 20 percent less than the state average in 2022. In the past five years, they performed no episiotomies, perineum incisions intended to enlarge the vaginal opening during birth. And 96 percent of newborns were exclusively breastfed before leaving Best Start, compared to the statewide hospital rate of 69 percent.
Despite the center’s recognized success, keeping it running was always a labor of love, Roslie says.
“It’s never been a thriving business,” she adds. “Roberta’s gone without pay. I’ve gone with reduced pay. That’s what it takes to run a birth center.”
When Roberta Frank, Roslie’s mother, graduated from UC San Diego with her nursing midwifery degree in 1981, she was told, “San Diego will never accept midwives.”
Kristen Hwang is a reporter for CalMatters covering health care. Prior to joining CalMatters, Kristen earned a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a master of public health degree from Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
His ascent has been stealth and humble, which fits the man. When Liberty Station was struggling to convince people it existed over a decade ago, Sicilian chef Accursio Lota’s food at Solare Ristorante was a tractor beam for food people who sniff out hidden talent like truffle dogs. In 2017, he won the World Pasta Championship (a legit competition from global pasta brand Barilla) and struck out on his own, opening his and his wife’s from-scratch pasta trattoria in North Park (Cori Pastificio). Gambero Rosso—the Italian version of Michelin, the most respected source—has clamored for the restaurant since it opened, naming it “New Opening of the Year” and this year giving it their highest award, “Tre Forchette” (Three Forks), only knighted on a handful of US restaurants.
So this year, Lota opened his grandest thing—Dora Ristorante—and it pulls everything together. Steps from San Diego’s world-class theater, La Jolla Playhouse, it’s laden with brass and large-format murals, tile work and mosaics—like the one on the wood-burning oven that blisters, chars, and smokes a good portion of the menu. Their housemade focaccia is a new street drug (try it with the puttanesca, his grandmother Dora’s recipe). The olive oil-cured sardines make “sustainable seafood” and ethics not taste like a compromise. Dora might finally be the one to solve the “where do I eat before the world premiere at LJP” dilemma.
The yuzu-colored building that helped build North Park’s modern food culture is alive again. Years ago, the ornate French Quarter–inspired spot on 30th Street was home to chef Matt Gordon’s Urban Solace (duck macaroni and cheese). Then it laid conspicuous and fallow until a few months ago when Bacari took it on. It’s an LA transplant, but they’re proving forgivable of that trespass. Chef and co-founder Lior Hillel cooked at Jean-Georges before opening the first of this Venetian-style restaurant in 2008 with brothers Danny and Robert Kronfi (Bobby started his food venture with a pop-up dinner series in his college apartment at USC).
For dinner, it’s house-baked bread, crudo and shrimp ceviches, Mediterranean street corn, lamb hummus, shawarma, and glazed pork belly. Weekend brunch is bellinis and French toast and burekas (famed Jewish stuffed puff pastry), and chef Noa’s cauliflower (caramelized with chipotle). It’s Italian-ish with a heavy dose of pan-Mediterranean and Middle Eastern. Doesn’t hurt that they left the iconic exterior as is, adding chandelier-farmhouse insides with charm that echoes two of the city’s dearly departed (Jayne’s Gastropub, Cafe Chloe).
Courtesy of TRUST Restaurant Group
À L’ouest
Much tolerance for friends who hate mussels because they look too biological. But if they manage to dislike À L’ouest’s—served over ice with vadouvan curry aioli and chili crisp—then you’ve successfully identified your brokemouth friend and should try bicycling or crafting with them to bond instead of eating in public places. It should be on everyone’s short list for dish of the year.
Chef Brad Wise and his team have earned their rep over multiple concepts—Trust, Fort Oak, Cardellino, Wise Ox, Rare Society. But he’s been eyeing this corner of North Park since before he opened his first (Trust, in 2016). North Park has been rising for a while, and À L’ouest feels like the missing piece—an indoor-outdoor brasserie stunner on the marquee spot of 30th and University, which long sat boarded up and vacant like a neighborhood missing a front tooth.
As with his other concepts, woodpile is king; smoldering red oak boosts the flavor of just about everything. Get the spätzle with braised rabbit, maitake mushroom, secret de compostelle (the famed Basque sheep’s milk cheese), and black truffle. Or the chicken liver parfait with persimmon, fennel aigre-doux (sweet-sour), and chives on toast. Or, like everyone else in there—the steak frites.
Photo Credit: Eric Wolfinger
Fleurette
Chef Travis Swikard’s first solo restaurant, Callie in East Village, proved how details can make the most composed of us blubber a little in fine places—from citrus left in ovens overnight to blacken and transform, to the Scripps Oceanographic Institute saltwater he keeps his spot prawns thriving in until ordered, to the days-long fermentation and stone-ground dukkah that turn carrot shavings into a statement piece.
Now, he’s focusing on French food with a fitter, less buttery San Diego heart. Fleurette is his doubling-down, a SoCal riff on the food he learned under mentors Daniel Boulud and Gavin Kaysen. The French gave us the mother sauces, and Fleurette showcases the lightest and brightest evolutions. Like the anchoïade on his beef tartare, which uses famed Italian anchovy sauce colatura di alici, mixed with cured egg yolks over tiny, uniform-sized cubes of raw, USDA Prime Flannery beef.
There is soubise (onion sauce), a sauce vierge (tomatoes and herbs), and a fennel marmalade on the duck liver and bone marrow pâté. Although the structure is stunningly pure glass, Fleurette’s in a location—an office park on the edge of La Jolla, near UTC—that few chefs would be able to pull off. But Swikard’s Michelin-bound house of saucework pulls hard.
The Escondido taqueria from Rosarito-born-and-trained chef Juan González and farmer Megan Strom took the county by storm this year. The married couple started as a popup four years ago, hosting farmside dinners before taking up residency at Vino Carta in Solana Beach. Strom was working a small, 5-acre heirloom bean farm in Valley Center owned by Mike Reeske (aka “The Bean Man”) when he retired and sold them the plot.
The huge bonus was that the sale included Reeske’s famed collection of beans, curated over 20 years. The couple planted other things and now grow much of what they serve in the form of tacos and burritos at a permanent spot in Escondido: Mesa Agrícola.
The menu’s bone simple: housemade tortillas in your choice of taco or burrito norteños (which are smaller, like burritos de hielera) that change constantly and often topped with guisados (Mexican braises or stews) like lamb and garbanzo, birria, chicharrón, mushrooms al ajillo, rajas, you name it. And, of course, some of the best beans honoring the local legend of Reeske.
Courtesy of Lucien
Lucien
San Diego is now the recipient of national food buzz. The dark ages—during which we learned how to sear ahi and asada some carne and called it a day—felt prolonged, and they were. The problem was never ingredients. San Diego County always had the best raw dinner materials (more small farms per capita than any county in the US, seafood right there); it just didn’t have a critical mass of highly trained chefs to do them justice. Easy to understand the chef dearth.
For a very long time, if you wanted to be a serious chef you had to go to the restaurant superplexes of New York, San Francisco, or Chicago (which imported their raw ingredients from places like San Diego). But now—credit farmers or Alice Waters or Dan Barber or Michael Pollain or the reasonable conclusion that food picked right here tastes better than food picked way over there—some of the most talented chefs are moving to the ingredients, not the other way around.
In San Diego, we got Richard Blais, Swikard, and now Elijah Arizmendi, who cut his teeth in Vegas with Joel Robuchon (plus Boulud and Thomas Keller) and was chef de cuisine at NYC’s L’abeille when it got its first Michelin star. His debut restaurant in La Jolla—with partners Brian Hung and Melissa Yang—is a dark, moody multicourse tasting-menu hideaway with one of the best egg dishes in the city.
Troy Johnson is the magazine’s award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
There’s a creative inertia that resides in San Diego, producing a near-constant stream of cool events. Fortunately, this weekend is no different. Those with an artistic inkling can search for inspiration at MCASD’s EXPO Design Market or admire the mixture of live performance and neighborhood charm during the North Park Music Fest. Foodies can dine (with wine) at Stake Chophouse & Bar during its ZD Wines Dinner or explore Barrio Logan’s standout eats at the Sabor Del Barrio. Plus, Pride Month is already in full swing in SD with the return of DISCO RIOT’s Queer Mvmnt Fest and the two-day Out & Abt Music Festival.
Stake Chophouse & Bar is collaborating with Napa Valley’s ZD Wines—a family-run winemaking institution that’s been around since 1969—on an intimate four-course dinner this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Throughout the meal, each dish will be paired with a curated pour from ZD Wines, with patrons set to receive a chardonnay, pinot noir, and pair of cabernet sauvignons. Dinner guests will also be treated to insight on the night’s wine pairings from ZD Wines’ senior winemaker Chris Pisani. Reservations are $210 pre-paid through OpenTable.
Take advantage of all the dynamic attractions that the Barrio Logan Cultural District has to offer—and eat very well while you’re at it—during the third annual Sabor Del Barrio. This Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. attendees can devour their way through 35 neighborhood staples and traverse the tasting stops on foot, by bike, via a free trolley shuttle, or a combination of the three. Tickets are $40 online ($55 day of) and come with complimentary admission to Quint Gallery, the Athenaeum Art Center, and the Chicano Park Museum & Cultural Center, plus a free tour of Tao of Clay.
Sam Hinton Folk Heritage Festival at Old Poway Park
June 6
Survey the depth of oral storytelling during the free annual Sam Hinton Folk Heritage Festival this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Old Poway Park. Named for harmonica virtuoso, marine biologist, and longtime San Diegan Sam Hinton, this event highlights folk artists who specialize in time-honored traditions. Throughout the day, attendees can see performances by musicians with roots in Americana, Cajun, and Appalachian rhythms on the main stage, dance in the Templars Hall, and hear historical tales from the Storytellers of San Diego in the Porter House.
14134 Midland Road, Poway
North Park Music Fest
June 6
Psychedelic rockers Frankie and the Witch Fingers will headline an eclectic lineup at the North Park Music Fest. This Saturday, enjoy sets from noon to 1:45 a.m. from over thirty performers—including DJs, bands, and local acts—across a dozen North Park venues. Ticket options include general admission ($25 online, $35 day of) and VIP passes ($65) which come with lounge access at Granada House, line-skipping privileges and more; festival proceeds will go towards the North Park Business & Neighborhood Foundation. Plus, performances at Pure Pawsh, Visual Art + Supply, Overland, and Playground Art + Coffee will be open to the public.
North Park
Out & Abt Music Festival
June 6 & 7
The calendar has just flipped to Pride Month, and Out & Abt is celebrating in style. The two-day Out & Abt Music Festival begins Saturday from 3-10 p.m. at The Soap Factory with drag shows, circus acts, a manic pixie dream market, two stages of live music, and last but not least, a mechanical bull. The festivities will continue with an after party from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Gossip Grill and conclude with an afternoon pool party at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego on Sunday from 1-7 p.m. Ticket options include weekend general admission passes ($70), and entry to the music festival ($30), after party ($17) and pool party ($27).
Citywide
Photo Credit: Kevin Berne
Theater & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Weekend
The Monsters at La Jolla Playhouse
June 2-28
Fresh off its Drama Desk Award-winning run in the Big Apple this past winter, The Monsters will have its first West Coast production beginning Tuesday in the Mandall Weiss Forum at La Jolla Playhouse. Written by and co-starring Ngozi Anyanwu, The Monsters finds its reconciliatory narrative in a young woman yearning to repair her relationship with her estranged older brother in the brutal and unforgiving world of mixed martial arts. The Monsters will have preview performances this Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 & 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 & 7 p.m., with tickets ranging from $30-$74.
Ryan Hardison is a freelance arts and entertainment writer and recent graduate of San Diego State. When he's not staring at his laptop, he's likely eating an adobada burrito or getting sunburnt at the beach.
June Gloom isn’t stopping San Diegans from making the most out of the month. There’s something for every music lover, from swaying to smooth jazz at The Rady Shell to rocking out at Slightly Stoopid’s Field of Dreamz Festival. Art enthusiasts can visit the Mingei for an exhibit showcasing Native American and Pacific Rim heritage, […]
June Gloom isn’t stopping San Diegans from making the most out of the month. There’s something for every music lover, from swaying to smooth jazz at The Rady Shell to rocking out at Slightly Stoopid’s Field of Dreamz Festival. Art enthusiasts can visit the Mingei for an exhibit showcasing Native American and Pacific Rim heritage, while foodies can try the latest fried fad at the San Diego County Fair. Whatever your interests, it’s time to text the group chat and make some plans. Here are all the best things to do in San Diego this month:
Khalid is headlining his first tour since 2019—this time for the R&B and pop showstopper After the Sun Goes Down—and he’s ready to dance through Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre.
Photo Credit: Angela Babby / Courtesy of Angela Babby
Theater & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Month
6/5–7/19
With a beat that can’t be stopped, New Village Arts will revive the joyful musical Hairspray, a fusion of teen pop stardom and racial integration in Civil Rights–era Baltimore.
6/13–9/13
Cat Gunn poignantly examines the impact of forced separation from ancestral lineage through If Only by the Light of a New Moon, their solo museum debut at ICA Central.
Proceed to Pride Month with the Out & Abt Festival, featuring a carnival-themed playground at The Soap Factory, an afterparty hosted by Gossip Grill, and the next day, a sapphic poolside bash at the Hard Rock Hotel.
6/10–7/5
Imagine and experience your favorite fairytale ending during the San Diego County Fair, which returns this summer with a new theme: Once Upon a Fair.
11 & 13
The return of the Switchfoot Bro-Am means two things: an elegant seaside fundraiser in North County and a free bash at Moonlight Beach full of sun, surf competitions, and live music.
For the first time, NASCAR will start its engines in San Diego. Naval Base Coronado will host this one-of-a-kind racing spectacle to commemorate the U.S. Navy’s semiquincentennial.
25
Itadakimasu! In other words: Let’s eat! Sample, then rank, the best Pan-Asian dishes from local eateries at Julep Venue during SD Mag’s 21+ Omakase Open, done to support the Convoy District.
28
If you ever needed a reason to eat ice cream and gelato, here’s a charitable one. Raise money—one waffle cone at a time—for Feeding San Diego during this year’s Scoop San Diego festival.
Ryan Hardison is a freelance arts and entertainment writer and recent graduate of San Diego State. When he's not staring at his laptop, he's likely eating an adobada burrito or getting sunburnt at the beach.
In this city, chef Brian Malarkey and restaurateur Chris Puffer are kind of like peanut butter & jelly, tacos and Tuesday, Padres and Petco—they just go together. This month, the duo celebrates 10 years of partnering on some of San Diego’s top restaurants including their first venture, Herb & Wood.
To celebrate this milestone, we stepped back and revisited their journey becoming some of this city’s most successful restaurateurs.
But first, let’s go back to the beginning. The duo met at Oceanaire in 2007 where they both worked. Malarkey was still riding the high from his stint on Top Chef Season 3 where he won runner-up. He was a great chef, Puffer recalls, if not a tad arrogant. Whatever he was doing, though, it worked. Sales doubled under his watch.
In 2009, Malarkey was approached by some patrons to start what would become Searsucker. He knew he wanted Puffer to be his partner. They had great chemistry and loved hospitality and food. “We both came to this with a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” says Malarkey. “We wanted to prove it to other people that we know what we’re doing.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
Searsucker, Gabardine, and Herringbone (under the Fabric of Social Dining restaurant group) were born through the new partnership. But in 2012, they sold their concepts to Hakkasan and soon partnered on a new lease.
That building would eventually become Herb & Wood. “We were going to do it differently this time around,” says Malarkey as he reflects on Wood’s early days. “And we [wanted to] build it to last.”
The vision: Great food. Great music. Great service. It’d be a place where diners would let go, put their phones down, and be fully present to enjoy a meal together. When they walked into 2210 Kettner Blvd, they knew they had found their spot.
The only problem was that, at the time, that area of Little Italy was still severely underdeveloped. In a 8,500-square-foot space, they were going to have 230 seats to fill. “It may as well have been on Mars,” says Troy Johnson, San Diego Magazine publisher, content chief, and the city’s longtime food critic.
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
And, of course, there were the naysayers. The prevailing feeling in the dining world was, “Let’s see what these f**king idiots do,” recalls Malarkey. The duo let all the noise be noise. In fact, the noise fueled them. “We weren’t going to cater to the haters,” Puffer says.
Their next hurdle would be to tackle the restaurant’s design. “There was nothing. It was literally a box,” says Puffer of the former space. Design teams were too expensive or didn’t quite get their vision—no, they didn’t want exposed beams or wooden tables made from reclaimed barns. “Then, Puffer was like, ‘f**k it, dude, I’m going to design this restaurant.’”
Having never really designed something like this before, he decided not to work in the programs that most professionals use to create their layouts. 3D mockup? Didn’t need it. CAD? That’s what a paper and pencil are for.
Courtesy of Herb & Wood
“It was all in my head,” he recalls. “I had this moment where I was like, ‘If I died right now, no one would know where any of this shit goes.’”
“Yeah, it made no sense,” Malarkey says.
And it still doesn’t if you hear him explain it. A mishmash of vignettes from the inner workings of his memory bank, evoking everything from Mississippi riverboats to Eiffel tower ironwork, Kensington home façades, an old theater he frequented, and a canoe, because why not? Yet somehow, it all worked.
“It’s a sense of nostalgia,” says Puffer. “People might say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this feels good’ and they don’t realize it reminds them of the time they were in Paris.’”
“We don’t play trends,” Malarkey says. “We play timeless.”
Courtesy of Herb & Wood
Over the course of many years and plenty of trial and error, the partnership has continued to thrive. And, the Puffer Malarkey Collective has found its sweet spot within their restaurants: The service had to be kind and unpretentious and the food had to come out quick, delicious, and consistent. “Consistency is key!” says Puffer.
They also learned to balance out one another. “He’s a go-go-go-go [person],” says Puffer, “I’m a let’s-take-a-deep-breath-and-sleep-on-it [type of person].”
So, when they opened the doors to Herb & Wood in April of 2016, with those lessons in place, everything was just right. “We knew it had to fire on all cylinders,” says Puffer. “And it did.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
There was no pretense and the dress code was exceedingly simple. “Money in your pocket,” says Malarkey. “That’s all you need.”
The phones rang, the seats filled, and the haters had to give it to them, those gnocchi hit. People began embracing every aspect of the place, even the edgier ones.
“We thought people were going to complain about all the paintings with boobs,” says Puffer of the many John Lanes on the wall. “But the amount of people who take pictures in front of the boobs is amazing.”
They even had a middle finger statue that Puffer had picked up from a yard sale. If a table was rude or antagonistic toward the staff, he’d walk over to them with the finger. “Congratulations,” he’d say, handing it over. “You’ve won asshole of the night.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
The point is, they were ready to laugh (and not take shit from anyone). When someone wrote a review of Herb & Wood and called it Weed & Boners, they both had a laugh. It’s one of the keys to longevity.
Along with the fun and deliciousness, they’ve also served as a culinary talent incubator for San Diego. “It’s like a centrifuge,” says Johnson about Herb & Wood. “They train up all these young chefs and start spinning all this talent into different parts of the city.”
There’s Sebastian Becerra with Pepino, Samantha Bird of Relic Bakery, Aidan Owens at Herb & Sea, and Tara Monsod of Animae and Le Coq (San Diego’s first James Beard award finalist) to name a few. “They’ve expanded the footprint of the food revolution in San Diego,” says Johnson.
Their plans for the next 10 years?
“We’re just going to keep the magic going,” says Malarkey.
San Diego is just out here minding its own business. It’s long been cast as Los Angeles’s less ambitious sibling—the chill one, the one who shows up late for dinner reservations in flip-flops with a few provocative opinions. Architecturally it’s often cast the same: secondary, derivative, a footnote to California modernism that seems to begin and end with the Stahl House (Case Study House #22). LA has Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, John Lautner. San Diego has the original fish taco.
But this version of the story is redacted, metaphorically speaking.
While the jazz hands of Hollywood and its hills cast a spell on historians and architecture buffs, San Diego had, and has, its own quiet evolution: It invented and reinvented itself through homegrown modernism, beginning with The Allen House (1907) in Bonita by Irving J. Gill.
“The biggest misconception is that San Diego was following Los Angeles,” says Keith York of Modern San Diego, one of the city’s top guides to modernist architecture. “Those who consider Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra as the fathers of Southern California Modernism often fail to recognize the outsize influence Gill and his buildings had on their work.”
Courtesy of Keith York
A new book, The Distinct Modernism of San Diego—written by Mark Hargreaves and Hallie Swenson, published by York—focuses on eight architects who were born, raised, or built their careers in San Diego. It illustrates how the city wasn’t hosting weekend warrior architects on side quests. It was a staging ground for a less look-at-me modernism from luminaries like Gill, Lilian J. Rice, Richard Requa, Lloyd Ruocco, Frederick Liebhardt, Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, Sim Bruce Richards, and Cliff May.
“Absent the backstabbing competition for projects, a collegial group of architectural peers collaborated and maintained lasting friendships with one another as they designed in response to the temperate climate and slower economy,” York says.
Largely unknown until the mid-1960s, Gill is a marquee name today. He arrived here from the East Coast at a moment when San Diego was still defining itself, which gave him the freedom to invent something new, experiment, rebel.
Instead of imposing the flourishes and frills of the time, he considered San Diego’s climate, light, landscape, history—the joie de vivre—and designed for this place. “[Architects of the west] must have the courage to fling aside every device that distracts the eye from structural beauty, must break through convention and get down to fundamental truths,” he once said, a sentiment that nails the un-ornate, total lack of pretension that’s defined San Diego people and culture.
And, lo, did Gill fling: His flat roofs, clean lines, and almost no ornamentation—though not necessarily modernism in the Eames or Eichler sense—foreshadowed what would later be called minimalism. Gill eventually became synonymous with the Los Angeles narrative, but broader architectural histories overlook the fact that his most progressive designs happened here.
Courtesy of Keith York
Another key to San Diego’s architectural movement was Lilian J. Rice, who often worked behind the scenes with little credit. She was one of only about 10 women in America licensed as architects at the time. Even though she died from cancer at 43, she somehow managed to complete an estimated 170 projects in the region, many in Rancho Santa Fe.
Born and raised in National City, Rice also wasn’t importing ideas. She shaped her own based on her understanding of this region and her commitment to protect the natural environment. Her work has been categorized as Spanish Colonial Revival, but she wasn’t reviving as much as she was refining a style suited to our border region—serene, mirroring nature, beautiful.
Like Sim Bruce Richards, who was his own way of life. While Gill stripped away ornamentation and Rice focused on the peace of open spaces, Richards came along several decades later and went full emo. By then, modernism had grown deep roots; its steel-and-glass structures took themselves very seriously. Richards came to party.
Photo Credit: Ollie Patterson
An eccentric, unpredictable man with half a face (part of his jaw was removed following a bone infection when he was a child), his life was a jalopy of adventures. He was opinionated and passionate about design, music, texture—and he created what he called a “sensuous environment.” He wanted his clients and their guests to feel the spaces as much as to be in them, appealing to the visual, tactile, nasal (“a cedar house smells good”), auditory (“acoustically superior”), even taste. “Though, I‘ve never had a client lick my houses,” he once wrote.
Organic, woodsy, textured, aromatic—if you ever find yourself in a Sim Bruce Richards house, a licking impulse might not seem so outrageous.
Gill, Rice, Richards and the other architects in Distinct Modernism built a legacy in San Diego that resonates nationally. And the work of these heavy hitters isn’t stuck in an inaccessible collectors realm: This October, homes by Kellogg and Liebhardt will open to the public as part of the La Jolla Modernism Home Tour—an opportunity to experience it not as a museum relic or magazine image (ahem), but as something alive.
Modernism in San Diego was never about glamour or an intention to be iconic. What transpired here is more nuanced, more ingrained with a less shouty aesthetic. A very San Diego aesthetic.
Dive into the unexpected this weekend, where curated meals, experimental performances and behind-the-scenes experiences await. Foodies are invited to the first 2026 gathering of The Blank Table as well as Chef Onyi’s seasonal Rooted dinner at Millport. Broaden your artistic horizons with Project [BLANK]’s Working Title No. 5, or check out the genre-bending musical lineups at Seek Fest or Fiesta Del Sol. As an added bonus, The Rosin Box Project is pulling back the curtain and opening a trio of after-hours rehearsals to the public ahead of its new Incubator Lab show.
San Diego may be a craft beer capital, but it’s also home to a diverse array of wineries. During the San Diego County Vintners Association’s annual San Diego Wine Week, oenophiles can sample several of the best pours the region has to offer. The centerpiece event, Sunday’s all-inclusive SDCVA Wine Festival from 3-6 p.m., will feature over 20 local wineries at Bernardo Winery; general admission is $90. Additional Wine Week events include Vintners Table at Cordiano Winery (Thursday), San Diego Wine Country at the Bay at Mission Beach Women’s Club (Thursday) and the Seedling Soiree at Olivewood Gardens (Saturday).
Citywide
The Blank Table
May 28
The Blank Table series is an exercise in local culinary creativity, innovation and collaboration with the most secret of ingredients readily available: the element of surprise. On six Thursdays from May-October—with year seven of the series beginning this Thursday at 6 p.m.—60 patrons will be served a unique menu with five set courses, each with curated cocktail pairings. And to keep the air of mystery alive, the dinner location and menu will not be disclosed until 24 hours ahead of time. Tickets are $275 for Thursday’s dinner and a season pass for all six monthly dinners is $1,402; a portion of event proceeds will be donated to Feeding San Diego.
Surprise Location
Rooted: A Dinner Experience by Chef Onyi at Millport
May 30
Chef Onyinyechukwu Akpa welcomes food lovers to try a seasonal spread, dually inspired by her mastery of West African flavors and California’s seasonal ingredients, during the second edition of Rooted: A Dinner Experience at Millport. This Saturday from 6-9 p.m., chef Onyi will serve a five-course tasting menu, with dishes such as slow roasted beef, plantain upside down cake and akara, Nigerian black-eyed pea fritters. The meal will be entirely gluten-free, with vegan accommodations also available. Tickets are $115 and can be purchased here.
775 13th Street, Imperial Beach
Bridgerton & Blooms High Tea at Estancia La Jolla
May 31
Dearest reader, Estanica La Jolla opens up its grounds once a month for its outdoor Tea in the Garden series, and you’re in luck, because this month’s tea time is inspired by the enchanted English setting of Bridgerton. During the Bridgerton & Blooms High Tea this Sunday from noon to 3 p.m., guests can savor an afternoon worthy of the ton, complete with floral accoutrements, custom teas, cocktails, finger foods and enough sweets treats for Lady Whistledown to write home about. Tickets are $82.
9700 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla
Courtesy of Fiesta Del Sol
Concerts & Festivals in San Diego This Weekend
Juvenile with the 400 Degreez Band at House of Blues San Diego
May 29
Over the years, Juvenile has more than proven himself as an all-time emcee, with his breakout 1998 album 400 Degreez still a defining example of the South’s hip-hop brilliance. This Friday at 7 p.m. at House of Blues San Diego, Juvenile will play hits like “Slow Motion” and “Back That Azz Up,” along with selections from Boiling Point, his first album in 12 years. Plus, he’ll be joined by the sensational 400 Degreez Band, and as anyone who’s seen his NPR Tiny Desk performance already knows, Juvenile with a live ensemble is a match made in music heaven. Tickets start at $55 for this concert.
1055 Fifth Avenue, Gaslamp
Kuumba Fest
May 30
Kuumba Fest returns this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the theme of “Black 2 Mind, Spirit & Body” for its 34th annual iteration. This free community festival, organized in support of the city’s Black Arts + Culture District, will feature DJs, dancing, spoken word, musical performances and an African marketplace with food, apparel, health resources and more. Then from 6-8 p.m. at the Elementary Institute of Science, the festival will conclude with a screening of the documentary American Curl followed by a Q&A panel with the film’s producers.
Ryan Hardison is a freelance arts and entertainment writer and recent graduate of San Diego State. When he's not staring at his laptop, he's likely eating an adobada burrito or getting sunburnt at the beach.
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