Wrack & Roll

There’s a famous video.

“This is insane!” the guy filming it seems to proclaim. “It’s the best fireworks show ever!” a companion confirms, inspiring a debate lasting over a decade.

All told, 7,000 fireworks exploded in the span of 25 seconds over San Diego Bay on July 4, 2012. A Michael Bay amount of unison. $125,000 worth of shells, cakes, Roman candles, and skyrockets had been placed on a barge—enough for 17 minutes of decorative sky flares—and…

Boom.

The sky looked like someone had set a giant Rorschach test on fire. Or as if whatever we all see in our Rorschachs—butterflies, clowns, tongue kissing, dads—was being electrocuted and lifted heavenward, amen. It was shocking how bright it was, how much it sizzled the local cosmos. Could’ve been one of those sci-fi films where a hole is ripped open between warring universes. But angstier, more metal—the work of some methy creator in a sleeveless concert tee.

The sound?

Lou Reed once released an entire album that contained 64 minutes of mindflaying guitar screeches and machine noises. No regular songs, just a fascinating amount of ear distress. His record label reps no doubt heard the melodic outro of their careers, but everyone else was in pain and stumped. That album still sounded better than the bay did that night. The bay sounded like a god who struggled with emotional regulation had blown his speakers and was working through the anger stage of AV grief.

In the left frame of the video, a middle-aged woman is attempting to drag her husband off by the hand. In no way does he want to go, possibly because he had missed the time Roseanne Barr sung the national anthem at a Padres game, simultaneously disemboweling and amusing America through the power of song. He would not willingly abandon an equally worthy San Diego trainwreck.

Another woman in the video appears to have just filled her beer, rushing to sit down for the show. She pauses mid-sit and returns to the full and upright position to properly bear witness. What was supposed to be prolonged entertainment has been so radically shortened that she will have to find another reason to drink. Lucky for her, drinking will be the only way to adequately process.

Locals remember the conspiracy theories. People wondered if the fuses had been tripped by a saboteur who was sympathetic to dogs, fish, or the growing suspicion that late-stage capitalism is a gorgeously branded but impossible dream sustained by remarkably efficient top-tier wealth retention and the soft compliance of fireworks-watchers who can no longer afford a house, a beer, or the personal impacts of human reproduction.

Speaking of being terrified of babies, babies were terrified. The children who witnessed it probably still can’t go near a candle store. But those kids will be tougher, perfectly scarred kids. They’ll write better songs.

That night helped us absolutely dominate the national news cycle. For a hot minute, we became America’s water-skiing squirrel. Now, years later, when you Google “fireworks gone wrong,” San Diego is always a top contender, along with that poor Nebraska family who nearly wiped out a couple generations in their front yard, their minivan somehow turning into a howitzer of recreational TNT.

There is still debate as to whether Big Bay Boom 2012 is the worst or greatest fireworks show of all time. But the advanced parts of civilization arrived at the truth as quickly as the women in the video did. It was undeniably amazing.

First of all, the point of Fourth of July fireworks isn’t “the intricate choreography of sky fire over a guaranteed amount of show time.” It’s about creating a vivid memory shared with some people you like, love, or would like to love.

BBB2012 used large-scale chemical fire to create the ultimate memory.

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Sure, some people who iron their jeans subjected their family to a sermon about how San Diego managed to botch America’s birthday like a Disney princess-for-hire who smelled of quite a few Sauvignons.

The rest of us saw how perfectly it nailed the actual feeling of being an American. Because only a miniscule percentage of us bake postcard apple pies where every inch of crust is perfectly laminated like the wood in an Irish bar. Very few of us can paint on par with Picasso. The rest of us—despite truly believing in our America-activated abilities to achieve greatness in almost any field of our choosing—burn pies. We try to paint only to realize it looks like our fine motor skills have entered active death.

That’s why BBB2012 was the most perfectly American fireworks show ever: A wildly ambitious idea galvanized thousands upon thousands of people to both work on it and come to hold a beer and gawk at it, only to have it fail in the most glorious TMZ-level spectacle.

America isn’t about immaculate, storyless wins. It’s about how the framework of a country is solid enough that we can accidentally detonate our entire lives—a few times—and still probably be OK.

No one has America’d quite like San Diego did on that day. It was performance art. Lou Reed’s heart slow-clapped. Any brief municipal embarrassment quickly became a pride of our people. I can only hope the same for the Nebraskan yard family whose Dodge Aerostar became a hyperactive Death Star.

P.S. Local writer Maya Kroth compiled a quite great oral history of that night for Thrillist. The bottom lines for me were—it took nine months to prepare, no one was hurt, and even though the pyrotechnics company tried to zero out the bill, Big Bay Boom founder H. P. “Sandy” Purdon refused and paid them in full. This year will mark the 25th Anniversary of the yearly Big Bay Boom.

Comebacks Are the New Kickoffs

If absence makes hearts (and stomachs) grow fonder, then shuttered restaurants quickly become the hottest tickets in town—something a number of iconic institutions found out after taking very public hiatuses after historically long runs. For instance, following a lengthy (and extremely flip-floppy) closing process after 92 years in business, Las Cuatro Milpas reopened two blocks away in Mercado del Barrio. Similarly, Carlsbad butcher shop Tip Top Meats reopened in the same location (albeit a smaller space) after the death of founder Joachim “Big John” Haedrich in 2023. Finally, after a whopping decade out of business, Sami Ladeki and chef Alfie Szeprethy brought back Roppongi to its original Prospect Street space, where it was the talk of the town in the late ’90s. All came back under the same proprietors, so they weren’t third-party nostalgia-licensing deals. The algorithm may have ravaged our attention spans away from all but the newest and shiniest, but this proves there’s still hope for our collective prefrontal cortex.

New Generations Take the Reins

Other local eateries honored their pasts by bringing in new perspectives. The Lion’s Share in Embarcadero, Milton’s Deli in Del Mar, Dudley’s Bakery in Santa Ysabel, and J-K’s Greek Cafe in La Mesa handed over the keys to new owners willing to take on a big task: maintain the soul of icons through particularly rough economic circumstances for restaurants, navigate big feelings from longtime regulars (who often don’t take kindly to change), and make some necessary changes to keep going for another few decades. Taking over a project in process can be a lot harder than starting from scratch. But building that feel-good nostalgia doesn’t happen overnight, so it sure helps to have a well-established playbook of success passed down from those who came before.

The Expansion Class Arrives

It wasn’t just restaurant groups from Los Angeles that decided to put down roots en masse, although San Diego saw plenty of LA transplants recently (Sugarfish, Mr. Charlie’s, For the Win, Katsuya Ko, Bacari). Global brands like Chef Fei, Zuma, and Pepper Lunch have locations of their own on the way, and upscale Canadian eatery Joey joined to the inescapable gravitational pull of Westfield UTC’s culinary cosmos for its first spot in America’s Finest City. Good to see the rest of the world is catching up with what we’ve been seeing the last few years—San Diego is a dining destination already on the rise.

Choosing To Not Choose

Between the never-ending news cycle of doom and perimenopause brain fog, I’m at the stage in life where I’m more than happy to let someone else make a decision for me, especially when it comes to what’s for dinner. And based on the way a lot of menus look right now, I’m not alone. It seems like half the places I visit offer some version of a prix fixe, omakase, or tasting menu. Restaurants are embracing the curated experience to solve the problem of affordability (a fixed menu reduces food and labor costs, guarantees an acceptable check average, etc.) and critical thinking in one fell swoop. Omakase (meaning “I leave it up to you”) is far from a new concept in high-end Japanese sushi culture, but now that it’s popping up everywhere from coffee experiences to grab-and-go sushi and sandwiches, it’s gone from somewhat niche to nearly omnipresent.

Local Coffee Hit the World Stage

The world got an up-close look at San Diego’s coffee industry when we hosted the premier specialty coffee expo World of Coffee for the first time this April. San Diego’s long and rich coffee history stretches back to the late 19th century. Things percolated fairly quietly for around a century before really picking up steam. Today, there are nearly 200 specialty roasters and cafes across the county, with many earning national accolades like the Good Food Award (Steady State Roasting, 2020; Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, 2023, 2021, 2019, 2017, 2016), Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine (Mostra Coffee, 2020; Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, 2012), and the Specialty Coffee Association Coffee Design Award for packaging (Rikka Fika, 2026). Now that we’ve moved past the comically insufferable coffee snob era of the early 2000s, even java newbies can feel comfortable walking into pretty much any coffee shop in San Diego, asking questions, trying a few things, and feeling confident they’re going to get great service and a great beverage.

Summer has officially kicked off, and San Diego is celebrating the sunny season with a myriad of fun events. From San Diego Pride week and a fairytale performance at Civic Theatre to a Santigold concert and Comic-Con, there are dozens of opportunities to make memories worth adding to your scrapbook. Here are all the best things to do in San Diego this July:

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

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Concerts & Festivals in San Diego This Month

3

Divine inspirations, operatic ballads, and symphonic pop production elevate Rosalía’s Lux to heavenly levels. Hear angelic vocals ascend—in up to 13 languages—during her performance at Pechanga Arena.

15

Enjoy a night of feel-good indie rock and sing-along anthems at the Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre courtesy of Young the Giant and special guest Cold War Kids.

29

Santigold collects genres like gold stars: musical accouterments that brighten her uniquely alternative sound. See her live in concert with dancehall producer Troy Baker Sound at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay.

Theater & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Month

7–12

Be the Civic Theatre’s guest for “Beauty and the Beast” and discover that a fairytale love sometimes lies beneath the surface.

10–12

Two male government workers pursue a secret romance amid the Lavender Scare in the San Diego Opera’s production of “Fellow Travelers” at the Balboa Theatre.

7/11–8/1

The deep blue sea is home to countless ecological treasures, including the remarkable marine organisms documented by Oriana Poindexter. Study her educational and experimental imagery at The Photographer’s Eye via Field Notes.

7/11–1/10/27

Audrey Hepburn. Marlon Brando. Salvador Dalí. What do these icons have in common? Each was the enigmatic focus of a Cecil Beaton portrait. Step inside Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, an alluring showcase of 20th-century style at San Diego Museum of Art.

More Fun Things to Do in San Diego This Month

1

The Little Italy Mercato will trade morning rays for golden-hour glow through its free Summer Sera, an expansion of the neighborhood’s farmers market with live music, artisanal finds, and a fetching amount of pet activities.

11–19

San Diego Pride week starts with a Dyke March and ends with the two-day “Pride Shines On” festival. The days in between? Run a 5K, march in the parade, visit the rainbow-lit St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, and more.

19

Dress up for a Mediterranean-themed tea time at the Estancia La Jolla, a laid-back yet refined afternoon planned for the resort’s monthly Tea in the Garden series.

23–26

Nerd culture’s biggest gathering returns to the Convention Center. San Diego Comic-Con welcomes fans of everything from comic book cinema to ultra-rare collectibles for panels, exhibits, sneak peeks, and much more.

You may not know his name, but if you were one of the millions of people who traveled in and out of Terminal 2 at San Diego International Airport in 2024, you’ve seen his work. David Mont Virgen was born and raised in Tijuana. He earned a degree in international business and studied interior design in Madrid. In early 2020 during the global pandemic, he made one of life’s impactful pivots and decided to pursue art full time. 

David works between San Diego and Tijuana, in the cross-border corridor that is, depending on who you ask, either one of the most complicated places to build a life or one of the most generative creative regions in the country. He makes minimalist work—paintings, sculpture, objects. To do minimalism well, you have to be very good, because there is nowhere to hide. That airport piece? It’s officially entered the permanent collection of the San Diego Museum of Art. David is very good.

While his work was gaining real traction in San Diego, his marriage ended. When that relationship dissolved, the legal and physical ground beneath his feet shook: The future of his citizenship was now in limbo. David looked at his options and chose yet another life pivot.  

An accomplished working artist with a piece in a museum’s permanent collection enlisted in the U.S. Army, at a time when this country is at war. David describes this period of his life with grace, as “…an opportunity to choose myself and move forward with greater clarity and intention. For the love of self.” 

That phrase, “For the Love of Self,” became the title of his show, which opened at the Guild Hotel in January 2026 with support from Oram Hotels and the Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego. Jennifer Findley of JFin Collective led the curation. Within weeks of the show’s debut, David shipped off to train with the army. It would be easy to read his enlistment as purely practical, and citizenship was part of his calculus, but he is precise about his reasons: He wants to continue building a future in this country and building a future for this country. Because service, he says, feels connected to art. “Both are rooted in the belief that we are responsible for contributing something larger than ourselves.”

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David is one creator out of many whose story hasn’t yet been told, but whose path reflects the world we live in. The truth he represents is that the artists in this city are creating under increasingly challenging constraints even as their work actively shapes the world we move through—the places we gather, the neighborhoods we love and live in—whether we know their names or not. 

It’s time their stories are told.

This fall, we’ll be publishing an ambitious arts and culture issue made possible by the support of two organizations who are underwriting an expanded freelance budget with one question at its center: Who makes San Diego, San Diego? 

The Art & Design District—a Prebys-supported initiative to develop and shape a dedicated area of the city for creative work, led by Jonathan Glus—has joined as co-publisher of our September issue. SDFC Playmakers led by Sebastian Morúa, the MLS team’s program dedicated to showcasing San Diego’s creative community, has also joined as digital co-publisher for the next six months. 

With their support, our freelance budget has tripled. In the spirit of radical transparency, and because our readers deserve to know how our work is funded, our typical monthly print freelance budget is about $6,000. That supports writing, photography, and design across more than 100 pages. Our monthly digital budget is $2,500. 

With the support of our co-publishers, we’ve brought on Aaryn Belfer, one of San Diego’s most respected editorial voices, as the issue’s special editor. Alongside Troy Johnson, content chief; and Emma Veidt, editor; she is helping shape the editorial vision of the issue.

With an expanded team, we’ll soon bring on a digital producer and an additional art designer. We’ll produce an expansive portrait of the artists, makers, performers, and institutions defining this region’s creative life, commission original photography, and create a comprehensive fall arts and culture calendar. The issue will anchor a six-month editorial program that will extend across digital, social media, video, podcast, and newsletters through early next year.

We have been doing this for 78 years, and we have learned how to do it well with limited resources. But the conversation happening in San Diego right now—about the role arts and culture play in shaping a city and the role a city plays in shaping arts and culture—is one that demands more than what our standard monthly budget can produce. Until now. 

This partnership model is new to us but the challenges that precede it are not new to media, particularly on the local level. And yet, this collaboration serves as real proof that civic organizations and local media can work together to document and preserve the story of a place and the people who make it, for the record.

David told me that San Diego gave him a sense of belonging. That he felt supported and encouraged to keep growing. Not because life got easier, but because he learned to trust himself through uncertainty.

Today, he’s somewhere in basic training. But he is still an artist and he will keep making work. The artists in this city are almost never just one thing. They are painters and soldiers, sculptors and teachers, dancers and mathematicians. David is a minimalist artist and a U.S. Army recruit. He is Tijuana and San Diego. He is, in the most literal sense, still becoming.

A great city knows its makers. I want San Diego to be that city. 

September is on newsstands soon.

Food is a notorious diva to photograph. The wrong lighting can make José Andrés’ paella look like a jaundiced grain bowl. You could be staring at the best sandwich of your life, but shoot it from above and—hey, congrats on that abandoned piece of lettuce bread. A cottage meme industry has been built around the hilariously bad photos on review sites that make Michelin-star food look like Michelin tires.

Especially in a visual modern media world, food culture depends on great photographers capturing the painstaking work in equally deserving ways. We asked four of San Diego’s top food photographers for their favorite shot from another year of documenting what we eat.

Kimberly Motos

Birdman Sandwich at Chick & Hawk

Getting this kind of shot takes a bit of yoga. Asana yourself into the corner, hold your breath, pray that a chef on the move doesn’t back into your light stand.

“You’re stepping into someone’s workspace during their busiest moments, so it’s a balance of being present to get the shot and being invisible to not slow anything down,” Kimberly Motos says.

The subject here is the Birdman sandwich from Chick & Hawk—hot fried chicken thigh, tangy slaw, kimchi comeback sauce, sweet and spicy pickles, potato brioche bun—getting a hearty dousing of its difference-maker seasoning. Motos captures the parts of the process that diners don’t usually see: the chaos behind something that looks so simple.

Lucianna McIntosh

Oysters + Jewel of the Sea Martini at The Fishery

“I love this image because it feels like a moment you want to step into,” says Lucianna McIntosh. A warm, sunny day at The Fishery in PB with oysters, caviar, and martinis. Yes, please.

The little details—the glass sweating a little, the direct afternoon light creating stark shadows, the oyster glistening on the tray—are the main characters. Instead of trying to overly control the setup, McIntosh “followed the light and lines that draw you in more,” she says. “This was one of those moments where everything lined up on its own for a second. I love it when the shadows end up being just as important as the food itself.”

Eric Wolfinger

Herb-Roasted Golden Chicken at Fleurette

La Jolla native Eric Wolfinger—who won a James Beard Award for Tartine Bread, one of the most stunning bread books of all time—says he doesn’t have a signature style. His style is a conduit.

“I see my job is to translate the chef’s point of view into something you can feel,” he says.

For this shot, Fleurette chef Travis Swikard had one directive: cuisine du soleil (“cuisine of the sun”). With a spread of leeks vinaigrette, herb-roasted golden chicken, and beets, Wolfinger wanted to create a scene that felt straight out of the French Riviera, relaying the light, bright style of Swikard’s new spot.

Some bonus additions here: Extra lights—to add lots of warmth—and a clipping from an olive tree.

Dee Sandoval

Espresso Ice Cream at Lucien

Timing and light are everything in food photography. In Lucien—La Jolla’s tasting-menu-only restaurant with moody ambiance—a single strobe flash creates the ideal spotlight.

Dee Sandoval says she uses the “natural, just-plated energy” of the dish to “create a portrait of moment and craft.” That’s why this Mostra Ghost Bear espresso ice cream—with San José dark chocolate mousse, soy-miso caramel, and koji shoyu chocolate sauce—looks like it might dissolve halfway to your mouth.