Every year for the Best of San Diego issue, we ask readers to nominate and vote for a San Diego classic restaurant they want food critic Troy Johnson to review. Whichever they vote for, he goes. Last year, they sent him to Rocky’s Crown Pub. This year… Mexican classic, El Indio.
The Perfect Order: Taquitos with Everything | Chicken Tamale | Mordiditas
When you’re credited with inventing the entire concept of the taquito, pretty much every other dish you create is going to pout in that cigar-shaped shadow. Unless you sous vide a couple narwhals, the taquito is gonna dominate your story.
San Diego’s El Indio is widely cited as the global birthplace of the taquito. (Note from our nonexistent legal team: Like any food origin story, it’s contentious—many will tell you a small, rolled taco had been a staple in Mexico for generations; others claim an LA taco stand beat SD to it. But by and large, El Indio has been granted paternity for the word “taquito” and cited as the first in the US to both sell and widely popularize the iconic thing—which happens to fit our narrative nicely, so we’re leaning in.)
So, El Indio’s mordiditas are that almost-famous entourage dish that deserves more applause. Sliced segments of taquito, about the size of pigs in a blanket, are assembled in a heap on a plate and absolutely waterboarded with nacho cheese and pickled jalapeños. They’re essentially loaded taquito nachos, an idea whose glory, in a just world, will outlive us all and echo in Valhalla. They solve a longstanding problem with every single batch of nachos that has been made in humankind—that each and every chip is denied an equitable amount of cheese or load.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Most nachos are built as an altar to American capitalism: The top couple of chips accumulate a vast majority of the cheese and the rest of the chips just keep hearing rumors of a trickle-down until they protest. If our species ever gets cut from the roster of the universe, the fact that we put a man on the moon but could never equally dress our nachos should be examined by our successor species as a possible cause.
El Indio’s taquito rubble comes in a biblical flood of nacho cheese. It’s a snack-bar treat for people whose therapists have listened to their fantasy of placing their open, eagerly receptive mouths beneath the queso pump—albeit with far better taquitos made from scratch.
The dish isn’t gonna knock your socks off, but it’s satisfying in a calorie-gargling way, a celebration of the fact that merely entering a taco shop releases us from acknowledging the physical limits of human arteries. Would El Indio’s mordiditas be better if the cheese was scaled back and partnered with a crema, or if the cheese was lovingly dirtied with chipotle in adobo, or if they came topped with a lawn-sized pile of cilantro and onions and activated charcoal ash from the sacred cenotes of Chichén Itzá? Shut up and eat your naquitos.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
It feels simultaneously excessive and absolutely correct to say El Indio is a San Diego legend and global food icon. In 1940, Ralph Pesqueira Sr. was working in one of the many aerospace headquarters that surrounded Lindbergh Field (the SD International Airport’s original name), building planes and war machines. As a side dream, he started making and selling fresh corn tortillas by hand on the corner of Grape and India Streets.
As with most food success stories, there was a key moment of technological innovation (consider In-N-Out’s invention of the two-way speaker or Pizza Hut introducing online ordering to the pie masses). Around 1945, Pesqueira—who we might call the Thomas Edison of Mexican food—invented San Diego’s first tortilla-making machine. By hand, he could whip up 30 dozen a day; with the machine, he cranked out 30 dozen an hour. A full-fledged tortilla factory was born, the effect of which was massive for putting training wheels on the local Mexican food culture that would boom decades later.
When aero coworkers asked him if he could make a handheld, good-travelin’ food for lunch pails, he thought of flautas (a Mexican staple with global roots—a flour tortilla usually wrapped around meat and rolled into the shape of a flute, then fried).
He did a smaller version with fresh masa corn tortillas. The taquito entered the world. He sold each for 18 cents.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos A slice of El Indio’s storied past.
The invention can’t be overstated. Sure, restaurants like Pujol and Cosme are showing us the cheffy stratospheric possibilities of Mexican cuisine, but the taquito played a huge role in getting us there. They were one of the first Mexican foods to be frozen. By 1976, frozen-food behemoth Van de Kamp was putting truckloads of them in grocery stores across the US. They were eminently affordable and, smaller than burritos, they could be microwaved or baked in a flash for any harried-parent meal situation. Dummies like adolescent me could make these.
With some cheese, sour cream, and guacamole, the San Diego invention was the gateway drug to an entire country discovering the joys of Mexican food. During WWII and the Vietnam War, El Indio sent care packages of taquitos to the front lines, a wartime MRE and meat-filled love letter from San Diego.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Riding high, Pesqueira opened his first restaurant, El Indio, in 1947 at the bottom of Washington Avenue in Middletown, eye-level with planes landing at Lindbergh and within lunch distance of the thousands of factory workers nearby.
These days, that part of the city is teeming with restaurants, and Little Italy, a mile up the road, is San Diego’s foodapalooza. But when El Indio opened, it owned the game. What little Mexican food the city had was mostly concentrated in Old Town (Aztec Kitchen, La Piñata) and Barrio Logan (Las Cuatro Milpas, El Carrito).
The 5, now a half-block away, didn’t even exist (it was finished in 1960), and Little Italy was still mostly sleepy and on the edge of a massive downturn (35 percent of the neighborhood was destroyed in constructing the I-5, and it took decades to rebuild the community and culture). For a huge chunk of San Diegans, El Indio was the first bite of Mexican food.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos The man, the myth, the taquitoist.
Now Middletown is its own modest food and drink destination with Gelato Vero (opened 1984), Saffron Thai (1985), Shakespeare Pub (1990), Blue Water Seafood (2004), Lucha Libre Taco Shop (2008), and The Regal Beagle (2010) all within spitting distance. And, despite quantum leaps in Mexican food quality, El Indio still stands nearly 80 years later, serving what is pretty close to the original taquito recipe. Pesqueira passed it to his son, Ralph Jr., who grew up behind the register. Now it’s run by Ralph Jr.’s daughter, Jennifer Pesqueira.
I’ve learned that the best way to maximize your appreciation for El Indio is to read Yelp before you go. I’ll often skim the review app for hidden tips and tricks and secret menu orders. Once on the app, you encounter the wildest, most emotionally nuclear forms of humanity, just absolutely obliterating family-run restaurants near and far. And you’ll run into this missive a lot: “El Indio is living off its history and has fallen from actual glory, refusing to evolve and keep up with modern Mexican food standards.”
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
To which I’d say, they’re both correct and full of crap. We live in the age of the tweezer taco—heirloom and non-GMO and fire-roasted and microgreened; farmers market arugulas replacing bulk cabbage; Wagyu asadas and Jidori adobos. Those tacos are their own little heavens. I’m glad we got ’em, and it makes sense that they cost more.
But that’s not what you go to El Indio for, nor is it what the restaurant is trying to be. It makes fresh masa tortillas, chips, and taquitos and doesn’t put tuxes on ’em. It’s both basic and affordable. Is El Indio living off its history? Yep, a history earned. Ride that prize stallion until it bucks you off and lies down in a meadow.
Is it refusing to evolve? A little. You have one job when you invented the taquito: Don’t mess with it. But it could extend itself a little at the salsa bar. The world of salsas has hit a magical evolutionary waystation, with so many different peppers and fermented things. El Indio’s salsas are fine but pretty basic. It could be the restaurant’s R&D lab for the future.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos Enchiladas, smothered within an inch of their life.
The taquito? It’s good. Crispy-soft, a straight-shooter. The problem with many taquitos is that their makers confuse it with a tortilla chip, making it all crunch. El Indio knows better. The best is the potato-filled taquito. Like you lightly fried a Thanksgiving side dish.
The biggest shine at El Indio may be the tamales. The masa has real flavor, corny and distinctive. And the kitchen stuffs it with generous amounts of beef, chicken, or cheese. A lot of tamales only give you a sliver of meat, so it’s like two burger buns with a single piece of prosciutto in the middle. El Indio knows tamal balance. The chicken tostada is also a winner. The entire table will devour it.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos For people who come from the double-thick tortilla chip lineage, El Indio chips are fresh-made, sturdy, famous beasts.
I know it’s famous for its chips, but its chip is not my chip. The kitchen team is of the double-thick clan, so it takes some jaw muscle and resolve to bite through their chips, like you’re eating deep-fried pig ears. I’m of the thin-chip people—I prefer a lighter bite and maybe even just the tiniest bit of softness in the center.
El Indio is exactly what it has always been and always probably will be: a historical landmark taco shop that makes the most important thing—the tortilla—from scratch. It has less than zero interest in winning a James Beard Award.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos The garden patio in search of a garden.
My only serious qualm with El Indio is that there’s absolutely no garden on its “garden patio.” Have you ever been to a friend’s house where the backyard has the military-grade steel screen door? And that leads into a lot of concrete and a “garden” of white rocks? This isn’t as bad as that, but it’s not too far off. No living flowers or shrubs. Just a few fake flowers. Few things are as depressing as fake flowers. You took a living, breathing, lovely pillar of all life on earth and turned it into a microplastic that is slowly making its way into our DNA and transforming us into a dollar store from the inside out.
I get it—few things except hope are tougher to keep alive than flowers and plants. And I don’t want El Indio to go the Instagram plant-wall route with a neon sign spelling out some life-coach phrase. But the only living things we see are an older couple who look like they’ve finally smuggled enough drugs out of Miami on their sailboat to just kind of float to beach towns and eat taquitos.
Imagine if El Indio could somehow build a garden taquito oasis. It would be wondrous, an attraction. But that feels like too much to ask. Someone call Robert Irvine.
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.
On February 28, 1926, the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego (now called the San Diego Museum of Art) opened its Plateresque doors to 3,000 guests for opening day. Over the next century, the museum changed with the times—even once functioning as a naval hospital after Pearl Harbor. This year, the museum is celebrating its 100th birthday with an exhibit (open through January 24, 2027) featuring photographs, ephemera, and film footage spanning the museum’s history.
Courtesy of Tim Novara
Free Concerts at Spreckels Organ Pavilion
Every Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m., stop by the historic Spreckels Organ Pavilion for a free concert presented by the City of San Diego on the largest outdoor organ in the world (more than 5,000 pipes). The pavilion seats 2,400 for performances by the civic organist or guest artists.
Some think natural history museums are just cemeteries for dioramas that haven’t received an update since the Reagan administration. When it comes to The Nat, which just finished a $7.5 million rejuvenation, they’re totally wrong. The museum debuted a new rooftop that replaces its 25-year-old atrium. The old roof created a greenhouse effect that steamed up some exhibits, so the new one—which includes 200 solar panels and better temperature control—will help preserve the artifacts inside. Each Friday in the summer, The Nat also becomes one of the season’s vibiest hotspots during Nat at Night, with food from places like Wolf in the Woods and The Craft Taco, bars and signature cocktails on several floors, and a rooftop DJ.
Fleet Science Theater Remodel
The Fleet Science Center just received its most significant update since the 1990s. It expanded its exhibit space by 20 percent and introduced a newly designed entrance gallery (formerly the IMAX theater lobby) that includes free exhibits for visitors who want a taste of the science without paying an admission fee. The former ticketing area now houses the Mindbender Mansion exhibit, and there’s a new café, Element 8, that will, of course, sell the center’s famous soft serve.
September is San Diego’s unofficial second summer—the crowds thin, the weather stays warm, and the city’s calendar somehow gets even busier. This month brings stadium-sized rock shows, Broadway’s buzziest comedy, a new anime convention, world-premiere theater, gallery openings, food festivals, and the first signs of spooky season. Whether you’re ready to lean into fall or determined to keep summer going, here are the best things to do in San Diego this September.
As Guns N’ Roses storm into decade five, their appetite for destruction persists. During their Snapdragon Stadium concert, hear the hard rock anthems, new material and a set from The Black Crowes.
9/23
Kehlani is proof that the romance and earnest sensuality of old-school R&B will never go out of style. Hear her take it back to the aughts at Viejas Arena.
From the silver screen to The Old Globe stage, John Carney will Begin Again (again) with a world premiere musical adaptation featuring new songs—courtesy of Train—and a story overflowing with hope.
9/12-10/17
The concept of work is a guiding principle for San Diego native and multidisciplinary creative noé olivas. Observe his community-informed approach via Tierra y Cielo (Earth and Sky) at Best Practice Gallery.
9/18-10/25
Two workers grapple with the weight of their roles at a temporary migrant shelter in Mario Vega’s world premiere play Our Lady of the San Diego Convention Center, set for citywide performances.
9/26-2/28/2027
Luminous visions of peace and the Punjabi-American roots of Rupinder Kaloti inform The Gathering, a wondrous unification of family foretold via paintings at Oceanside Museum of Art.
9/29-10/4
It’s Mary Todd Lincoln’s world and we’re just living in it. See the presidential paramour barrel to her way to stardom at the Civic Theatre during Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s political spoof.
Courtesy of SeaWorld
More Fun Things to Do in San Diego This Month
9/5 & 9/6
Pros and Con(vention)s: Anime San Diego will debut at the San Diego Convention Center with cosplayers, panels and more than 400 vendors well-versed in Japanese animation.
9/11-10/31
Scaredy cats beware: SeaWorld San Diego’s Howl-O-Scream embraces frights forged in darkness. Enjoy an ominous lineup of live shows, scare zones and bloody bars ahead of Halloween.
9/12
The best parts of Artivál and the Alley Cat Art Walk have united for the free Alley Cat Art Fest, an all-day outing for live music and immersive artwork in Downtown El Cajon.
9/12 & 9/13
Take a Grecian vacation for a fraction of the price during the annual Cardiff Greek Festival, two days of immersive cuisine and culture—with plenty of dancing—on the Encinitas coast.
9/13-9/20
Step away from the stove! The California Restaurant Association has eight days of eating experiences with your name on it. During San Diego Restaurant Week, explore by meal, neighborhood or cuisine for your personal dining plan.
9/16
Nourish yourself with an all-inclusive spread of Pacific Beach eats and locally-crafted artwork during the HeArt of PB Restaurant Walk on Garnet Avenue.
9/19
When it comes to stand-up comedy, Chelsea Handler is always ready to roast. See Handler tell anecdotes and skewer an assemblage of victims during her Balboa Theatre performance.
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.
After running El Agave Restaurant & Tequileria in Old Town for 30 years and opening Nómade Tapas & Records in North Park in 2025, owner Juan Carlos Gomez wasn’t actively on the hunt for a new project. But sometimes, you have to grab the opportunities as they come, unexpected though they may be.
He was taking a stroll in Bankers Hill last year when he noticed Barrio Star was closing after 17 years. “[It] was a neighborhood staple for a long time,” he says. So he figured he’d take a look. “We were talking with ownership and threw out an offer, and then it was accepted. So we were like, ‘Okay, cool, guess we’re going to get a new concept going!” (Much respect to the YOLO business style.)
That new restaurant is nearing completion. Filo will open early in September. The restaurant’s name, pronounced fie-low, references phyllo, the Greek word for “leaf” and an unleavened pastry dough commonly used in Mediterranean (often Greek) cuisines. Gomez says the menu will range from all over the Mediterranean region.
“I’ve always been a fan of European cuisine, obviously, but I can’t land on just one,” he laughs. “I’m part Spanish, so we wanted to do something Mediterranean, have a little bit of Spanish, have a little bit of French, Italian, Greek… a lot of olive oil, a lot of sea salt, and very, very light seasoning.”
Courtesy of Juan Carlos Gomez
Although the menu feels European, Gomez says expect the vibe and ingredients to feel very Southern Californian. There will be tapas, of course, and other small plates, along with housemade pastas, salads, with lots of seafood (like a whole branzino) coming from local purveyors. The accompanying beverage program will feel equally breezy, “fresh, very light, citrusy, salty,” he says. “We’re going to have a pretty hefty wine list and full bar.”
Gomez’s goal for Filo is for it to feel like a laid-back, seaside eatery on the craggy Mediterranean coastline—light colors, white oak, lime wash, flowing between the indoor dining room and outdoor patio. Personally, a European escape sounds pretty awesome right about now.
Filo opens at 2706 Fifth Avenue in early September. Initial operating hours are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with lunch and happy hour coming soon. (Subject to change.)
Courtesy of Nobu Del Coronado
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
It’s hotter than a mile of Georgia asphalt in July, but relief is on the horizon. No, I don’t mean autumn (or as we San Diegans call it, “second summer”). I’m talking about the Sails & Ales Beer Fest at Kona Kai San Diego. The annual brew fest takes place on Saturday, September 12 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Polynesian-themed Shelter Island resort, with over 30 local beverage makers bringing their most refreshing products to the hot and thirsty masses. Look for names like Pure Project, Coronado Brewing, Ketch Brewing, and a whole lot more, all of whom are donating a portion of the proceeds to Surfrider Foundation San Diego. Tasty waves? A cool buzz? Sounds just fine.
If you seek edible respite before September 12, Hotel del Coronado has you covered. On Friday, September 11 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the man behind global sushi powerhouse Nobu—Chef Nobu Matsuhisa himself—will host Taste of Nobu, an immersive evening of sushi and signature cocktails on the Paseo Lawn. Prepare yourself for the famous black cod miso, Wagyu dumplings, hand rolls galore, and much more. (Personally, I will also prepare myself to be somewhat star-struck.)
I love a group grilling get-together, something Kingfisher must have known when the Golden Hill restaurant launched its Nướng Nights series. The recurring patio grill event brings patrons to the curb with a casual, but ridiculously delicious collection of skewers alongside special cocktails, this month coming from Realm of the 52 Remedies. Keep August 26 open for grilling glory (and save September 29 for the Mid-Autumn dinner with chef Helen Nguyen of NYC’s Saigon Social).
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Kelly H. Harfouche, founder of KQ Aesthetic Society, knows firsthand that cosmetic treatments like fillers, neurotoxins, and microneedling, can not only enhance a person’s appearance and restore confidence, they have the power to truly change a person’s life. An expert injector has the ability to tailor treatments to each individual patient’s anatomy and goals for personalized results. Harfouche, a board-certified nurse practitioner, has spent nearly a decade perfecting her craft as an aesthetic injector and integrating her multifaceted artistic skills with precision patient care. Her commitment to continual education and training, plus a passion for helping people look—and feel—their best, set KQ Aesthetic Society apart in a sea of local medspas.
For many people considering nonsurgical treatments, the intent is to look refreshed and refined. KQ Aesthetic Society’s philosophy eschews a cookie cutter approach that bases treatments around units, instead working to understand each person’s unique goals, then curating a treatment plan to fit that vision. Harfouche focuses on “inclusive luxury,” the belief that everyone deserves access to aesthetic treatments, respective of budget restrictions. She develops long-standing trusted relationships with her patients, and works with each one to achieve their aesthetic objectives and address the underlying causes of their concerns.
“For me, forming an honest and open relationship with every patient who walks through the door is essential. This means understanding them on a deeper level and meeting them where they are to define and achieve their individual goals,” she says.
Drawing on her artistic background, which inspired her transition into medical aesthetics, Harfouche sees each client as a “unique canvas.” Rather than relying on standardized procedures, the practitioner’s distinctive approach combines her profound understanding of the physiological and anatomical changes associated with aging with an unwavering commitment to ongoing education about the newest products and their mechanisms of action. Her goal is to make each patient feel beautiful in their own skin and to embrace their individuality.
She has also pioneered a way to combine her talent for aesthetic artistry with her philanthropic nature. Harfouche is one of only a handful of providers using dermal fillers to treat patients with lip asymmetry and scarring resulting from cleft lip surgery. Patients travel from around the country for this transformative treatment, noting increased confidence and a restored identity. She hopes to eventually launch a training program to help fill the void in this space.
“My passion has always been connecting with people and giving back in any capacity that I can,” she says. In the rapidly advancing landscape of aesthetic medicine, you can place your confidence in Harfouche and KQ Aesthetic Society to deliver exceptional care. To learn more or book a consultation, please visit kqaestheticsociety.com.
You have to be crazy or a genius to name a restaurant Fish Guts. You have to be even crazier to open a restaurant that holds maybe two dozen people at a time—if you don’t mind elbowing one other while scarfing down some of the best fish tacos in San Diego.
And yes, “best” is a relative term. But in Fish Guts’ case, it’s for real—and that’s saying something in a town literally world-famous for fish tacos.
Ever since Pablo Becker opened up his diminutive eatery in 2023 at the corner of Logan Avenue and Sampson Street in Barrio Logan, Fish Guts has been named one of the city’s best new restaurants in 2023, Critic’s Pick for the best fish tacos in San Diego in 2024, 2025 and 2026, as well as readers’ top pick in 2024. It’s like if Rubio’s married into the royal family.
Most of his ingredients come straight from the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean, which happens to be down the street. His de espada (blackened swordfish) taco is the stuff of legend. He’s kept Fish Guts operating at an elite level, which tends to happen when you work for five years in Chicago under chef Richard Sandoval (who, by chance, is also his cousin) and open an ahead-of-its-time high-end modern Mexican restaurant in East Village (El Vitral Restaurant & Tequileria, 2009-2013).
Now Becker is branching out again, opening two new concepts in Barrio Logan this fall.
The first will be upstairs from Fish Guts, which at one point was destined to become an intimate omakase counter. Santo Poco will be a lunch-only sandwich shop, offering takeout and delivery (no dine-in), and the sandwiches will be a little Mexican, a little French, a little Italian, a little from Chicago, a little from New York. Basically, a bunch of different styles all on really, really good bread.
“There’s probably going to be a Cuban-style sandwich in there with a touch of Mexican, some cold cut Italians, too, putting my touch on them,” he says. “That’s what I feel like is my style of cooking.”
Things will be traditional, but inventive. Like his fish & chips taco at Fish Guts: two classic dishes, one killer mash-up. There will also be a hat tip to the late, great Anthony Bourdain, a sandwich called the Antonio Bourdain.
The second will be across the street from Fish Guts in the former Lia’s Lumpia space. Concrete Cowboy will be a taco-driven joint on the same wavelength as Fish Guts (keep it simple, keep it special), but featuring land animals rather than sea brethren. Think tacos made with duck confit, ribeye, pork belly, skirt steak.
The inspiration behind Concrete Cowboy comes from Becker’s father, a lifelong Western obsessive, despite growing up in Mexico City’s urban metropolis. “He always liked that cowboy life, that vibe,” he says. “I always say ‘Dad, you just grew up in the wrong city.”
He’s aiming to open Santo Poco in October and Concrete Cowboy in November. Neither require massive renovations, and while the former Lia’s Lumpia space will keep the cabin-esque aesthetic, he’s creating more of an adobe-style exterior and an interior lined with Western-themed wallpaper and taxidermied animals. He’ll also tweak the bar layout to move from a fast-casual feel to full service.
Local designer Dane Danner is designing both spaces and visual direction for menu layouts, logos, and packaging, going for low-key, but high on vibes. Once Concrete Cowboy opens, Fish Guts will temporarily close to remodel the space to switch its white palette for a warmer feel, plus introducing a refreshed menu featuring some new tacos and other items.
Could another Fish Guts be on the way somewhere else in San Diego? Not likely, says Becker. “Fish Guts is cool, “ he says. “I feel once you start branching out, it’s more forced, not as organic.” So for now, count on Becker staying in the neighborhood.
Santo Poco opens for lunch daily October 2026, 2222 Logan Avenue (above Fish Guts). Concrete Cowboy opens Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner November 2026, 2219 Logan Avenue.
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Ten years ago, restaurant design centered around sleek minimalism. Fonts lacked serifs, clean lines dominated, and any manufacturer that made globe-shaped chandeliers must have made an absolute killing.
Things have changed since then, and Jeff Fink says it’s time for Madison on Park to glow up. On September 7, Madison will temporarily close its doors for a top-to-bottom renovation of the space and concept. Fink hopes to reopen this fall ahead of the busy holiday season, with a new look he calls moody mid-century maximalism.
“We have to take into consideration what’s going on culturally,” he says. When Madison first opened, TikTok wasn’t a thing in the U.S. and craft cocktails felt relatively cutting-edge. Today, he sees a resurgence in the vintage look, handmade goods, and low-to-no ABV drinks dominating menus everywhere.
Courtesy of Madison on Park | Photo Credit: Andy McRory
Fink and his partner Matt Sieve have already dabbled with that sort of motif at Sonny’s Pizza, their Brooklyn-inspired joint around the corner. Fully half of the cocktail menu is made up of spritzes, mocktails, and Negronis. Madison 2.0 will take it further.
The new concept doesn’t have a name yet—Fink says they have to feel out the vibes as they make progress with the design. “The name comes when you see it appear,” he says. But he has a few design elements in mind: things like more artwork and more uplighting. “Not cluttered and overstuffed… I want to keep it intimate, sexy, and immersive.”
Madison rightly earned its rep as one of the best-dressed eateries in San Diego, nabbing an Orchid Award for interior design its first year. The returning designers Anna and David Sindelar originally transformed the space from weird padded walls and fake greenery at Lei Lounge into a mid-century modern wonderland, complete with a signature arched ceiling and geometric patterns aplenty. Michelin-recognized chef Mario Cassineri (Ciccia Osteria, Bice Ristorante) built a menu heavy on Mediterranean flavors mixed with California classics.
The new menu shouldn’t feel completely jarring, but will take cues from Fink’s recent travels in Spain with his family. Expect shareable plates with lighter ingredients. “Americans eat way too much, and our portions are way too big,” he says. “I like the idea of smaller plates, healthier plates, and being creative… I’d rather see 15 items on the menu that are all less than $20 so that I can try different ones.” Bar manager Danny Kuehner will continue developing craft cocktails and mocktails for the new venture, as well as curating a selection of wine from Europe and locally.
Courtesy of Madison on Park | Photo Credit: Haley Hill
This isn’t the only project on their plate. Besides running Sonny’s in University Heights and Madi in Normal Heights, later this fall, Fink and Sieve will also open Josie’s, a modern all-day, Midwestern-style diner inspired by Sieve’s Minnesota roots. Like all their restaurants, it’ll hold a special part of their families’ legacies—something Fink hopes people feel as soon as they enter.
“You walk into Sonny’s, you’re like ‘Oh, Jeff’s at home,’” Fink laughs. “[Josies’] will be ‘Matt’s at home.’” The next version of Madison? We’ll have to wait and see.
Madison on Park will temporarily close on September 7 until October (barring any unexpected delays). Keep up with the newest updates on Madison’s Instagram.
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
AVRP Studios’ tradition for Design Excellence and Innovation began in 1976 with Doug Austin, FAIA, in Solana Beach, California. The firm has since grown to complete major projects throughout the United States and Canada. We think of ourselves as a family and we care deeply about people. We want to inspire, help make their lives richer and more complete through our efforts. We believe that architecture is one of the most important art forms because of the impact it can have on the lives of those it touches. We’re delighted to have been recognized with over 150 awards for design excellence.
703 16th Street, Suite 200, San Diego, California 92101 | 619-704-2700 | avrpstudios.com
