INCOMING: Stone Company Store

Joann Cornejo is a mother, teacher, and co-owner of National City’s Machete Beer House and Chula Vista’s newly opened La Nacional. Her limited time is precious and her knowledge of South Bay limitless, so she knows exactly how to craft the perfect family day.

The morning begins at Franco’s Flapjack Family Restaurant in Bonita, an old-school diner known for large portions of classic breakfast dishes like country fried steak, eggs Benedict, and Belgian waffles. “My go-to is an omelet with a side of hotcakes,” Cornejo says. If he kids need to run off some sugar from their plates of syrup, she usually takes them to nearby Rohr Park, where multiple playgrounds appeal to little ones of all ages. There’s also a model train that runs the second Saturday and Sunday of each month (except in September) and an adult fitness area near the basketball courts. “If you’re lucky,” Cornejo adds, “you’ll see a few horses with their owners walking the trail.”

For more family fun, head to Chula Vista’s Living Coast Discovery Center, where you can ogle sea creatures like turtles, jellyfish, sharks, and manta rays. Cornejo’s personal favorite critters, owls, live on the center’s Raptor Row. Be sure to check the website to see what animal encounters are on the schedule before your visit, and make time for a stroll down Living Coast’s marshland walking trail to catch a front-row view of the entire San Diego bay.

If Cornejo’s kiddos need a pick-me-up after an afternoon of aquatic exploration, Niederfrank’s is a quick drive up the 5. The National City ice cream shop has been an institution for over 60 years, making their old-fashioned scoops the same way they did back in the ’50s. Requisite flavors like chocolate and vanilla are mainstays, but they also offer creative varieties like papaya-pineapple, chocolate stout beer, and avocado-pistachio. Cornejo says she can’t resist a scoop of Kahlua Krunch.

Finally, she admits she’s biased, but she hopes locals and travelers alike will come check out the new La Nacional. “Your family can enjoy a delicious dinner and parents-slash-adults can unwind with a cocktail or mezcal, neat,” she says. After a day jam-packed with activities, a cocktail sounds pretty sweet.

I’ve just eaten the burger at The Friendly. People rave about this burger. Now I’m one of those people. A couple guys took over an old pizza shop in North Park and serve pizza and burgers. Occasionally they’ll put foie gras on it, I guess. And other chef-y stuff. Like many awesome things and, especially North Park things, you’ve got to be in the know. But this burger in front of me is just their standard, every day option. And it lives not up to, not down to, but perfectly to its name: Dirty Flat Top Cheeseburger. It costs five dollars. Coffee costs five dollars and your dignity these days. Five dollars will buy you 30 percent of a movie ticket.

The burger’s pretty ugly. It looks sad. It looks like a good burger had a bad day. Or maybe a good burger has a hangover. This burger needs to take its B vitamins.

The bun is white bread. The sort of bread whose nutritional value can be summed up as “white.” The sort of soft bread that, when you grab it, your fingerprints stay in the bread. Fitting, because how good this burger tastes is kind of a crime. Between those two lovely, food-esque bread items lay two patties, grilled on the dirty flat top, as advertised, until they have a nice caramelized crust all around them. The patties are thin. This would be an amuse-bouche for Michael Phelps, whose high-performance dolphin body reportedly requires 12,000 calories a day. But for normal humans with normal appetites, it’s enough. Atop the patties are caramelized onions, garlic aioli, and a melted slice of American cheese. American is the Hasselhoff of cheese—widely slandered and mocked, but also one of the best things man has gifted to this Earth.

So, yes, it’s delicious. As required by modern media and modern human instinct at the current time, I post a photo to social media. And the first question is: “Does their ‘No Substitution’ rule bother you?”

Well, no. And I get this question a lot about restaurants.

When restaurants removed salt from the table, people got testy. When Neighborhood refused to serve ketchup with their burgers and fries, people smear campaigned against the snobbery. And now there are complaints about The Friendly not letting you sub-out or special-order or make substitutions on your Dirty Flat Top Burger. Here are the reasons why this is totally within their American right to do so:

1. It’s a burger for five bucks. Obviously, their business model banks on volume. They’ve got to sell a ton of these to survive. They don’t have time to navigate your special dietary wants and needs. Their ramshackle, DIY assembly line is not designed to whim-cater. If gluten is really bumming you out or if you think mayonnaise is better used as wrestling oil, you can go somewhere else.

2. Restaurants are not your mom. Why do we expect American restaurants to customize their kitchens to our needs? Because they’ve got a long history of being able to adapt, that’s why. It’s a distinct advantage of the food retail industry. If you want to buy a shirt, but wish that shirt was in orange and not yellow, a clothing store owner can’t change the color of the shirt. But if you want to “strike the mayo,” from your burger, a restaurant can do that. But should they be required to? Absolutely not. Businesses of all sorts make a product, and sell it. You wouldn’t walk into a high-end furniture store and say “I like this couch, but can I just buy it unassembled and I’ll put it together at home with an allen wrench?” If you’d prefer to buy furniture that way, there is a store I can point you to that will gladly oblige. Restaurant owners get into this business because of passion, not economic glory. They develop their recipes, and are proud of them, and want to share them with you for a small sum. Due to their long history of graciously catering to our quirky desires and needs, we’ve come to see restaurants as custom-order shops. The best place to custom-order food is at your home. While it’s nice if restaurants are willing to do that for you, it’s not their obligation.

3. It’s a five-dollar burger. You’re one lucky person.

Would the Dirty Flat Top Burger be better if it had some sort of acid? Like, say, a pickle or mustard? You bet. Does it taste pretty glorious just as is? You bet. Your parents may have been short-order cooks. God bless them. But restaurants aren’t legally required to feed you and make sure your elaborate, detailed needs are met. And that’s OK.

The Friendly, 4592 30th Street, North Park. 619-892-7840. 

Your Special Order Isn’t Special

It’s ugly. It’s delicious. It’s five bucks. It’s the Dirty Flat Top Cheeseburger.

Following the crowd is a good way to find a crowd. But the truly successful have always zigged when the crowd zags. It’s the Frostian, road-less-traveled philosophy of doing shit right. So while every American restaurateur is going the fast-casual route, trying to become “the Chipotle of X cuisine,” it makes perfect sense that Consortium Holdings opens a $7 million, sit-down steakhouse with table-side food-art circus tricks.

Born & Raised is arguably the biggest opening of the year in San Diego, and Consortium (Neighborhood, Ironside, Underbelly, Craft & Commerce, Soda & Swine, Polite Provisions, etc.) is arguably one of the only local restaurant groups who could shoulder the significant investment.

The 10,000-square foot location (seats 200-250) at the corner of India and Fir in the middle of Little Italy is the Times Square of San Diego’s hottest restaurant neighborhood. Consortium helped bring the renaissance to the area, and they didn’t want the marquee spot in their hood to fall into less inspiring (corporate) hands. So they took on the gigantic project, and as usual, didn’t shave a single corner on the build-out with their long-term design guy, Paul Basile of Basile Studio.

It is your weird, arty friend’s steak house. The punks have scaled the walls of yet another stuffy institution. It’s custom-built with brass and walnut and green marble and camel leather and fur on the seats. Instead of oil paintings of old white men, a steakhouse staple, they have massive framed photos of gangster rap icons like Ol’ Dirty Bastard. The upstairs (not yet finished) will be build like a garden from the atomic age, with black velvet booths and views of Downtown. It’s mid-century, it’s art deco, it’s the kind of place that’s built to outlive trends or whims.

For the menu, Michelin-star chef Jason McLeod are using a 40-foot, glassed-in dry-aging room to season their own steaks. The main menu will have all the classics (filet, New York, Flat Iron, Ribeye, Porterhouse, Ribeye, Tomahawk, etc.), plus specials like tournedos Rossini (foie gras, truffle, Madera), slow-roasted prime, rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding and peppercorn sauce, steak Diane, and Wagyu. There’ll also be a vegan “steak Dyyyanne,” plus charcoal-roasted lamb, dry-aged duck, pork, roasted chicken, whole fish, caviar,and four different types of potatoes. Steak without potatoes, after all, is like eating cereal without milk.

On the apps section, you’ve got crab claws, crudo, lobster bisque, spaghetti (with uni, chile, and lemon), dry-aged meatballs, escargot, and a French Onion soup.

And then the tableside presentations, on ornate-as-hell carts—hand-tossing Caesar salads, omelets, mushroom tartare, steak tartare, shrimp Louie, etc.

The whole idea is a grand, elaborate investment in America’s past. The steakhouse is as much an American tradition as jazz and blues. And CH is a sucker for near-lost American pastimes (soda fountains, speakeasies, meatballs, etc.).

Multiple restaurateurs I spoke with about this project seem to think that CH is crazy for trying to pull it off. In the current industry trend toward casualization and the rise of vegetarianism and yoga pantsism, it’s a risk. Then again, they said the same thing when CH opened a craft beer bar (Neighborhood) before craft beer was really a “thing.” And they said the same when they opened a cocktail bar (Craft & Commerce) and refused to serve America’s favorite spirit, vodka.

Let the grand experiment that is CH continue on.

Enough talk. Please enjoy the first photos of Born & Raised, opening this weekend if all goes right.

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

First Look: Born & Raised

My lamentations about the lack of good dining options in North County are being attacked day by day. The news of Campfire opening in Carlsbad, for instance. This is big for the sleepy coastal beach burgh, and one of the most anticipated openings of the year.

Campfire is the project from one of the best front-of-house men in San Diego—John Resnick, who spent years opening the hyper-creative concepts of Consortium Holdings (Craft & Commerce, Ironside Fish & Oyster). Campfire is the first project of his own, a 6,000 square-footer in the former home of an auto shop. Instead of doing it in hipsterville, he smartly brought it to a part of town that isn’t flooded with creative concepts.

Just like Consortium projects, Campfire is big on design. They tapped local firm Bells + Whistles (Bracero, Starlite) to create a rustic spot intended to evoke the times you and the fam spent those vacations camping in the great outdoors.

The main building is a WWII-era Quonset hut with corrugated metal arch salvaged from the Camp Pendleton Marine base up the street. There’s a handmade, 12-foot banquette from San Diego designers Bradley Mountain, a 25-seat copper bar, a three-dimensional wood-carved mural of a mountainscape, and, outside, a 12-foot custom teepee for the kids.

The menu from executive chef Andrew Bachelier (ex-Cucina Enoteca and Addison) will be open-fire on a custom 12-foot hearth powered by a Grillworks grill that’ll burn wood, charcoal, embers, and ash. That means a lot of roast and smoke on dishes like duck liver pate with grilled date, pecans, red wine and griddled bread; carrots with goat cheese, licorice, honey and almond; long beans with opah belly, soft-boiled egg, olives and shallots; seafood pozole with mussels, white fish, calico corn and guajillo chile; leg of lamb with Sea Island red peas, lettuce, goat milk and pistachio; and, of course, s’mores with five-spice graham phylo dough, chocolate and marshmallow.

For cocktails, they’ve pulled one of Consortium’s better talents, Leigh Lacap, who created drinks for Ironside, Sycamore Den, and Coin-Op. He’ll be putting a little camp into the glass, too, with a whole section of drinks called “From the Fire.” Drinks like “Roasted Corn” with tequila, charcoal, lime and salt; or the “Smoked Almond” with mezcal, rice, pecan, lime and cinnamon. Don’t be scared—he’ll also have a “Shaken & Refreshing” selection of cocktails, as well as a “Stirred & Direct” for spirit heads.

Campfire debuts on Sept. 14, and will be open 11 a.m.-midnight on Sun-Thur, and 11 a.m.-1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

2725 State Street, Carlsbad, 760.637.5121. thisiscampfire.com.

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

FIRST LOOK: Campfire

We hailed its arrival in our cocktail issue. And now, the tiki revival is here.

False Idol may only be 1,000 square-feet, but it’s a big deal. It marks the fifth bar for America’s first man of tiki, Martin Cate—a partnership with San Diego’s premier cocktail group, Consortium Holdings. Cate owns and operates Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, considered by many the best tiki bar in America.

Opening Sunday, False Idol is the second shoe to drop on the corner of Beech and Kettner Streets. The first was the multimillion-dollar renovation of Craft & Commerce, which opened yesterday. False Idol is the “hidden” Polynesian oasis attached to C&C.

Guests step through a walk-in cooler in Craft & Commerce, and emerge into False Idol. The space is a throwback to the golden era of tiki, before canned juice and corporate chains ruined the movement. There are vibrant pieces from tiki artists Bosko Hrnjak and Ignacio “Notch” Gonzalez. There are false idols everywhere. The ceiling is covered in glass buoy balls. Maori-style wall carvings. Petrified puffer fish. The whole place is exploding with tiki paraphernalia.

As for the drinks? Cate reportedly has the largest collection of rare rums, and he’s showcasing some of his favorites at False Idol. He and CH beverage director Anthony Schmidt worked with CH designer, Dane Danner, to create custom-designed tiki mugs for their tropical drinks, including a Trader Vic Mai Tai and Eastern Sour. They’re also paying tribute to San Diego’s once-thriving tiki scene, excavating recipes from the former Luau Room and Barefoot Bar.

False Idol opens Sunday, September 4 at 6pm. And it will be open every day thereafter from 6pm on. Make reservations at FalseIdolTiki.com.

675 W. Beech St., Little Italy.

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol

FIRST LOOK: False Idol