Longplay HiFi founder Gibrán Huerta started with a love of vinyl and plastic crates at his pop-ups.
Photo Credit: Madeline Yang
The wooden counter sits low and runs across the middle of the venue, almost like a sushi bar. Under the natural light pouring in from the ceiling window stands the day’s selector, working the turntables where records spin and get flipped. Sounds radiate through vintage 1980 Klipsch Heresy speakers seconds later at a level perfect for quiet conversations about the music that fills the air.
Owned by Gibrán Huerta, Longplay HiFi is spinning more than vinyl records: It’s composing the lyrics to a new song—one that tells the story of a niche music community growing in San Diego.
To be clear, this isn’t the first high-fidelity listening club to make noise in town. While it’s hard to pinpoint which establishment started the trend here, we do know Huerta was the first to play with the concept of spinning records and gathering people for it.
It started as a traveling, pop-up vinyl event led by Huerta in Tijuana and San Diego under his creative agency Longplay Studio in 2016. While streaming live DJ sets on Twitch and traveling to Japan yearly, Huerta officially named the project “Longplay HiFi” in 2020 and gave it a physical home in Sherman Heights that August.
Cushy comfort and crystal clear sounds at Convoy Music Bar.
Photo Credit: Convoy Music Bar
There, he’d take the few resources he had (plastic crates and IKEA table tops) to play records, pour coffee and sell Tijuana-style burritos during ticketed events after his agency had “lost everything” during the pandemic. “It was like that big switch…where it stopped being this pop-up…to a more serious thing that was actually going to be feeding me now because I didn’t have anything,” Huerta shared.
What started as a humble space playing music out of necessity has earned its title as one of the city’s founding hi-fi clubs without realizing it. The newly revamped space features a minimalistic design. Welcoming guests on a first-come, first-served basis, everyone is invited to revel in Huerta’s library of over 1,000 modern and vintage records. Mexican coffee from Flor and Seed is brewed, and those who pay for the club’s yearly membership get access to perks like reservations and private listening events.
Since Longplay HiFi’s pop-ups, we’ve seen large hospitality groups also join the scene. Consortium Holdings Projects (Born & Raised) took over Bar Pink in North Park for Part Time Lover in June, serving Japanese high balls with a side of music selected from locals and the 1967 San Diego-based Folk Arts Rare Records retail nook housed inside.
In May, Convoy Music Bar also joined the club under Shōwa Hospitality (Himitsu, the Taco Stand chain) by Julian Hakim and Aram Baloyan. With a hidden entrance on Convoy Street, CMB exudes a mysterious and moody aura, whose tunes — which range from jazz to disco — are curated by selectors like Yuichiro Edamatsu and transmitted by custom Kenrick speakers from Japan.
Coffee and cocktails go with Huerta’s 1000- plus records at Longplay HiFi.
Photo Credit: Madeline Yang
“It’s a listening and drinking experience,” Hakim describes CMB, “It’s a bar that mimics the hi-fi listening bars of Tokyo…where people go relax [and] the sound is something special.”
An intimate setting, CMB brings its records and glassware directly from Japan. The bar’s elegance and privacy are a product of its rules (a dress code is enforced, and video recordings are not allowed), as Hakim wants “people to have a good time and give it the respect that it deserves.”
Running similar but different spaces, Hakim and Huerta visited listening bars in Tokyo together in 2016, when Shōwa was a client of Longplay Studio, formerly known as Bien Media.
After being asked what it’s like to see other listening bars follow after Longplay HiFi, Huerta said he has nothing but respect for them and that it’s good for the city.
“I love it…It’s a lot of pressure to be the only one,” Huerta shared, “ We are one of the hifi capitals in the world and…I’m really stoked to see more of them come along.”
Roxana Becerril is a Mexican-American writer living in San Diego. When she's not traveling or checking out the newest restaurant in the city, she covers art, culture, lifestyle and Latino topics.
How Scrojo Became One of Rock’s Most Prolific Poster Artists
The San Diego designer has created more than 3,000 concert posters over nearly 40 years for artists including the Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
When he was in high school, he and his friends were trying to come up with the perfect name for their punk band that would encapsulate all their personas. Nicaragua. The Freds.
One of his friends said he was going to go by Jimmy Stacks and called it “the perfect rock and roll name.” Their names changed so much that Haskett erupted: “Fine, I’m f—ing Scrotum Joe, the true defender of the Open West.”
Their response: Wow, that’s a great name.
As a teenager, he drew chalkboards for Del Mar’s Pannikin coffee shop and would design T-shirts for surf/skate brand Life’s a Beach. He signed the shirts with his moniker, but even in punk rebellion, who wants a shirt with the words Scrotum Joe on it? “They just cut out the ‘t-u-m,’ and the next thing you know, a client referred to me as that, and it stuck,” he says.
Courtesy of Scrojo
Scrojo could have been part of a band as iconic as The Misfits—had he been able to learn the famously cumbersome bassline to The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.” Becoming one of the most renowned concert poster designers—someone who quite literally designed the cover of Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion—is a pretty good Plan B.
“To my knowledge, he’s done more rock posters than anybody else alive,” says Dennis King, whose D. King Gallery in Berkeley, California, serves as one of the largest private rock poster collections in the world. “He’s the hardest-working guy in the poster business.”
King not only co-authored the sequel to music historian Paul Grushkin’s The Art of Rock, but he also handles distribution and sales for all of Scrojo’s work. That’s more than 3,000 different posters over nearly 40 years. (That’s over one poster each week. For four decades straight.)
For anything from boxing matches to rodeos, posters have long been used as promotional items. Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous lithographs advertised Moulin Rouge in the late 1800s. Around the same time, Hatch Show Print in Nashville was making handbills for the Grand Ole Opry.
“I propose this: Cave paintings are the first poster art,” Scrojo says.
Courtesy of Scrojo
Rock and roll posters took off in the 1960s, when the hippie counterculture era replaced conformity and suburbia. Artists like Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead used their vibrant, psychedelic prints as a form of rebellion from the mainstream. Posters were promotional, commemorative, collectible, and especially expressive.
If the name Scrojo is any indication, he doesn’t shy away from imagery that toes the line of being too provocative. He focused more on what inspired him instead of trying to be offensive for the sake of getting attention.
“Didn’t want to show it to my grandmother, but my parents were fine with it,” Scrojo says with a laugh.
“We’ve had to ask him to put a Band-Aid over a nipple every now and then,” says Chris Goldsmith, president of Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, where Scrojo started out and hundreds of his posters currently line the walls.
Scrojo spent six weeks at Otis College of Art and Design for a summer semester before drugs, alcohol, and a self-described lack of discipline prevented him from enrolling full time. Still, he taught himself concepts like text hierarchy and later found his niche at the Belly Up and in the surfing and skating world, working with brands like Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Scorpion Bay, and DGK.
His first concert poster was for North County band Borracho y Loco, of which Goldsmith was bass guitarist. Scrojo drew an abstract version of the Belly Up’s iconic shark with colorful calypso and tiki themes.
Early on, he would craft using a pencil, pen, non-reproduction blue pencil, X-Acto knife, rubber knife, and proportion scale to create each poster, and the finished product could take a week or even longer.
Courtesy of Scrojo
“I recommend every artist coming up to do that for like six weeks,” Scrojo says. “It forces you to think about every design decision as you’re going along.”
He has since mastered vector imagery through Adobe Illustrator to the point where, depending on the level of detail needed, he could finish two projects in a day. Still, he fills sketchbook after sketchbook to blueprint.
“I liked his line in particular, and he knows how to draw, which a lot of people don’t really know how to do these days,” King says.
Scrojo would research what each musician’s merchandise looks like to get a feel for each artist’s tone and voice. Once he has his central image in mind, he focuses on what and where to place the text.
He doesn’t have one specific style, ranging his talents from art deco to psychedelic and everything in between (and outside the lines). Want a pop surrealist comic book cartoon devil with splattered paint textures, halftone dot patterns, and pure chaos? Red Hot Chili Peppers, February 1986. Want a minimalist graphic portrait with bold strokes and graffiti text? P!nk, October 2023. Want a carnival sideshow style piece with a tasteful caricature of Jeff Bridges? The Big Lebowski, August 2011.
Scrojo calls himself a jack of all trades because he can create posters for all music genres. King calls him a chameleon for his ability to adapt his voice to new eras.
Courtesy of Scrojo
“The variety of his skillset makes it possible for us to put 50 of his posters on a wall next to each other and have it look compelling, not just a bunch of the same thing over and over,” Goldsmith says.
Some of Scrojo’s favorite posters are when he feels a personal connection to the artist or the album. He has a vivid memory as a child of being trapped in a closet filled with marijuana leaves while playing hide and seek and staring at Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” LP. “For whatever reason, as a kid, that sparked a desire to do graphic design,” Scrojo says.
Fast forward to February 2012, Cliff is performing at Belly Up. Scrojo decided to modify Cliff’s original album cover from rainbow gradient fills to classic reggae psychedelia while preserving Cliff’s striped pants and bold hat. Cliff’s manager called him and said they wanted to use it for the rest of their tour.
“We always get artists requesting that he does their posters,” Goldsmith says. “A lot of artists don’t want venues to go all rogue because they want to control how they’re being presented. With him, they’re like, ‘Let him go nuts.’”
Matt Eisenberg is an award-winning writer and photographer based in San Diego. A former ESPN editor, his work has also been published by CNN, Bleacher Report and the New York Daily News.
If you’ve ever squeezed yourself into a pair of black skinny jeans with a studded belt, sported a track jacket under a band t-shirt, or swept your Manic Panic-hued hair so far to the side that your part got caught in your cartilage earring, I have good news: Ocean Beach will get a shot of emo and pop-punk nostalgia when Drink 182 opens this July.
The pop-punk bar and pizza spot comes with bonafide scene points. Co-founder Jay Nightride runs the music production studio Nightride Visuals, has worked with artists like Steve Aoki, Lil Jon, and Fall Out Boy, and also plays in Death Cab for Karaoke, a live karaoke band that performs every month at Soda Bar (among other venues). His partner Tony Jaw is easier to spot—he’s the guy with the sky-high mohawk manning the karaoke booth at Redwing Bar & Grill who’s been in the local bar and hospitality business for over a decade.
Nightride says he’s had the idea for an emo enclave for years, but it wasn’t until after Covid that he partnered with Jaw and got the funding to move forward. “What I was looking to build was a place that I would want to be, where would I want to go to remember these nostalgic songs,” he says.
Pending permits and final inspections, Drink 182 is slated to open the second half of July. The vibe will be dive bar meets emo night, with memorabilia from different bands who have supported the project splashed across the walls, plus a few arcade games, TVs, and (I assume) a decent sound system. The hours are still undetermined, but Nightride says they tentatively plan to be open until 2 a.m. on weekends and Wednesdays for the OB Farmers Market. In the mornings, they’ll serve fresh pastries and coffee from the similarly music-aligned James Coffee Company (whose co-owner David Kennedy is a member of Angels & Airwaves with blink-182’s Tom DeLonge).
But it’ll be the pizza that really stands out—or at least, they hope. “We’re doing New England beach pizza… a really niche pizza that not a lot of people would know about, unless you’re from North Shore, Massachusetts,” says Nightride, a former Bostonian. “It’s a thin crust, very sweet sauce, very simple, fast, go-to-the-beach kind of thing.”
“Beach pizza” is characterized by its rectangular shape, very thin crust, sweet tomato sauce, and slices of Provolone cheese with minimal toppings. Drink 182’s version will feature homemade dough and sauce, as well as freshly sliced Boar’s Head Provolone. And yes, they are aware there are already a lot of pizza options in the area. It won’t be the same, Nightride promises.
“Everybody’s first reaction when they hear ‘pizza’ is like, ‘Oh great, another pizza place in OB,’” he laughs. “But we’re trying to do something different, just enough to differentiate it and give people another option.” If you’re not keen on the style, try one of their “drunkables,” another nostalgic riff they hope the pop-punk and emo crowd will appreciate. And if you still need a reason to give Drink 182 a try, I have more good news—you don’t actually have to break out your old skinny jeans. (In fact, please don’t.)
Drink 182 opens July 2026 at 5049 Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach.
Courtesy of Margaritaville Hotels & Resorts
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
If the steak hype wasn’t hot enough already, The Heritage Steakhouse in Santee just announced Meredith Manée will serve as executive chef of the New York-style steakhouse when it opens in August. Her star-studded kitchen resume spans over 25 years, with stints at the Hotel del Coronado, the Four Seasons, and The Ritz-Carlton Maui, so I think it’s safe to assume we’ll be in good hands.
Rather than waste away in Margaritaville, you have the chance to support the San Diego Music Foundation at the annual Jimmy Buffett-inspired Day of Service at Margaritaville Hotel San Diego Gaslamp Quarter. On September 4 starting at 5 p.m., the rooftop bar will be rocking with live music and plenty of flowing cocktails, plus a silent auction and other activations to raise money for the local music education organization. I’ll drink to that.
The early bird gets the worm and you can get the early ticket to Celebrate the Craft, the annual culinary festival that takes place at The Lodge at Torrey Pines on October 18. If you snag your ticket before the end of June, you can save $50 (which is nothing to sneeze at), plus you’ll be helping support the San Diego Food Bank.
Mani e Grani, the pizza spot from the same people behind Ciccia Osteria, seems to be inching ever closer to opening its doors in Barrio Logan. I know I’m not the only one anxiously awaiting sinking my teeth into some wood-fired, chewy but crispy, hot-from-the-oven, authentic Italian pizza.
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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.
In a city overflowing with cortados, ceremonial-grade matcha, and ambitious coffee startups, standing out isn’t easy. It’s even harder when your business doesn’t have a fixed address. That’s the challenge (and increasingly, the appeal) of One of One.
The Filipino-American coffee and matcha pop-up concept is the work of Kristin Cleavinger, a San Diego native who spent nearly a decade working in the Los Angeles specialty coffee business before returning home to build a concept of her own. The business takes its name from Cleavinger’s grandfather Gregorio Magnaye Bolor, who immigrated from the Philippines to the United States in the 1970s with almost nothing, but managed to build a life for him as well as his descendants.
It’s that sense of grit, perseverance, and identity that Cleavinger says fueled her to build One of One. “Throughout my time in specialty coffee, I was really curious about Filipino representation, because that wasn’t something that I saw,” she explains. She began to research coffee from the Philippines, but considering the island nation only produces about 0.25 percent of the world’s largest producer, Brazil, there wasn’t much to find.
Instead, she turned inward, drawing from her family’s history and her own Filipina-American identity to build something personal. “To me, this really is a way to honor my family’s legacy—my nanay, Maria Nieves Bolor, and my tatay Gregorio.”
Photo Credit: Juliet Furst
For her drinks, Cleavinger never uses refined sugars, and syrups are made in-house from organic and regenerative ingredients. The Summer Peach latte, the current seasonal special, layers Ceylon cinnamon, unrefined cane sugar, Maldon sea salt, and ripe yellow peaches for a riff on one of summer’s most glorious treats: peach cobbler. Another new drink is Mint Chip, inspired by Thrifty ice cream with a fresh mint syrup, dark cocoa powder, and chocolate chunks with a base of either espresso or hojicha (roasted Japanese green tea with a mild, sweet, earthy flavor and lower caffeine content than other green teas).
Other crowd pleasers include the signature Neapolitan latte, which is inspired by childhood memories of her family using Neapolitan ice cream to create pan de sal ice cream sandwiches. She layers housemade organic strawberry syrup, Madagascar vanilla bean-infused oat milk, and dark cocoa-swirled espresso for a tricolored beverage experience that she recommends sipping before stirring to taste each layer on its own merit.
Past specials have ventured deeper into Filipino flavors, like a turon-inspired latte using jackfruit and banana; another was a coconut pandan matcha made with organic coconut water and topped with a pandan matcha cream.
Photo Credit: Juliet Furst
The sourcing decisions behind these drinks are equally deliberate. Coffee comes from Boondocks, a Filipino-owned LA roaster whose founder is originally from National City. Its current offering, the Galleon blend, combines beans from southern Luzon in the Philippines with Chiapas, Mexico—a nod to the communities woven into San Diego’s own cross-border identity. Matcha is sourced through Este, a local San Diego company that works directly with producers in Mie Prefecture, Japan.
Every supplier is chosen for value alignment as much as quality—Boondocks’ current blend, for example, directly supports women-owned farms. “Each person has the power to choose where they want to put their dollar,” Cleavinger says.
You can catch her at regularly scheduled pop-ups at places like Olivewood Gardens in National City (every third Saturday), Ayi in South Park’s Summer Series (every Saturday morning in June), and on regular rotation at Home Ec and Best Bud Floral in Kensington. (More dates are listed on Instagram as well.) Cleavinger says she does have plans to launch a brick-and-mortar shop in the future, ideally with an expanded beverage menu, space for art shows, and a community gathering place for local and Filipino-owned makers.
In a crowded field of coffee concepts, One of One shows that a memorable drink can do more than wake you up. It can tell you something about the person behind the idea—who they are, where they’re from, and where they’re going next.
After appearances on Top Chef and Iron Chef Mexico and stints at big-name kitchens like Vaga and Leu Leu, chef Claudette Zepeda just released her debut cookbook Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States. By deep diving into the cross-border culinary traditions between Mexico and the United States, Zepeda doesn’t just tell the story of food—it’s a story of her upbringing as a self-proclaimed “border kid,” a moniker all-too-familiar to thousands of people who straddle the two countries. It’s a fascinating (and beautiful) book from one of San Diego’s native daughters and well worth picking up.
Despite throwing the North County restaurant world into despair at the news that Matsu was permanently closing, we are blessed with the ability to continue enjoying Chef William Eick’s culinary prowess. Eick is now the chef de cuisine at Pacific Point at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, working alongside sushi chef Meljohn Sebastian to design a new Asian-inspired menu focused on seasonality. Matsu may be over (for now), but Eick’s talent is still on full display.
Urban Property Group just announced a deal for a new cafe opening in the freshly renovated Five50 West in Little Italy. Café Noelia will open this summer, bringing a slew of coffee, matcha, toasts, and sandos to the ground floor of the building, where (rumor has it) a Japanese speakeasy is also on the way.
In the latest twist of the weirdly ongoing story that is Modern Times Beer, its Encinitas location, the Far West Lounge, is no more. The once-renowned local craft beer brand flew too close to the sun during the beverage boom and now, after closures, sales, and corporate splits, only exists with a small handful of the original tasting rooms and as a craft coffee brand (that’s not actually related to the beer side of things anymore).
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.
Finding a gift that feels truly personal can be surprisingly difficult. In a sea of generic options — flowers, gift cards, candles, and the like — Xplosion Box offers something more lasting: a customized keepsake built around the photos, messages, and memories that matter most.
Founded by Southern California entrepreneur Jay Vijay, Xplosion Box LLC creates fully customized explosion gift boxes that arrive professionally designed, printed, assembled, and ready to gift. Each box opens layer by layer to reveal personal photos, heartfelt messages, pull-out albums, origami-style photo pockets, and hidden notes, turning a simple gift into an emotional reveal.
The brand was built for people who want to give something meaningful without spending hours printing photos, cutting paper, folding cardstock, or assembling a DIY project. Customers simply choose a box, upload their favorite photos, add personal messages, and the Xplosion Box team transforms those details into a polished keepsake that feels thoughtful, personal, and beautifully made.
Xplosion Box offers personalized gift boxes for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, proposals, bridesmaid gifts, long-distance relationships, and thoughtful “just because” moments.
Customers can choose from flexible customization options starting at $27. The Mini Surprise Box includes 10 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note, while the Mega Surprise Box offers a fuller keepsake experience with 40 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note.
What sets Xplosion Box apart is its high level of customization combined with convenience. Filled with personal photos, custom text, decorative details, and layered surprises, each box gives customers the freedom to create a gift that feels one-of-a-kind — without having to make it themselves.
At its core, Xplosion Box helps people turn favorite photos, stories, and words into something tangible: a keepsake that can be opened, revisited, and remembered long after the occasion has passed. asion has passed.
Spring Barnickle promised herself that by her 50th birthday, she would have started her own business. And with April fast approaching, she’ll make her goal just in time. Her coffee shop and community space, Playground Art + Coffee, will have its grand opening in North Park on March 26.
Playground is meant to be a space where adults can come get an espresso, enjoy a pastry, take an art class, and meet a friend, but above all else, it’s meant to help people “feel more like a kid again,” Barnickle says.
The 1,500-square-foot space is designed to feel very retro ‘70s, with no straight lines anywhere and huge pops of bright yellow, terracotta, and pistachio, for a space that’s energizing, but not juvenile. Even the menu items made in-house harken back to Gen X and elder millennial childhoods.
Case in point: a twist on Hot Pockets, but with flavors like prosciutto goat cheese and curry veggie. (Yes, pepperoni pizza will also be available.) A version of adult Lunchables will have names like Eat Your Veggies and Hit Your Macros. Plus, guests can try a “galactic” brownie that calls back to the classic Cosmic Brownies of old. Other pastries will range from sweet to savory, with chewy croissants specifically tested to minimize crumbs—with almond, pistachio, and chocolate versions—as well as a selection of packaged treats to accommodate dietary needs like gluten or nut allergies.
The drinks menu is split between “Grown Up” and “Playtime,” with the former focusing on classic coffee shop offerings like lattes, flat whites, cappuccinos, and matchas. Its coffee beans are sourced by Torque Coffee. Barnickle designed the latter for whimsy, with options like a hazelnut sesame latte, pandan mint mocha, creamsicle cold brew, mix-and-match cold foams, espresso tonic, and orange yuzu coffee soda.
Courtesy of Playground Art + Coffee
“If there’s a fruit, it’s organic,” she says. “We’re doing everything we can to source ingredients that are as delicious, but also healthy and nurturing as possible for people.”
Barnickle plans to start offering pairing events as soon as April and art workshops in May, along with mocktail-making classes, coffee cuppings, chocolate tastings, and more. The whole idea of launching a space for people to create and commune with one another is one she’s nurtured her entire life, and even helped other people achieve in their own businesses. But it’s finally her time.
“This is the culmination of everything I’ve ever done,” she says. “The world is challenging right now, to say the least, so my goal is just to try to bring a space to North Park that lets people kind of put that aside for a minute… just take a break from being a grown up and have some fun.”
Playground Art + Coffee opens March 26 at 3043 University Avenue in North Park. Opening hours will be Monday through Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Courtesy of East Village Block Party
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
Artsy vibes must be in the air, because Ballast Point also got the memo. On March 14, Ballast Point Little Italy will host the inaugural “The Art of Beer,” a beer and art celebration showcasing the talents of 10 different local breweries and the label art behind the brew. Tickets to the +21 event get you tastings, access to a panel discussion, and a chance to vote on your favorite brew (the winner will be announced at 4 p.m.) Afterwards, Ballast Point is taking the show on the road (literally), bringing The Art of Beer to its locations in Anaheim, Long Beach, and San Francisco.
Baseball is (almost) back and East Village is kicking off Padres season with the 14th Annual East Village Block Party. Starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 28, J Street is going to be rockin’ with live music, plenty of food, family-friendly fun, a classic car show, and other celebratory demos to get you in the baseball mood. Best of all, it’s free to drop by, so heed the siren’s call and gird your loins for a new (winning?) season.
I love any neighborhood “Taste Of” event, and the next one to mark on your calendar is Chula Vista’s epic foodie festival on March 19. Taste of Third starts at 4 p.m., and tickets will get you access to over 20 restaurants and other local businesses like La Bella Pizza, Thr3e Punk Ales, Farmer’s Table, and more. South Bay is definitely coming up in the San Diego culinary scene, so this is a great event to give a bunch of tasty eateries a go in one delicious night.
If the fastest way to most people’s hearts is through food, mine is through cider, and New Motion Beverages just took one step closer to me falling in love. The local beverage company just released its first limited-release dry cider, a 5.5 percent ABV cider called Dry Run they say is “brewed by popular demand.” Well, whoever is demanding breweries make cider, keep up the good work!
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.
“Music, art, and dance are the weapon of the future,” says DJ and cultural leader Makeda “Dread” Cheatom. She would know, having witnessed their power firsthand as a collaborator of some of the most legendary stars in reggae music—and as the founder of San Diego’s Bob Marley Day and the World Beat Cultural Center in Balboa Park.
“I grew up in Linda Vista, and it was where all the people from the South and the Midwest came, ’cause they were working at the defense plants,” she recalls. “I got into reggae music, and I met Bob Marley. Later on, I produced [a show with] him. They weren’t playing his music on the radio, and I would go to the radio stations, and I would say, ‘Hey, you know, reggae music, Bob Marley.’ [They’d say,] ‘I’m sorry, we don’t know him.’
“So, I went back to school for telecommunications at City College. I got on 91X—I had a show with Demaja Lee, and we started producing reggae music, and we brought it to the clubs. Women didn’t DJ back in the day like that, but there I was. I produced Peter Tosh’s last show in California, here in San Diego—The Mama Africa Tour.
“I realized when I was very young that I was from Africa, and I wanted to learn everything about my African heritage. We didn’t have any Black or African cultural centers in San Diego. [In the late 1980s], there was a hearing [to pitch use ideas for] the House of Charm, which is now the Mingei Museum. My mother died that day, and everyone told me not to go to the meeting. But I remember my mother scrubbed all those floors—you know, she was a maid. I knew I had to win this building for my mother, my father, and all the African descendants in San Diego.
“They were arguing over this house, and I stood up there, and I knew I wasn’t gonna get that building. So, I said, ‘I just want that dilapidated old water tower [in the park],’ and everybody laughed. But I kept going to city council, and I finally got the building. It had all kinds of junk in there, asbestos. They just left me a construction dumpster, and we got the place cleaned, and we had a cultural center. All cultures are here, from Brazilian to African to Mexican, Cuban, and Japanese. That’s what World Beat is about—all of us in oneness. It’s about humanity.”
Amelia Rodriguez is a writer and journalist and winner of the San Diego Press Club's 2023 Rising Star Award and 2024 Best of Show Award, she’s also covered music, food, arts and culture, fashion, and design for Rolling Stone, Palm Springs Life, and other national and regional publications. After work, you can find her hunting down San Diego’s best pastries and maintaining her five-year Duolingo streak.
If you’re anything like us, it can be easy to get so caught up in taking care of everyone else, that your own needs get lost in the ether. But while this may be a cliché, that doesn’t make it any less true: You can’t give your best self to other people unless you’re taking care of yourself.
Sometimes, that looks like stopping in for your regular acupuncture or chiropractic appointment. Other days, it means giving your body the fresh, organic fuel it needs to truly feel and function at its best. And some other times still, it involves leaving your responsibilities behind for a weekend to pamper yourself at an incredible resort and spa.
Only you can decide what your truly need. We’re just here to help you find the best ways to get it.
Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa
Island living meets desert luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells. When you step onto the 11-acre property, you’ll be surrounded by sweeping view of the Santa Rosa Mountains with olive trees and fragrant citrus groves decorating the grounds. In other words, everything about this relaxed but refined resort is primed to help you let go of the stress from home and enjoy easy sun-soaked days and gorgeous starry nights.
The rooms blend calming, woven textures with Tommy Bahama’s signature tropical prints and feature private lanais, making it easy unwind the moment you walk in the door. If you book one of the four Villa Suites, you’ll be treated to exclusive Tommy Bahama furniture and unique personal touches to further that feeling of instant ease.
At the award-winning Spa Rosa, the expert team will help reset and recharge your body and mind using methods and rituals inspired by the desert. The 12,000-square-foot retreat includes outdoor soaking pools, eucalyptus steam rooms, and outdoor cabanas, as well as massages, facials, and body masks—all aimed at creating a day dedicated to you. We’re particularly partial to the Day Long Escape, an indulgent all-day affair of CDBs soaks, renewing scrubs, life changing massages, and transformative facials.
Following your treatment, continue the experience with a meal on the patio at Grapefruit Basil. We love the Hamachi Crudo, a light, citrus-forward dish featuring premium yellowtail, house-made ponzu, creamy avocado, and fresh seasonal garnishes.
Whether you’re strolling the gardens, relaxing beside its saltwater pools, or indulging in a restorative treatment, you’ll be able to escape in style and relax in luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa.
Healcove Chiropractic
There’s no shortage of ways to stay active in San Diego—but if you really want to enjoy everything the city has to offer, you’ve got to make sure you’re giving your body its tune-ups. Enter: Healcove Chiropractic. The board-certified chiropractors and wellness professionals at Healcove are experts at addressing that stage where you’re not injured, exactly, but you’re not at 100%, either. Maybe you’re feeling a bit tense or stressed out. Or it could be that you’re not quite moving the way you want to. Sometimes, it’s just that the accumulation of days, weeks, or even years of daily strain is starting to take a toll. No matter what stage you find yourself at, the Healcove Chiropractic team can provide integrated, preventative care centered on long-term, science-backed approaches that ensure you can always stay active and live the life you want to live pain-free.
This starts by providing truly individualized care. Every patient can expect a thorough 60-minute consultation session that includes a posture and movement screening. This allows the team to develop a completely personalized plan. That plan might include chiropractic care, acupuncture, or massage therapy, as well as functional fitness training, vibration and sound therapy, and Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, a clinical rehabilitation method that retrains the body’s stabilization systems. Whatever the team recommends, you can be sure that it’s tailored to meeting your body’s needs today and the future.
There’s a reason that San Diego Magazine named Healcove the “Best Chiropractor in San Diego”—don’t wait until you’re struggling with an injury to find out why. Book an appointment today for holistic, integrated care that helps ground and heal your body before it reaches a crisis point.
Juice Holler
West Coast wellness culture meets the community feel of Southern Appalachia at Juice Holler. Juice Holler’s menu consists of made-to-order smoothies and smoothie bowls, as well as grab-and-go cold-pressed juices, wellness shots, salads, and more. It operates from the blissfully simple premise that fueling up with food and drink that’s guilt-free and good your body should be simple, accessible, and, above all else, delicious. And if you haven’t yet made it out to the Encinitas café, which opened just this year, let us be the first to tell you: Juice Holler delivers on each and every of these fronts.
We love the Supercharger smoothie, a mood-lifting and body-fueling option made with banana, almond butter, blue spirulina, maca, grass-fed whey protein, raw cacao nibs, medjool dates, and coconut milk. We’re also partial to the Thrive Alive smoothie bowl, where avocado, mango, sea moss, spirulina, mint, coconut milk, and agave are mixed and topped with coconut, chia seeds, strawberry, mango, and chocolate drizzle. The wellness shots include the Detoxifier, a cleansing blend of kale, cucumber, lemon and spirulina, plus a shot specially designed to fight inflammation (named, fittingly, Anti-Inflammation). Probiotic overnight oats, lemon turmeric bars, and strawberry shortcake chia pudding are other standouts on the grab-and-go menu.
Much of the vibe feels beachy North County chic—think green tile with orange and pink accents, grounded with greenery and natural wood—but Juice Holler founder Kelly Sergott, a longtime Encinitas local, has also enfused the space with her Kentucky roots. In Appalachia, a holler is small valley between hills and mountains, where nature reigns, community is king, and nourishment comes right from the land. At Juice Holler, Sergott has created a holler for the busy modern times, using local ingredients to create a spot for people to come together and enjoy fresh, fast, feel-good fuel for their day.
Everwell Acupuncture
We’ve all had that experience with a medical professional where we’ve felt rushed, ignored, or misunderstood—and ultimately, like we didn’t get the answers that we needed. But at Everwell, the holistic acupuncture practice located in Solana Beach, the care team wants to transform your understanding of what healthcare can look like.
Patients at Everwell experience care rooted in intentional listening and radical empathy—and trust us, those aren’t just corporate buzzwords. This place actually puts those ideas into practice. You will always be given the time you need to tell your story— initial in-take appointments are two hours long—and you can rest assured that your story will be believed. Every single question and concern will be addressed by a dedicated practitioner who wants to find the specific solutions that work best for you, and you’ll receive care that’s aimed at healing the body, mind, and spirit.
Everwell’s highly trained, doctorate-level practitioners blend evidence-based acupuncture with the practice of classical Chinese medicine. (If you’ve never tried acupuncture before or aren’t sure if the team will be a fit, we’d highly recommended Everwell’s complimentary 20-minute consultations.) Research shows that by stimulating specific points on the body, acupuncture activates a natural healing response in the body, helping to restore balance, regulate the nervous system, and improve overall wellbeing. This allows the practice to address an incredibly wide range of conditions from chronic pain and autoimmune disorders to digestive issues, from stress and burnout to headaches migraines, fertility and postpartum struggles, hormonal imbalances, sleep concerns and more.
At Everwell, you can expect to feel heard, trusted, respected, and cared for. This is a space that doesn’t want to be just another healthcare provider you visit; it wants to provide patients with dedicated partner who will be there for their entire health journey.
