San Diego’s craft beer scene didn’t happen overnight, but it did start with a handful of people willing to experiment. In 1987, siblings Gina and Vince Marsaglia took over a small pizza joint in Solana Beach. They slept in the restaurant and a nearby U-Haul, built picnic tables and awnings themselves, and eventually started brewing beer in a basement that once housed a flea-ridden possum. Nearly 40 years later, Pizza Port has become one of the most decorated craft breweries in the country, with a legacy that helped shape San Diego’s beer culture.
On this week’s Happy Half Hour, presented by Redfin, host Troy Johnson sits down with Gina and Vince to revisit the early days of Pizza Port and the rise of San Diego craft beer. They talk about digging out the basement by hand to make room for a brewery, learning the business as they went, and introducing customers to beers that were a far cry from the Coors and Miller they were used to drinking. They also share some of the more harrowing parts of the job, including Vince nearly passing out from carbon dioxide while cleaning a fermentation tank—and the time he drove himself to the hospital with a bleeding thumb to avoid getting blood on the restaurant’s new carpet.
Today, Pizza Port has locations throughout San Diego County and beyond, and its beers have traveled much farther than the siblings could have imagined when they were just trying to keep the lights on. Vince and Gina talk about what it’s like to see their beer at Petco Park and on shelves across the West, why they give their brewers room to experiment, and how the business has grown into a community of people who are every bit as passionate about the craft as they are. It’s a conversation about taking a chance before you know all the risks—and building something that lasts.
This summary was provided to you by AI. To hear from the humans, listen to Happy Half Hour wherever you get your podcasts.
