Nikon D3100. Tamron AF 18-270mm lens. Shot in the NEF format in manual. ISO 100 Focal length 20mm Aperture F22 and ¼ shutter speed
Carmel Valley resident Freddy Winter likes to name his photos. This shot of Scripps Pier got an Italian name: Sono In Amore La Mia Bella La Jolla (I’m In Love with My Beautiful La Jolla). Despite the decorative title, Winter insists he’s a very simple photographer. “I don’t use any filters or fancy equipment,” says Winter, who drives a Town Car by day and shoots weddings and events at night. “Most of my pictures are shot handheld. I use a tripod on longer-exposure shots, like this one.” See more on his blog, media4lifephotography.com.
Picture Perfect: Sunset Stunner
Food & Drink
DECEMBER 20, 2023
10 Most-Listened-To Happy Half Hour Podcast Episodes of 2023
Since 2016, San Diego Mag‘s Happy Half Hour podcast has been highlighting the city’s finest food and drink makers and sharing the best in food news each month. This year, co-hosts Troy Johnson and David Martin spent 28 episodes catching up with the city’s top chefs, industry insiders, and local talent to find out what […]
Since 2016, San Diego Mag‘s Happy Half Hour podcast has been highlighting the city’s finest food and drink makers and sharing the best in food news each month. This year, co-hosts Troy Johnson and David Martin spent 28 episodes catching up with the city’s top chefs, industry insiders, and local talent to find out what makes San Diego’s food scene so great.
Among them, these 10 came out on top as the most-listened-to Happy Half Hour episodes of 2023. Haven’t checked them out yet? Give them a listen below:
In this episode, Troy and David sit down with Brandon Rodgers of The French Laundry and Benu to discuss his newest venture: Tanner’s Prime Burgers, founded in partnership with Brandt Beef. Listen as they crush beef tallow fries and ice cream sandwiches, Brandon’s wife’s cookies, and a burger made with New School American Cheese.
David Kennedy, co-owner of James Coffee Co., joins the pod to share the story of his coffee company and its efforts to get rid of single-use coffee cups and be as environmentally responsible as humanly possible. Kennedy also describes how ditching single-use cups didn’t quite go exactly as planned. Go listen. It’s a fun one.
San Diego restaurateur Tracy Borkum and executive chef Tim Kolanko from Urban Kitchen Group discuss their newest eatery, Gold Finch (a contemporary take on a Jewish delicatessen), and their next prix-fixe dining concept in the center of MCASD. This episode has everything from illegal yard sales to lessons about adaptation and Olivia Rodrigo.
To be fair, this was an episode in December 2022, but we left it in because you continued to love it and we needed another reason to post a pic of our resident mascot: Miles Davis Jr. This episode goes back to the start of Happy Half Hour, when Troy and David were just young whippersnappers with a mic and a dream. Today, Troy co-owns the mag and David is its chief sales and marketing officer, and HHH has nearly one million plays to date. Troy also lays out his hit list of the “10 Best Things I Ate This Year.”
On this episode, the gents talk with Carol Roizen and Jonathan Goldwasser, the owners of Parakeet Cafe, on the very personal reason why they created their healthy café and how they turned it into a huge success. Carol also calls out her favorite sushi spot in San Diego, David finds yet another soup that he can’t live without, and Troy slow-claps for the polenta plate at Cucina Urbana.
Troy and David get the inside scoop on Petco Park’s food and drink scene while grabbing a cold one at Alesmith’s 394 bar. Joined by vice president of hospitality Josh Momberg, they learn what it takes to feed nearly three million people each year. Go Pads!
This one isn’t as morbid as the title implies. The guys discuss their favorite meals of all time and get a sneak peek at the year’s Petco Park concerts, which included faves like Jimmy Eat World, Band of Horses, and Pixies. David also raves about the Sakura Bloom at Morning Glory, an egg-white cocktail worth a sip.
Having launched just before 2020, Coronado’s Little Frenchie made it through a global pandemic to become a Michelin-recognized spot and one of the best damn French bistros in San Diego. Troy and David chat with Blue Bridge exec chef Matt Sramek and VP of Operations Matt Gordon, who helped make Little Frenchie what it is today. They talk life on the island and their pandemic silver lining.
One of the best chefs in the country, Eric Greenspan, stops by to talk about his latest project: reinventing American cheese. He shares the story behind the new fromage, made with real butter, real cream, and aged cheese. Troy and David couldn’t get enough. Neither could the public when it was first introduced at the inaugural Del Mar Wine + Food Festival.
Rounding out our top 10 list, Baja’s wildly intelligent chef Drew Deckman stops by the office to chat with Troy and David about the precarious future of Valle de Guadalupe. Troy calls Drew “one of the funniest, most articulate, humblest, and give-a-damn people” he’s ever met as they chat about Drew’s failed dreams of becoming an umpire.
Nicolle Monico is an award-winning writer and the director of creative projects, digital editor for San Diego Magazine with more than 19 years of experience in media including Outside Run, JustLuxe and The San Francisco Chronicle.
See our photos from the event at the Music Box on February 20, 2020
Behind the Brands, held on February 20, 2020, at Music Box in Little Italy, was an evening of inside scoops and inspiration. Guests heard from Rubio’s Founder Ralph Rubio, Once Upon a Farm Co-Founder Cassandra Curtis, Intuit Principal Tech Evangelist Aliza Carpio and Red Door Interactive President John Faris. After a networking hour to mingle with other attendees and local brands, guests took their seats to hear interviews with San Diego Magazine editors. The event also featured interactive workshops with tips and tricks of resume building with a hiring manager and complimentary professional headshots. As a takeaway, guests received a complimentary Passion Planner.
Sponsors and partners for Behind the Brands included SONY, Keck School of Medicine at USC, Scripps Health, The Creative Group, Orangetheory Fitness, 1888 Doblemente Anejado, Wyoming Whiskey, Tequila Partida, Bear Naked Granola, Passion Planner, Enjet Media, and I Love a Clean San Diego.
Event Photos: Celebration of Cancer Care Champions
Photos from the event at University of San Diego Joan Kroc Institute Peace & Justice Theatre on September 22, 2019
The American Cancer Society hosted its inaugural Celebration of Cancer Care Champions (#SDC4) on Sunday, September 22, at the University of San Diego’s Peace and Justice Theatre. The event brought together the San Diego cancer care community to honor individuals and institutions who were nominated by their patients or peers for excellence in cancer care in 2018–2019. All of the finalists were selected by an external review committee representing 10 of San Diego’s leading health care and research institutions.
Kay Coleman, chair of the ACS Desert Coastal Area Board and the “SDC4” event, said, “There are many celebrations for cancer survivors, but this is the first one for the cancer care professionals who make a difference in the lives of cancer patients every day.”
Photos by Lauren Radack
Event Photos: Celebration of Cancer Care Champions
Danielle and Jason Sicklick
Studio S
SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Photos from the event at Liberty Station on August 10-11, 2019
On August 10 and 11, more than 20,000 art lovers attended the festival, which took place at Ingram Plaza at the Arts District Liberty Station. The event showcased fine artists from around the United States and Mexico and featured a full lineup of live music. Gorgeous San Diego weather topped off the festive and art-filled celebration, where attendees enjoyed the visual and performing arts, street food, interactive art activities, and a wine and beer pavilion. All were invited to bring or wear jeans, shoes, shirts, and more, which were transformed into wearable abstract expressionist art à la Jackson Pollock.
Photos by Paul Nestor and Daniel Audick
Event Photos: 14th Annual ArtWalk
Sarah Cusey
Podcasts & Video
DECEMBER 4, 2019
Event Photos: #SKY5Year
Photos from the event at SKY Facial Plastic Surgery on August 7, 2019
SKY Facial Plastic Surgery hosted its fifth annual community celebration and charity fundraiser at its North County location. Guests mingled with double–board certified facial plastic surgeon Sirius K. Yoo, MD and enjoyed a cocktail reception, hors d’oeuvres, and an opportunity drawing. Proceeds benefited FACE Foundation, which provides funding to families who cannot afford the life-saving treatments their pets need.
Photos by Bradley Schweit
Event Photos: #SKY5Year
Sirius K. Yoo, MD and Theresa Hadley
Partner Content
AUGUST 21, 2026
This Scripps Clinic Physician is Serving Up Care
Laika Nur, MD, takes her love of volleyball from the court to the clinic as team physician for the San Diego Mojo
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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