INCOMING: Stone Company Store

San Diego Magazine — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 08:50:00 +0000

As we announced the other day, Consortium Holdings (Craft & Commerce, Neighborhood, etc.) has signed on for the former Proper Gastropub location at 8^th & J Streets in Downtown. But they won’t be alone. They’ll be splitting that space with the biggest name in San Diego craft beer.

Stone Brewing Co. will take over the other half, formerly occupied by Wine Steals. They’ll be putting in their sixth Stone Company Store in San Diego, the second in the Downtown area after the recent opening of their Kettner location. Consortium will create a restaurant/cocktail concept. Stone, meanwhile, will use the wood-burning pizza oven that comes with their half of the space for a flatbread menu.

The question for Stone CEO/co-founder Greg Koch is: Will neighboring businesses, many of whom serve Stone beers, view them as competition?

“We welcome [it],” says Ty Hauter, who owns multiple concepts in the neighborhood, including Blind Burro, Cat Eye Club and Lucky’s Lunch Counter. “We’re looking forward to the added foot traffic and local business camaraderie Greg Koch brings to the mix.”

Koch is renown as an ambassador for craft beer, and not just his own. Instead of viewing other local craft beers as competitors, Stone puts them on their trucks and distributes them around San Diego. He’s also spearheaded the San Diego Craft Beer Hospitality and Tourism Economic Summit—a second, bigger installment of which he’s planning for Feb. 4.

“There are two models of business,” says Koch. “There’s the old model that you’re in business for the exclusion of everyone else. Clearly we don’t work in that realm. We believe in the cooperative/compatriot model of ‘Let’s do some awesome sh**.”

Consortium and Stone’s “awesome sh**” is tentatively scheduled to open next March.

**Note: The original story said Consortium chef Jason McLeod would be creating the menu for Stone. That’s incorrect.

INCOMING: Stone Company Store

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G’NIGHT: The Palm

San Diego Magazine — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 02:57:10 +0000

Park your car too long in Downtown and Ty Hauter will put a bar concept in it. Hauter’s company Good Time Design has emerged as one of the area’s most active nightlife architects—especially true on Block 16 (between 6th and 7th Streets and J & K Streets), where he already has a hand in Blind Burro, Moonshine Flats (replacing his concept, Block No. 16 Union & Spirits), Lucky’s Lunch Counter, Cat Eye Club, and Culy Warehouse. Now he and two partners have secured the prime corner spot at 6th & J, occupied for the last eight years by steakhouse chain The Palm. His partners in the collaboration have built their own come-as-you-are casual bar empires—Joe Vaught of Verant Group (True North, Tavern at the Beach, Sandbar, etc.) and Todd Brown (Bub’s Dive Bar).

When The Palm closes on Dec. 31, the trio will get to building out an upscale seafood restaurant with a raw bar/sushi bar. Focus is on a “social dining experience,” which has been the m.o. of other Good Time Design locations. The décor will reportedly have an old-school pier feel along the lines of Fisherman’s Wharf and Pike Place Market. For the best advance vision of what it’ll look and feel like, Hauter’s people point to Catch in NYC.

Projected open: early 2014.

The Palm’s last night will be Dec. 31.

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Lucky'S Lunch Counter Archives - San Diego Magazine

INCOMING: Stone Company Store

G’NIGHT: The Palm