Thorsen’s latest aspiration is to transform seven overgrown and (mostly) vacant acres and five time-warped 1920s Liberty Station buildings at along Rosecrans Street and Dewey Road—once the site of NTC’s coveted officers’ quarters—into The Admiral: a grand grouping of distinct venues set amid sprawling gardens with sweeping views of the San Diego skyline and the tip of Point Loma. 

OBR Architecture, known for historic renovations (including several at Liberty Station), is on board for the $15 million facelift—the first redo of this section of the base since it was decommissioned in 1997. 

The Admiral will comprise a restaurant, canteen, game room, an event venue, and a cocktail bar, each with its own take on a 1920s-1940s theme. It’ll be the feather in Liberty Station’s cap, perched on high ground as a jaunty and distinguished addition to one of San Diego’s favorite destinations. 

“It feels right,” Thorsen said. “It’s a perfect complement to all the great things that are already here.”

Thorsen envisions The Admiral as a stylish, full-service social hub with vintage charm where guests can dine, game, picnic, pick up a bottle and a baguette, host an event, or just drop by the former guard house for a cocktail after a show (the new Jacobs performing arts center is a block away). It’ll be almost like a club, but without the membership. A fleet of golf carts to transport you around the grounds, uncorking and sipping wine on the lawn, a game of billiards, a stroll arm-in-arm with your bestie on a bonny walking path, a relaxed night of live music with the lights of downtown twinkling over yonder. We’re all invited.

The Admiral’s main building will be The Venue: a two-story, 1923 Spanish Revival home hosting weddings and events, with banquets spilling out onto the grounds where diplomats and dignitaries once gathered for garden parties overlooking downtown and the water. A bed-and-breakfast on the second floor and bridal party suites flanking the banquet hall round out the experience for special guests. The canteen will have its own bakery and sell upscale provisions à la retro rustic grocer; the game room won’t have any screens (shuffleboard, anyone?); the restaurant will take advantage of the view and the weather with abundant outdoor seating and kitchen windows where guests can watch oyster shucking. 

And of course Thorsen has already thought about the menu. “We want to keep it flexible for banquets and events, with inspired American fare, and a nod to our Point Loma fishing community.” Local seafood will undoubtedly have a featured place on the bill, along with a selection of herbs and produce from on-site edible gardens. 

Thorsen plans to decorate with original artifacts and elements from throughout the former naval base, where his grandfather was stationed. “It’s important to shine a light on and honor those who were here,” Thorsen said. 

The goal is to open sometime in 2026. Get your fedora ready. 

The post Mister A’s Ryan Thorsen Launching Massive Project in 2026 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Ian Ward and Danny Romero launched their hospitality group Service Animals in 2024 to create immersive dining experiences that reflect the pair’s high-end training at places like Addison, Southern California’s only three-Michelin-starred restaurant. At Ponyboy, the group’s first project, they’ll focus on recreating classic midcentury recipes and cocktail culture with a few twists. 

Along with Ward and Romero, Ponyboy’s opening team includes Service Animals wine expert Kyle South, who is also the lead sommelier of Addison; menu development by Dante Romero, Danny’s brother and partner in their pop-up Two Ducks, as well as executive chef of The Lion’s Share; executive chef Josh Reynolds (Wormwood, Stone Brewing World Bistro, MRKT Space); hospitality expert Patrick Virata (Addison); and pastry chef Yara Lamers (CH Projects).

If you’ve ever flipped through your grandparent’s well-worn copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle or Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, Ponyboy’s menu may feel familiar. Expect reimagined classics steeped in nostalgia, such as pineapple upside-down cake made with brown butter cake, rum roasted pineapple, cilantro coconut sherbet, and Jamaica sauce. Fondue for two. Aspics. Deviled eggs.

There will be a Juicy Lucy burger with a New School American cheese-stuffed Wagyu patty smothered in Alabama white sauce and Okie onions on a sesame-potato brioche bun and served with fries and a side of more Alabama white sauce. (Will Cheez Whiz, the signature invention of 1953, make an appearance? Time will tell.) 

Starting on Wednesday, August 14, Ponyboy will introduce a new section of the menu titled “T.V. Dinners,” which will—you guessed it—feature nightly specials riffing the meal style that generally contains a protein, starch, vegetable, and dessert. Wednesday will be fried chicken nights with seasonally rotating sides, and Ward says future T.V. dinners will all feel playful but recognizable.

With David Tye (formerly of Kingfisher and The Lion’s Share), Chris Blas (The Lion’s Share, Polite Provisions), and Meagan Crumpley (Ironside, Sycamore Den) behind the bar, the cocktail-heavy menu features old-fashioned classics (and probably an Old Fashioned, or at least their spin on it). Look for banana daiquiris, Bahama Mamas, Monte Carlos, and non-alcoholic options like New York egg creams and summer lemonade.

Casetta Group redesigned the hotel in 2020, preserving the retro midcentury aesthetic while updating some worn-out features. The Ponyboy space got a complete refresh from Brooklyn-based design team One Union Studio, with soft lighting and hues of sage green, dusty rose, and cream for a calm vibe that feels both inspired era and modern. Kitschy touches, like plates shaped like clam shells and checkerboard-patterned throw pillows, abound. The lounge area seats 11 guests for drinks only, while the bar can hold 13 and dining space up to 56 between the lounge, dining room, and poolside.

Once open, hours will be Wednesday through Sunday, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. for the kitchen, with the bar staying open until 11 p.m. A daily “Golden Hour” happy hour at the bar/lounge will run from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. with a special $1 menu and drink specials. Wednesdays are Dive-In Movie Night, with drink and dinner specials to pair with the selected feature. (For instance, Breakfast at Tiffany’s will go with a Manhattan clam chowder special with pastrami on rye and New York cheesecake, while an Addams Family marathon may offer escargot Bourgogne.) Parking is limited, but valet is available for $15. Party on, Ponyboy. 

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].

The post First Look: Ponyboy at The Pearl Hotel appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“When I was back at Cork & Craft in Rancho Bernardo, I wrote eight business plans that have evolved over time, and this was always the first one I ever wrote,” says Esteban. “This was something that I wanted to do back in 2013.”

But that time, while longer than expected, allowed the concept to become more than what he originally envisioned. Esteban has made a name for himself as a pioneering local talent bringing his Filipino heritage to the forefront of cuisine. He’s helped shape the culinary landscape into something much more globally accessible alongside fellow chefs like Tara Monsod (Animae, Le Coq). But rather than continuing to specifically focus on his culture, as he’s done at White Rice, he says Wildflour will be more inspired by what he eats on a typical day, and what he thinks other people will enjoy as well.

Wildflour Delicatessen will open this August at 2690 Historic Decatur Road in the Arts District at Liberty Station. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.

Esteban says barring any other delays, he plans to soft open Wildflour on Wednesday, August 21 through Friday, August 23 with shortened hours. They’ll then close for the weekend to evaluate, reset, and restock, before a grand opening on Monday, August 26.

The menu will span breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with lunch serving more set items like focaccia sandwiches and ready-to-grab sides like Mediterranean couscous or lemon basil orzo. “Breakfast and dinner, that’s where the menus flip a little bit,” he says, saying neither section will have more than eight to 10 dishes at any given time, and will feature items like fresh seafood, roast chicken, pork chops from Thompson Heritage Ranch, and with dinner offering relaxed, family-style service. 

“I’m not so worried about, ‘Oh, I need to make this the sexiest, finest dish, with the best technique,’” he laughs. “It’s gonna be high technique still, but just more focused… It won’t be your stuffy five-star white linen type of service. It’ll be a lot more casual.”

Wildflour will also have a coffee bar, retail shop, and cocktail program, which will emphasize lighter concoctions. “Having all these wild, crazy cocktails isn’t the thing for the area,” he explains. “It will be a lot more straightforward, lighter, refreshing, citrus to just pair with the food.” The space itself spans a little over 4,000 square feet with a large outdoor space able to seat 40-50 guests. But, for as much as Esteban says he loves the bright and clean aesthetic cultivated by Arch5 Design Studio, there’s one other big draw to the space.

“There’s a tremendous amount of parking,” he laughs.

Wildflour has taken up more than its fair share of time and energy to come into existence. But Esteban says it’s been nice to focus on one project before the next year really ramps up for him. “2025 gets really crazy,” he says, adding he has four potential projects in the pipeline, including more White Rice locations and perhaps even another smaller, more express version of Wildflour. But he doesn’t want to just keep opening restaurants (although clearly he’s up for it). 

Esteban is also a mountaineering enthusiast and has been looking for ways to cross over his personal hobby and professional world. Backpackers often bring ready-to-eat meals in their packs, but dishes like chicken pesto pasta or oatmeal didn’t always resonate with Esteban. So he decided to R&D his own line of dehydrated meals, featuring Filipino flavors along the lines of White Rice’s popular silog bowls.

“So if you’re a person of color… who does climb, it connects with you now,” he says. “It would be the first one in the world to actually make these flavors.” 

The work is never done in his world. “These things aren’t easy,” he says. “But I’m never the type to dwell on things. There’s always a time and season for everything.” It seems Esteban’s season is only just beginning to bloom. 

New San Diego Restaurants & Local Food Events

Swagyu Burger Opening Several New Locations 

Chef Steve Brown’s savory sensations at Swagyu Burger has proven so popular that the local chain is slated to open more locations across Southern California, including Imperial Beach in mid-July and Pacific Beach around the end of August, according to operations lead Kyle Simh. Simh says that while their steakhouse and butcher concepts were successful, the demand for burgers was so high they decided to shift their focus. “We’d be booked out on a Saturday night [at Swagyu Study Hall in Pacific Beach], but it was all burgers,” he explains. “That’s what people really wanted, so we wanted to start to focus on the burger more.”

Simh says they plan to open more Swagyu Burger locations in Newport Beach and San Jose this summer, but are also looking to expand to Los Angeles and beyond. “We’re waiting for the right thing to pop up, but we’re actively looking,” he promises. 

Beth’s Bites

• Grind & Prosper Hospitality (Louisiana Purchase, Coco Maya) has a new concept on the horizon—The Haole Shack, slated to open this summer at 707 Grand Avenue. With a menu that includes smashburgers, teriyaki bowls, and shave ice, it sounds like a decent taste of Hawai’i on the PB boardwalk. 
• Comic-Con is coming next month—are you planning your dining options yet? Gaslamp District and East Village are both walkable from the convention center and chock full of tasty destinations. If you prefer to look down at the crowds versus fight your way through them, head to the roof of the AC Hotel Downtown Gaslamp Quarter to Techo Beso for margaritas and killer views of downtown. 
• The Seventh House will live again in North Park, this time as a speakeasy that promises to be “darker than ever,” according to Instagram. Guess it’s time to ask the oracle which cocktail is in my future…

The post Phillip Esteban’s Wildflour Opens This August in Liberty Station  appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Now, iconic local designer Paul Basile (Morning Glory, Puesto, Raised by Wolves, Underbelly) is transforming the former Fiddler’s Green space from a decrepit wreck into The Boatyard, a multi-million-dollar restaurant estimated to open in mid-2025.

Fiddler’s Green was a Point Loma landmark for decades, finally shuttering somewhat unceremoniously in 2023 after the County of San Diego recorded multiple food and safety violations. But its location and infrastructure meant potential. It just took some time for that potential to be realized, and now four partners are working to make The Boatyard a reality: Chalium “Cal” and January “Jan” Muir, Spencer Moran, and Whitney Eckis.

The Muirs own Sail San Diego, a business on the same block as Fiddler’s Green, so when Cal saw the space go up for lease, he talked with the landlord. Things started rolling, and he pulled in Eckis and Moran to complete the ownership team.

The four San Diego natives have been friends for years, and they bring tons of combined experience in the sailing and hospitality industries. Eckis will handle all marketing and creative endeavors, Cal is behind financials, Jan will tackle operations, and Spencer will leverage his family’s restaurant experience and connections with the boating industry to build relationships with the local community. While Basile is behind the design, the team is also working with Eric Galley (CH Projects), who is serving as a consultant to help build the team, space, and culture.

“It definitely had to make sense for all of us,” Eckis says. “We sat down and put our heads together and said, ‘Okay, if we’re going to do this, we really want to do it for the community, number one. Number two, we really want to be kind of a re-ignition of what Fiddler’s used to be.”

The Boatyard hasn’t broken ground yet, but Eckis says they’re taking it to the bones for a complete renovation. The team will lean into the original restaurant’s steak-and-seafood concept, but with significantly updated details and Shelter Island’s first “experiential speakeasy” to appeal to both locals and tourists.

“It’s going to be like you’re going back in time a little bit into the captain’s quarters,” Eckis explains. “Imagine where the captain hangs out on his old ship—not too piratey, but just very old-school, nautical, [an] 1800s feel… People who don’t sail or people who don’t own boats, [they’ll] feel like they’re kind of getting the [behind-the-scenes] of what it looks like to be a captain.” 

She says Paul is working to make The Boatyard a “blue-collar yacht club” where captains, deckhands, locals, and tourists can all feel welcome. “He’s taking this on and really bringing his vision to life,” she adds. 

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Celebrate Polynesian Culture at Kona Kai’s Annual Luau

On Friday, June 21, from 7 to 10 p.m., Kona Kai San Diego will host its fourth annual Luau Party: A Celebration of Kai’aina. Kai’aina means “land” in Hawaiian, and the event will feature live performances from local Polynesian dance studios Te Rahiti Nui and Taupou Samoa. Polynesian cuisine will also be served, including macaroni salad, lomi lomi salmon, huli huli chicken, Spam musubi, and, of course, a traditional kalua suckling pig. Tickets for the all-ages event are available here.

Beth’s Bites

I stopped by Puesto at The Headquarters last night for three reasons: to eat tacos, to celebrate their 12-year anniversary, and to get a sneak peek at some of Beau du Bois’ creations for the forthcoming Roma Norte. Your first instinct probably won’t be to order the banana daiquiri—do it anyway.

More Mike’s Red Tacos locations are coming to San Diego. I’m especially interested in their “franchise-inspired creation” dubbed the CrunchStack. You have to love the non-intellectual-property-infringing creativity!

Killer Pizza From Mars couldn’t survive on Earth (specifically in Escondido). But it appears that a new pizza joint called West Coast Pizza Company is taking over the space at 1040 El Norte Parkway. May they live long and prosper.

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].

The post Paul Basile Spearheading Design of The Boatyard in Point Loma appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Carruth Cellars, hero

Carruth Cellars

“Oh man, bet you could fit 400 or 500 people in here; don’t tell the fire chief,” jokes Adam Carruth, who is in no way planning to test fire-code limits of his company’s massive new wine garden at Liberty Station. On paper, the new Carruth Cellars’ Wine Garden is 12,000 square feet, but Adam says it’s more like 15,000 thanks to the massive garden patio and usable space.

Carruth Cellars entrance

Carruth Cellars

It’s open to wine club members this weekend, and open to the public on July. And it happens the same month they were forced from their Little Italy location.

“We knew we were going to lose the Little Italy spot for a year or so,” Adam explains. “We were thinking about expanding up into Orange County. But my buddy called me about this space. I’d tried to go to Liberty Station 10 years ago but I got distracted. This space is in the ARTS District at Liberty Station, so there’s this great connection to 27 artists who work there. We just took all the plants from Little Italy and filled in the new garden.”

Carruth Cellars, wine and cakes

Carruth Cellars

Inside is a 75-foot copper-topped bar, lined with shelves and shelves of Carrurth wine. There’s a long, high-backed white banquette, art from his neighbors is hung on the wall. What Adam calls “a sultry bar.” On the other side of the space is a gourmet cheese shop, with a big case full of world-class melters and stinkers, real similar to Venissimo Cheese. You can buy picnic baskets to take out into the huge parks in Liberty Station. On weekend mornings, they’ve partnered with Prager Bros for breads and coffee.

“We went big,” Adam says. “It’s copper-clad, lit up with LED lights. It’s a glowing, 75-foot bar inside of a long room. We put a lounge in there like our Carlsbad and Little Italy [locations]. Then the cheese shop—I think it works. It’s weird and fun.”

Carruth Cellars wines

Carruth Cellars

The kitchen at Carruth Liberty will crank out more food than at their other locations (they’ve got the original spot in Solana Beach, plus Carlsbad and Oceanside), with apps like chichette (basically Italian finger food) and desserts to go along with their cheese boards, sandwiches, and salads they do at all locations. There will also be a market section with olive oils, tapenades, salamis, and pantry goods.

Carruth Cellars Interior

Carruth Cellars

Opening their first spot in 2010, Carruth made their name as an urban winery by buying high-quality fruit from Northern California, shipping it down, and then crushing, fermenting, and aging wines here in San Diego. I ask Adam what the key to the success has been. “Our staff has always been really nice,” he says. “And the fruit–we never cut corners. We’re buying super-high pedigree fruit from the same plots as Silver Oak, Duckhorn, even Heidi Barrett at Screaming Eagle.”

Carruth Cellars, cakes

Carruth Cellars

They also benefited from low cost of grapes in 2018 and 2019. Growers had a glut, and winemakers like Carruth could get top-of-the-line fruit for half the cost. “We were buying Napa cab for 40 cents on the dollar so we bought a ton,” he says. “It was a strain on the company to buy all that fruit, but we were helping our growers. We made 25,000 cases in 2019 and have barely touched it.”

Carruth wines take about three to four years to hit the table. Two years aging in barrel, another year in bottle, then distributed.

Carruth Cellars, combo

Carruth Cellars

Top sellers are the Sauvignon Blanc and Unicorn Blend (29% Zinfandel, 23% Merlot, 14% Pinot Noir, 12% Grenache, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Petite Sirah, 2% Syrah). But Adam’s go-to is the BDX. “We get four to five Bordeaux varietals like Cab, Malbec, Cab Franc, and do a co-fermentation like a field blend.”

Come this summer, Carruth Liberty will have live bands on the patio. “Music on the regular,” Adam says.

Carruth opens to the public July 11.

Carruth Cellars, outdoors

Carruth Cellars

Carruth Cellars grass

Carruth Cellars

Carruth Cellars, seating

Carruth Cellars

The post FIRST LOOK: Carruth Cellars Liberty Station appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Fishmonger star Tommy Gomes among the treasures of the sea in his Point Loma home

Robert Benson

A few months back, Tommy Gomes got an email from his producer with a series of numbers. Not a spreadsheet guy, Tommy replied, “Looks good, now will someone tell me what the **** I’m lookin’ at?” 

His producer wrote back to say, congratulations, The Fishmonger was the top-rated show on Outdoor Channel. Also, congratulations, numbnuts—the head of the network was on that email you just f-bombed. 

This is Tommy Gomes in a nutshell: unique and unflinchingly real. 

Part of what makes him so compelling to watch on TV is that he can tell a vivid story and simultaneously give few-to-zero ****s. 

He possesses a straight-answer earnestness developed from life on commercial fishing boats, where there’s no room for hem nor haw. A realism learned from doing 10 years in a federal penitentiary, where he became an artist and a man was killed next to him in line for food. Lessons learned on the streets, where he lost everything to drugs and alcohol. Lessons learned from scratching his way back, pouring every inch of his resolve into sustainable seafood, working so hard that at the end of his shift he’d often crawl into the massive coffins built for bluefin tuna and catch some sleep until the next work bell. 

“I’m just lucky to be here, bro,” he says. 

Chronicling a Culture At Risk

In each episode of The Fishmonger, Tommy serves as the larger-than-life docent into American fishing life. He visits with fishing families, shows what it’s like trying to navigate the modern US fishing industry. He captures the heart of a once-mighty culture that’s being pushed to the brink, if not actively being lost. He both acts as a conduit for their stories, and shares his own hard-won perspectives gained from being part of a family who’s fished out of San Diego for over 120 years. 

NET WORTH“That net is about the size of Qualcomm Stadium’s parking lot,” Tommy says. “We’d take a break or a nap on there whenever we were running downwind.” 

The first Gomes moved to San Diego in 1898, sustained their future with a pole and a line. 

Now available in 19 countries, you can find every episode of The Fishmonger on Amazon Prime Video—except one. That episode had to be removed because in it, Tommy wasn’t shy about his feelings toward certain international fishing fleets.

Spend any amount of time around commercial fishing circles in the US, and you’ll hear the same tirade. That when environmental groups raised the issues of seafood sustainability and dolphin deaths in the ’70s, many US crews took it seriously, followed regulations, saved dolphins and turtles, and became the most sustainable fishing fleet in the world. But many commercial boats left the US, “swapped flags,” chose to do business in parts of the world where the rules were a little looser, even nonexistent. That left local fishers without jobs, and gutted entire communities built around hauling their livelihood out of the sea. 

Up until the ’70s, San Diego was the tuna capital of the world, with just about every major brand—Bumble Bee, StarKist, all of ’em—based here, their massive commercial boats lined up from San Diego Harbor all the way to National City, their processing plants near the docks. The industry employed 17,000 local people at its height. Now, aside from a few boats and the small but mighty Tuna Harbor Fish Market, that culture exists largely in history books and historical exhibits at the airport.

“I’ll be the last of my family to fish for a living,” says Tommy. 

To be clear, Tommy’s one of the loudest voices supporting sustainable fishing. He champions the rules; he just resents the ruin that happened when the US and a few other countries were the only ones abiding by them. 

We’re standing in a bedroom of his Point Loma home that’s filled to the brim with oddities and memories collected at sea—portholes, fishing nets, dozens of poles, leather-bound photo albums, books, sextants, parts of boats that sunk, wood carvings from far-off ports. It’s part nautical Gomes Family museum, part really cool hoarding. 

This room’s a special one and a hard one. It’s where he took care of his dad in his final days. Against the east window is a stained glass depicting an old man helming a boat at sea in a storm. “That’s Dad,” Tommy says. “Spent my whole first paycheck having that made for him.” 

FREE TIME?“We never really get days off unless it’s really bad weather and we can’t be on deck working on the boat or machinery,” says Gomes. “This day we were drifting and it was hot out so a few of us started bailing off the pilot house—about 30 to 40 feet drop.”

Tommy’s dad took the loss of the tuna fleets the hardest. 

“The old man was something special—hard worker, fished right up until he couldn’t,” Tommy says. “When the tuna boats left, he went with them. He stayed home for a while, started to deteriorate. So I got him a job driving my buddy’s sportfishing boat at night. He was happy again, all the way into his 80s. People called him Blue, like the character from the movie Old School.”

There’s a large portrait of his dad on the fireplace in the living room. In his 80s, he looks exactly like Blue. Old and scrappy and alive, a look in his eye that says, “Yeah sure I’m game.” 

Tommy also looked after his mom in this home, until she passed last year. Now he lives here with his roommate, and his black Lab, Butter. Tommy’s now 60. He’s spent 40-something years earning his living off what men and women pull out of local and international waters—interrupted only by a 10-year stint where he was locked up. 

On the Rocks

Tommy’s dad didn’t say much the day he drove him to prison to surrender. Just told him to not say anything that would send someone else to prison. Don’t rat. It wasn’t a statement of culpability. Just a dad telling his son how to survive. 

Tommy’d gotten into drugs around age 25. Real bad.

“I remember being so bad off one time sitting at my house,” he recalls, “I put my hand on the Bible and said, ‘God, I’d rather go to prison than live like this.’ A couple weeks later, that’s exactly what happened.”

I’ll leave the details of the case to the biographers, but eventually Tommy says he found himself in the middle of a deal that went south. 

“I’d never even sat in the back of a cop car before,” he says. “Up until my sentencing I thought they’d give me probation. But these were the days of mandatory minimums. I was facing 40 years to life. I went in in 1990 and got out in 2001.”

Tommy doesn’t brag about prison (he calls it “college”). Neither does he hide it. 

“Prison’s a lot of things,” he says, “but it’s not cool. There is nothing cool about prison.” 

I’ve known Tommy a long time. Under the right circumstances, he’ll leak out some stories. Like the time he says someone was killed with a piano wire next to him in line for dinner. It was chicken night, he remembers. There’s no glee in him explaining it. Just a human sharing a story about the unbelievable things his eyes have seen.

Tommy Gomes showcases some of the items collected from the sea over 100 years and several family generations of commercial fishing

Robert Benson

Or the time he snuck 300 lobsters in. 

“We were at a camp that’s on the honor system,” he says. “It’s easy, easy time. Most guys there are near the end of their sentence. There’s no fence. So I get a buddy to drop 300 live lobsters. Everyone is getting lobsters—guards, everyone. Guys are eating six or seven, just chowing down. We throw ’em in the dumpster. 

“[Later], we look down the road and we see the van comin’. Oh, no, they’re pickin’ someone up. The guards come and say, ‘Gomes.’ They drive me back to where the dumpsters were, and there are shells everywhere. I mean, all over the place. The ****ing racoons got in there and spread ’em all over the parking lot.”

Since it was an honor camp, his mom, Dottie, would stuff crab sandwiches in her sweater. Always a fishing family. Most importantly, over that long decade Tommy’s mom also made sure he saw his daughter. 

“What no one talks about are the things we miss,” he says. “We don’t talk about the pain, the funerals, the births of babies, the dog, the cat. You’re missing everything, bro. My daughter was three when I went in. I missed that entire 10-year span. I would get a book, like Where the Sidewalk Ends, and she would have a copy. I’d call her from prison and we’d read together.” 

BOAT FORMAL“We wore hard hats, some guys wore football helmets with full grill,” Tommy explains. “The net comes up about 35 to 60 feet above your head. Sometimes the fish get stuck in there then break loose. A 30 to 40 pound fish falling 60 feet isn’t nice. I’ve been knocked out three or four times from falling fish. As for the shorts, we’d wear nylon shorts and silk boxers. Most of the time we’d fish about 200 miles off of Mexico, Central and South America. It’s hot. You don’t want any plastic clothes or oil skins.”

In the ’90s, he says the prison system made sure female inmates had access to their kids. Fathers’ relationships with their kids were not a priority. 

“So I put together a parenting program,” he says. “I taught the class. If you took the class, you got a certificate. It gave you the opportunity to sit in the TV room with your kid and watch a Disney movie. Or play a board game. It gave you an opportunity to make leather or arts or crafts with them.”

It’s the first time I see him talk about prison with pride. 

“When I would get transferred to another facility,” he says, “they’d say, ‘Hey, that’s the mother****er who got us the parenting program.’” 

It’s not “all good” with his daughter. Some things heal, some require more time than this life has to give. 

“There are still holes in the relationship I need to work out,” he says, “but I’m very proud of who she’s become and the type of woman she is.” 

Tommy grabs a giant plastic mug off a shelf in his room. “All of us get one of these in the joint—it’s where your coffee and soup and pruno go.” 

On one side is a painstakingly beautiful drawing of a ship cutting through open water: the Dottie G. “Mom’s boat. Drew this with a hot needle, shoe polish, and baby oil.” 

Tommy became a real artist in prison—especially in leatherworking. He’d design custom leather Bible covers for other inmates. A few ornate leather-bound books line a table in his home, each emblazoned with a different title: Thomas Gomes’ Book of Reflection, Nana’s Book, The Voyages Upon the Sea. Inside, photos of young Tommy at sea, of a Mexican helicopter escorting them out of spots they weren’t supposed to be, of boys and men and older men living their lives on decks in the middle of the ocean. They look feral, happy, ready to take on the world.

Tommy Gomes’ Point Loma home is part nautical Gomes Family museum, part really cool hoarding

He points to a leather suitcase. It’s the color of an old, oiled baseball mitt. On it, a bluefin tuna. It reads, “David E. Gomes, Master Mariner.” 

“I made this for dad in college,” Tommy says. “It’s got pockets inside for his sextant, all his stuff. He took it with him everywhere he went.” 

I’m no expert on prison, but it seems the offramp into unincarcerated life is neither easy nor well designed. For all the talk about prison being a “rehabilitation” system, doesn’t seem like there’s much of a plan beyond opening the gates and luck-wishing. 

So when Tommy got out, it all went south in new ways.

“There’s no foundation—they’re counting on you to go back,” he says. “The fishing fleet was already gone. There was a little bit of work on the sport boats, but at that time I was an old ex-con. There wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for me. And that’s part of the issue for myself and a lot of ex-cons, both male and female. 

“I knew I was a drug addict, so I started drinking. It got worse and worse until I [was living on the streets]. I was friends with a guy named Boston James. We’d huddle up at the grease-pit dump behind Hodad’s burgers in OB because the hot grease would keep us warm. Boss Man [Mike Hardin, late owner of Hodad’s, known for taking care of locals who needed help] would come out back and give us a plain burger. He’d cut it in half because he knew we were so sick we couldn’t eat it.”

At one point, Tommy moved a few rocks around and created a cubbyhole in the OB jetty. He lined it with blue plastic tarp, had a couple buckets of vodka and a hose. Stayed there for a couple days with only those things, his lips scabbed from the stomach acid, his knees bloody from the rocks.  

That was the bottom people talk about needing to hit before they finally ask for help. He started the process of getting sober. It would take a while. He went down to the only place he knew to look for work—the docks—and saw a sign: “Help Wanted: Fish Cutter.”

That ad was from Dave Rudy, owner of Catalina Offshore—a local, sustainable fish warehouse. Tommy got the job. He made friends with local chefs, raised money for nonprofits, started Collaboration Kitchen, a dinner event that taught people how to cook with local, sustainable seafood. He put on cooking demos inside the seafood warehouse. He helped develop a retail store. He made a name. 

He worked at Catalina for 15 years. During the pandemic, he lost that job. His mom had just passed. Tommy had turned 60. An old ex-con adrift again. Then, another grace—a friend who’d gotten to know Tommy when they did cooking demos at trade shows suggested they film a TV show together. That friend was Scott Leysath, the cooking editor of Ducks Unlimited magazine and TV host (Dead Meat, The Sporting Chef). 

“I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he says. “I wanted to show what real fishing life was like. Not the dramatic high-seas stuff. The real life, the families, show the wives—how they’re the anchors, the rudders. I called all my friends. Some of them said you bet, Tommy. Some of them said no way. Some fishermen go out to sea for a reason.”

Now, Gomes is about to travel to Louisiana to film his third season of The Fishmonger. In May, he’ll open Tunaville—a seafood shop at Driscoll’s Wharf in San Diego Harbor that’ll serve local seafood, caught by local people on local boats. It’s a partnership with another fisherman and local seafood icon, Mitch Conniff of Mitch’s Seafood.   

When he talks about it, he just kind of chuckles. Saving himself at the buzzer yet again. The way he sees it, everything, no matter how hard or terrible, had a part in getting him here. 

“Prison saved my life,” he says.

Last Ones Standing

Point Loma was built by fishing families. Offhand narratives will often claim the Portuguese created all of San Diego—just went out to sea, came back, unloaded the city onto the docks. That’s too wide a brush, of course. Plenty of cultures had a hand in the flowering of human activity here, including the Kumeyaay and pan-Asian fishing families. 

But for sure, the Portuguese fishing families in the 1900s to 1950s were the ones who paved the roads and put the street lights in Point Loma. Point Loma High School needed a new gym floor? Tuna money. From the Portuguese Historical Center to the painted curbs of Tunaville to the monument to Cabrillo, this seaside alcove is very much Lisbon West. 

“You could tell a fisherman lived at a house because the entire yard would be concrete,” Gomes says. “They’d paint them green. But they’re not going to waste water growing grass, especially when one of them had to be out at sea for months and wouldn’t be around to water it. If you’re gonna water it, you better get something from it. So they’d have fruit trees—lemons, mostly, for the fish. And grapes they’d use to make wine.”

You can often tell which homes belong to fishing families—modest, a boat in the driveway or side yard. In front of Tommy’s house is a small boat custom-built for his dad so he could fish into his later years. The house is a well-worn place, full of sea treasures and knickknacks. It was originally the residence of Point Loma’s fire chief. 

THE SEND OFF“This one’s probably from 1978, and I was getting ready to leave on my uncle Johnny’s boat,” he says. “We’d go out for anywhere between 30 and 90 days. My dad came to see me off. That’s the old Shell dock. The canneries were down there. When the boats came back from their runs, they’d be lined up from there all the way to National City.” 

When I walk in, Butter wakes up from a nap, realizes Tommy’s not right there next to him, and howls and howls and howls. Tommy’s bedroom is a converted garage, albeit one whose tall windows overlook the ocean beyond Sunset Cliffs. He wakes up to it every morning, goes to bed knowing it’s out there in the dark. The sea is what gave his family so much, the vast expanse where he grew up and learned about life and made his mistakes. The sprawling homes in the surrounding hills are full of people who’ve earned fortunes. They have the same view. But few people have earned the right to stare at big water quite like Tommy has. 

“When our folks bought these houses out here in the ’50s and ’60s, they were $20,000,” he says. “Now they’re going for three or four million and the opportunity to keep fishing for a living just isn’t available. You can do a lot with three or four mil. Now these fishing families are watching as the new condos go up. It’s progress, bro; that’s just the way it is.” 

Fishing families have the bad luck of earning their living in the most desirable spots. Had they pulled sustenance out of piles of dirt, the neighborhoods might stay forever. 

The day I visit him, he wears a Fishmonger trucker hat. His bowling shirt is also branded. He does not miss an opportunity to brand his new life. Whereas many people are hesitant to self-promote, Tommy jumps at the chance. It’s as if, shocked this good thing is happening, he’s doing everything he can to make it stick, to imprint his mark into the world, carve it into the local rocks so he can use it as a finger hold if he’s ever in danger of falling again.

Tommy’s bedroom is full of bones, cannonballs found at sea from bygone wars, lures, international tchotchkes covered in saltwater dust. The living room is lined with couches and soft lounge chairs. His home isn’t fancy. It’s not modern and doesn’t have the signpost appliances of wealth. This is where a modest family lived out its generations, collected things that struck them one day and brought them home to keep on a shelf. 

“This little device here,” he says, holding up a metal contraption shaped like a deadly arrow, “you drop out the back of the boat and every few feet it automatically ties a knot. You haul it in and can tell by the knots on the rope how fast you’re going.” That’s where knots as a measurement of speed come from.

He points to a tiny vial.

“That’s Dad,” he says, meaning his ashes. “Got tons of those things. They’re tied to buoys all over the harbor. Dad’s there, just hanging.” 

Tommy Gomes, star of Outdoor Channel series The Fishmonger

Robert Benson

Through a dilapidated screen door, there’s a wooden deck that hangs on the side of the hill. Gomes has turned this into a social outdoor kitchen, with a couple smokers. Every Sunday he and Butter go fishing. Later in the afternoon he holds court here, inviting local chefs and media people and friends over to cook and talk and smoke and stare at the ocean. Tommy’s not a fancy cook. When I ask him for the secret of his very flavorful chicken, he looks at me, very serious, and laughs. “Italian dressing, straight out of the bottle, bro.” 

As the last fisherman in his family, when Tommy dies, so will over 100 years of hauling a living over the side of a boat. It’s a story being played out in fishing families across the US.

So he’s going to make this final tour a grand one. Using this TV show as an homage to the people and culture of American fishing. Doing cooking demos about sustainable seafood (a video he filmed breaking down an entire opah—a round fish the size of a monster truck wheel—has been viewed over 49 million times). Opening a fish shop dedicated to local catch from local boats operated by local people he knows. 

In his off time you’ll see him driving his light-aqua 1955 F-100 around town, Butter riding shotgun. He’ll occasionally lean out the window to talk to someone he knows. One of the many unofficial mayors around here. 

He’ll occasionally make stops to help someone on the street. To relate, one addict to another. 

“If you put shit in, you get shit out,” Tommy always says of why local, sustainable seafood matters. 

It could also sum up other portions of his life. 

He’s putting better things in now.

The post How ‘The Fishmonger’ Star Tommy Gomes Rose From the Depths appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“Depending on the size and type of construction, and permitting and inspection costs, recovery fees can be as low as $2,000 per application. Previously, the cost was between $20,000 and $30,000,” says Gary Geiler, deputy director of San Diego’s Development Services Department.

The building trend is catching on. In 2016, the city received only 19 applications from homeowners wanting to build an ADU. In 2019, nearly 600 came in. Geiler says this boom has been happening citywide, and they anticipate issuing 400 to 500 more permits this year.

On the right stands Stephanie and Don’s original house with Tatiana and Steven’s recently constructed ADU to the left.

Photo Credit: Madison Parker

The Starks family in Point Loma took advantage of the new laws and is now a model for how the ADU living situation can work. Steven and his wife, Tatiana, and their three-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, live in a small two-story home that was built on Steven’s parents’ lot.

Steven and Tatiana met when they both lived in Guangzhou, China, working in the Chimelong Circus—he as a springboard diver, she as an aerial gymnast. They got married, and when Elizabeth was about a year old, they moved in with Steven’s parents, Don and Stephanie.

As the couple searched the county for a home to buy, they had found a townhouse in La Mesa that was within their budget. But Steven says when he looked into getting a loan and started crunching the numbers, the townhouse would’ve been costly in other ways: a long commute, childcare, taxes, HOA fees. And since the Starks are a literal family circus, they had a unique requirement for their new home: a backyard that could accommodate a 13-foot-tall aerial rig that Tatiana uses to practice (without a safety net) when she’s not coaching at the San Diego Circus Center. “You know how HOAs are; they’re not going to let anyone have that in their backyard!” Stephanie jokes.

Photo Credit: Madison Parker

Steven says the inspiration to build an ADU happened during a moment of frustration, when he thought, I’ll just live in the garage. He started doing research and found news articles about the city eliminating the development fees to build an ADU. When he fell down that rabbit hole, he discovered that demolishing the garage in his parents’ backyard and building a self-sufficient, two-story home in its place would cost just 30 percent as much as purchasing the La Mesa townhouse.

It required a construction and remodel loan—significantly less than a loan for a $400,000 home. “At first, I didn’t want it to make sense, and I didn’t want to do it,” Steven admits. “But this was the best option to avoid being house poor in San Diego.”

Photo Credit: Madison Parker

Gregg Cantor of Murray Lampert, a design-build firm that specializes in building ADUs from the ground up, demoed the garage and designed a 956-square-foot home for the young family. “There’s no shared kitchen and no shared laundry. We already did that for two years,” Stephanie laughs. The home has its own entrance, and there’s a gate dividing Steven and Tatiana’s front door from their parents’ patio. “Sometimes I won’t see them for a few days at a time,” Stephanie says. And since they built up, there’s still plenty of room in the backyard for the aerial rig.

After more than six months of construction, Steven and Tatiana moved into their new home in September 2019. He says he’s happy with his decision and thinks it was the right one. “I guess I just had to go big, to go home.”

The post How to Make an ADU Work in San Diego appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Glass House on Point Loma

Laila Knight and George Khouli with their dogs, Syria and Rico, styled by Gabriel Feitosa.

It’s four o’clock on a Monday and George Khouli and Laila Knight are right in their happy place: behind the bar.

“What do you want? Open that tequila. We’re having tequila,” Khouli instructs his better half. “Cheers!” Slamming a shot glass on the bar, he declares, “In our house, it’s always happy hour, because it’s a happy home.” It’s also a Lloyd Ruocco home, Knight clarifies. Like Khouli, she’s a bit of an architecture buff. Both immigrants—she from Puerto Rico and he from Syria—the homeowners met over a quarter century ago in San Diego and now own Payless Car Rental together.

Considering the now-open layout and contemporary design, it’s almost inconceivable that their Point Loma stunner was in fact built in 1948 by Ruocco, renowned as one of San Diego’s pioneers of modern architecture. “It gives me chills to think about the mentality of Ruocco back then,” Knight says. “He went way out of the mainstream versus what other architects were doing in San Diego.”

Walnut accent walls, clean lines, and a narrow layout all harken to the era when Ruocco built the 4,500-square-foot home. But it was his choice to wrap the house in glass—every single exterior wall is clear from floor to ceiling—that went against the grain, all in the interest of the real selling point: the view. Khouli stands in the kitchen and gestures out. “No matter how you look, the sun won’t hit you. This is my downtown view here, my ocean view here, my bridge view here. I see cruise ships and I wave.”

Point Loma glass house

Symmetric as can be, the living room is anchored by two Axel leather sofas from Montis, PK22 wicker chairs from Fritz Hansen, and a Circulos Wool Rug by Gandia Blasco.

By the time he stumbled on the three bedroom, four bath in 2015, the view was about the only thing to its credit. “This house was like a diamond in the rough,” he says, noting it was merely a rental property at the time. “I saw the potential, the way the lot was situated, the architecture, that indoor-outdoor feel. It had the bones.”

The Glass House on Point Loma

In the backyard, Khouli pulls back a few shades, installed originally to tone down glare from the white tiling.

He and Knight interviewed what seemed like countless architects throughout Southern California until they landed on their dream team in Jesper Pedersen, a Danish architect and founder of DNA Design Group, and Richard Risner, principal landscape architect at Grounded Modern Landscape Architecture. Over three years, they put the modern back into the midcentury home while maintaining the integrity of Ruocco’s original structure.

The Glass House on Point Loma

Powder-blue egg chairs in the kitchen offer another spot to soak up the view.

Pederson used such a subtly diverse palette that he coined the project “50 Shades of White” and focused on simplicity in the details and accents. That attention can be seen in elements like recessed lighting, a 3D accent wall, dotted tiling in the guest bathroom, and even a TV that pops up from the floor in the living room.

Structurally, opening the layout was his first order of business. He started in the kitchen, ripping out an unassuming cooking area. He replaced it with a 22-foot-long island and installed sleek cabinetry and appliances behind it.

The Glass House on Point Loma

The kitchen’s open layout, including a stark white island and cabinetry balanced out by black bar stools and a dining table and chairs, all by Bonaldo.

On the opposite wing of the house—”This place keeps us young, because we’re in shape from running from one room to the next,” Knight jokes—and through a living room that bridges the backyard and front yard, the master bedroom also got an open-layout overhaul. What was once a “dinky room,” as Knight puts it, now has sliding glass doors instead of walls, and a mere partition separating the bedroom and the master bathroom. The bathroom too has clear exterior walls, and blackout curtains for privacy.

The Glass House on Point Loma

Panoramic views continue in the master bedroom, where three Blu Dot Bumper Ottomans from Hold It lend a pop of color to the space.

“Don’t get me wrong, you can feel like a fishbowl on display,” Knight admits. “In reality, we have a lot of privacy.” That’s thanks to the property’s location 30 feet above street level—further supporting that gorgeous view—and a perimeter of bamboo Risner installed for additional seclusion.

The Glass House on Point Loma

The master bathroom teems with textured tiles.

From the start, he and Pederson worked hand-in-hand to ensure the interior and exterior were as identical and modern as possible. They replaced several of those glass walls with sliding glass doors for an open flow, and they used the exact same Pietro Bianco tile inside and out. There’s a more textured version for safety around the infinity-edge pool, which runs right up to clear fencing for an uninterrupted view.

Risner also ensured the outdoor areas were an extension of the indoors by adding a barbecue off of the kitchen, a terrace and fire pit near the dining area, and seating aplenty in the backyard right by the family room where the bar is. “It’s basically creating a house on the outside of your house,” he explains.

Point Loma glass house

The homeowners enjoy a game of fetch with their pups on the artificial front lawn.

As for the interior design, the homeowners trusted only themselves with seeing through their minimalist-meets-modern aesthetic, which meant that one element would be stripped entirely—artwork. There’s not a lick of it in the house. “When you have this kind of gift,” Khouli says, “you want to minimize the interior as much as possible, because you don’t want it to take away from the outside elements.”

Paraphrasing Ruocco’s own philosophy, Knight adds, “This is your artwork: your landscape, your view.”

Point Loma glass house

An exterior view of the master bedroom.

The Glass House on Point Loma

From the front yard, there are views of the bay, North Island, and beyond Zuñiga Point, the Pacific Ocean.

The post The Glass House on Point Loma appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

But Liberty Public Market seems destined to pull it off for multiple reasons. First, owner/creator Blue Bridge Hospitality has ample capital behind them. Second, the long-sleepy Liberty Station complex is now almost completely alive; Stone’s arrival helped turn it into a real destination. Third, it’s a a one-stop shop. A 25,000 square-foot hive of micro-businesses where 27 different vendors (some success stories from San Diego’s farmers markets making their first brick-and-mortar, some imports) will serve the public wine, cheese, meat, coffee, bread, olive oils, po boys, lobster rolls, craft beer, ice cream, pastas, Mexican food, Thai food, sweets, you name it.

At the front is Mess Hall, the signature restaurant on the property with executive chef Tim Kolanko. The restaurant will take the best and freshest from the market vendors each day and build around it. They will use the space for San Diego chefs to come in and do pop-up dinners. It’s set to be a sort of R&D laboratory for local cooks and chefs.

Outside, a 3,000 square-foot lawn. Dogs welcome. Sunlight present. Craft beers aplenty.

It officially opens today, March 21. Go kick all 27 tires. And enjoy our “First Look” images below. And for a full list of vendors, visit the market’s website here.

FIRST LOOK: Liberty Public Market

The post FIRST LOOK: Liberty Public Market appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The talented chef made a good name for herself at former Point Loma restaurant Roseville. Her next move to The Glass Door didn’t really work out. La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club quickly snapped her up, where she mostly played a supporting role to Marine Room’s Master French Chef Bernard Guillas and chef de cuisine, Ron Oliver.

Meanwhile, Destination Hotels had spent $20 Million rebirthing Paradise Point. The signature restaurant (formerly Baleen) needed help. Hollywood producer Jack Skirball developed the island in 1962 as his own lagoon-ridden South Seas fantasyland. The 3,000 square-foot restaurant was originally his private residence. It has one of the best water views in San Diego—a 180-degree sweeper of the non-malodorous part of Mission Bay. But come 2013, the room felt painfully tourist-chic, with heavily lacquered woods, white tablecloths, palm fronds and assorted waterside clichés.

So they hired DiBiase as the attraction, then built her a room to match. Tidal looks pretty damn fantastic, with riveted aviator chairs, live-edge wooden tables, disco-looking shell globes, indoor and outdoor fire pits, communal dining tables, some modernism here, some soft resort sofas there.

Opening April 10, DiBiase will put a Mediterranean spin on local seafood with dishes like olive oil-poached halibut. Another promising young chef, Kyle Bergman (ex-Lodge at Torrey Pines, Ritual Tavern) will oversee the oysters, cheese and craft beer, while Snake Oil Cocktail Company will do the creative work on the bar program.

So, enough jabbering. Here are the first photos of Tidal, and a new era at Paradise Point:

FIRST LOOK: Tidal

The post FIRST LOOK: Tidal appeared first on San Diego Magazine.