S1: Hey there , San Diego , it's time for KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Ice detained a Ukrainian woman married to a US citizen late last week after her green card interview. Her detention lasted days , and much of it in the basement of a San Diego immigration facility. We hear about her journey in detention and what it tells us about the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown. Then , with the holiday season in full swing , we hear about some of San Diego's biggest food and drink trends of the year. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. Often when we cover immigration , we hear about the statistics and the federal policies behind them. It's rare that we hear the personal stories impacted , especially those that happen right here in our own community. Today , we're talking about one woman's story. Her name is Victoria Lavina. She's a Ukrainian woman , married to U.S. citizen who's just released after five days in immigration detention. KPBS reporter Corey Suzuki joins me now to share more about her story. Welcome , Corey.
S2: Hi , Andrew. Thanks for having me.
S1: Thanks for joining us. So tell us about Victoria and how she came to be detained last week. Right.
S2: Right. Well , Victoria arrived in the U.S. in 2022 after fleeing the war in Ukraine. She lived in Kiev , in the northeastern part of the country , along the border between Ukraine and Russia , and she ran a business installing window blinds and shades there. And when Russian forces invaded the country and struck Kyiv , Victoria escaped to Italy and eventually moved to the US under a Biden era humanitarian program called uniting for Ukraine , which was a form of humanitarian parole. A year later , she met Victor , who was her now husband. Victor has also roots in the city of Kyiv , but he's a US citizen like you mentioned , and he has lived in San Diego for years. And Victor and Victoria got married. Um , and soon , uh , within that , that kind of time frame , Victoria also began an application for a green card with the the support of Victor , who again , a US citizen , and USCIS , the agency that processes those applications , set her interview date for this December. And that kind of brings us to what happened last week. So on December 4th , last Thursday , Victor and Victoria show up at the USCIS offices along with a lawyer. Victoria has her interview afterwards. The officer asking questions says she needs to step outside and after a moment she comes back in with two Ice officers and plainclothes , and they detain Victoria and take her away.
S1: You reported that Victoria and her husband , they'd been concerned about this appointment. Their attorneys had warned them about similar , similar detainment at green card appointment , you know , at green card appointments like hers.
S2: I mean , the green card interview process , just to start the interview , is the final stage of the journey towards getting your green card , which means that you're a permanent US citizen. And Victoria's immigration lawyer told me that everyone who gets to that point has essentially gone through an extensive vetting process and has no record of committing violent crimes has just had to answer a lot of questions about themselves and what they've done. And the very next step after that interview is becoming a permanent resident. But despite all of that we have seen in recent weeks here in San Diego , I starting to arrest people during or after their green card interviews. That's something that our colleague Gustavo Solis has reported on extensively. And , um , even with all of that happening , uh , it was creating a lot of uncertainty for Victor Victoria. They're their lawyers. Um , but Victoria and her attorneys and her family also believed that her legal status had no weak points. That , um , a big argument that our colleagues have reported that that federal immigration authorities have made when they are arresting people at these interviews is that they have allowed their legal status to lapse in some way , that they have overstayed their legal authorization.
S1: Maybe a visa expired at some point for some period of time.
S2: Exactly , exactly. Which , you know , raises its own questions by itself. But , um. Victoria's attorneys told me that , uh , for her , they say that she has never allowed her legal status to expire at any point since she arrived in the country. And so that really gave them a sense that even with all of this happening , even though it was something that they were worried about , that she was going to be able to go to this interview and to not have to worry about being detained or arrested. And instead , that's exactly what happened. Right.
S1: Right. She was taken into custody on that Thursday. What happened then ? Where was she taken and what were the conditions she was held in like. Right.
S2: Right. Well , for three days. And I should say here we have reached out to Ice with questions multiple times this week , and they have not responded to any of our requests. So what we have is Victoria's account of what she went through. And what she says is that for three days , she was held in the lower levels of a federal building in downtown San Diego. She's not sure which one , but some of the descriptions that she shared matched reports of people who have been held in the basement of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse , which members of Congress have repeatedly tried to inspect this year and were denied access to twice before eventually being able to enter. Victoria says she was held there with between 10 and 14 other women. Mostly , she says , from Mexico , and she says it was very cold. Um , there were bright lights all the time. They didn't have room to lie down and sleep. They were given expired food and they had to use. She says that she and the women that she was detained with there had to use an open toilet in view of the guards and had to to get additional toilet paper. They had to hold up an empty toilet paper roll. So I mean , just really harsh conditions that she describes. Here's part of what Victoria shared with me during an interview. She's speaking Ukrainian here , and her husband Victor is translating.
S3: Don't just show when they. See ya know. It's a doozy. So.
S4: She she felt like she's losing her life. She felt like they were , like , telling her that she broke the laws of the United States and that she might. She was scared that she would not be able to get her life back. Wow.
S1: Wow. I mean , that's just really painful to hear some of that. Yeah. Um , I mean , at some point you kind of described some of her conditions in that , in that facility , that in downtown San Diego , that we don't exactly know where it is. But at some point she was moved to a facility in Otay Mesa. Right. Or at least like that was another part of this journey. Tell us about that piece of it.
S2: That's right. Victoria says that each night that she was in this facility in downtown for for each of those three days , the Ice officers every night tried to move her and the other people who were detained there to the Otay Mesa Detention Center , which is , you know , the one of the large ice holding facilities , detention centers here in San Diego , to the east of Chula Vista. And the first night , she says , the officers took them out of the holding room. They lined everyone up against the wall , handcuffed their waist , their wrists and their ankles , put them in chains. And they had everyone get into this van that was waiting. And Victoria , they were , you know , in these rooms there were no clocks. There was nothing that she could no windows , nothing she could use to get a sense of what time it was. But as they got into the van , she saw the clock and she says it was around 2 a.m. that they left. So middle of the night they drive to Otay Mesa , from which she says to the they , they wait an hour in a line for hours. And then she says that that night as or sort of that morning as the the sun was rising , the van without entering the detention center , turns around and drives back to downtown. So again , this is this is Victoria's account of , um , what each of those nights looked like. Uh , there was , she says that they got no sleep , that they had no access to the restroom , and that they were just in , in transit , in , in these restraints for hours. Um , and she's still unclear what exactly happened. It seems that maybe there was some kind of a line or a backlog getting into the detention center. She says Ice officers told them that they were taking them to the to Otay Mesa so that they could have a place to sleep , but , um , instead they ended up , you know , according to her , not not being able to sleep at all. And , um , that happened the first night. The second night. And then , uh , the third time that they officers tried to take them to Otay Mesa. They , uh , did actually enter the facility.
S1: You know , earlier you mentioned some of the women that Victoria was , was detained with alongside. Um , can you tell us more about them and , and the bond that they developed over the course ? And I imagine a lot of times they couldn't even communicate. They didn't even speak the same language. Right. But can you tell us more about their experiences ? Because this is you're telling Victoria's story here. But a big point of it is it's not just one person's experience right now.
S2: Right ? Victoria and Victoria herself , she , um , in our conversation , her husband was translating. She. She understands English. She doesn't speak it as fluently. So , um , she she speaks primarily Ukrainian. And , uh , in , um , her the memories of what happened. She says that the other women who were who she was held with. There were kind of a large range of people at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. There was a larger number. She says they were between 18 and all the way , as old as some people , as old as 80 , and that in both places they were from different countries. Again , she says , she met a lot of people from Mexico who had roots in Mexico. She says she met one person who had roots in Thailand. She says at Otay Mesa that she met someone to , I believe , multiple people who also had roots in Ukraine as well. And , um , I mean , just like you said , the , um , the , the bond that , um , she describes , uh , between herself and all of these other people who were experiencing these same conditions was a huge part of what she Shared um , in the the lower level facility. She says she and other detainees tried to help each other , trying to get attention for people who were having medical issues. When someone had to use the toilet , the other women would form a wall around them to give them some privacy. Um , even just sort of huddling together to try and keep warm in , in the cold and without , um , without blankets or other sources of warmth. And , um , she also said that at one point she and other detainees , uh , talked about the future and what they would do when they got out and saying that maybe they would all meet at a restaurant and share a meal somewhere together. Uh , and another time , another place.
S1: What do you think ? Uh , Victoria's experience can tell us about the larger picture of immigration enforcement today.
S2: Well , you know , I , uh , I'm new to covering immigration. Normally , I'm the South Bay and Imperial Valley reporter here at KPBS. And , you know , I focus on local government and environmental issues. And it's a very regional beat. But , I mean , as someone who , you know , at the same time is , uh , I mean , hearing and seeing , um , so much of the , the news around immigration , I think that , um , Victoria's story really raises a lot of questions , uh , both about what she went through and also how the federal government is treating everyone else that she described who is still being held in these facilities. Um , and that's exactly what her attorney , Caroline Matthews , told me. Actually , her her Victoria's immigration lawyer works for a non-profit law clinic in San Diego called Pathways to Citizenship. And she says that Victoria's experience is emblematic of of many more people. Here's a little bit of what she told me.
S5: This error is happening repeatedly. This isn't the only person this is happening to. So that suggests to me , and I'm seeing firsthand that there is a system in place that is putting arrest and detention numbers ahead of accuracy.
S1: So Victoria ultimately was released. Right. But where does her case stand now ? Stand right now.
S2: And I think that's one big open question that we still don't quite know yet. Um , Victoria and her family are focused now on trying to continue the green card process and get , um , secure that , um , hopefully that that permanent residency. Uh , her attorney also says that there are still active pending removal proceedings against her. And so that's kind of an open question of what that means. Um , and broadly Two I think , uh , what we're seeing is that NPR has reported this week that , um , the agency even handling these cases , USCIS , which oversees citizenship and immigration cases , is increasingly being sort of turned to focus by the Trump administration on , uh , law enforcement and on removing people from the country. And so I think we're still in the middle of of this process. That's what , um , that's what Victoria's attorney told me that this is she's released and and that's that , that they are all , um , feeling very happy about that and glad that she is , is out of the detention system. Um , but that also this is in some ways a halfway point , and it's not it's not clear yet what what what happens next ? Yes.
S1: Earlier , you know , you touched on Victoria and some of the women she met , how they kind of , you know , worked together in detention and their desire to reunite at some point. I'm just curious , you know.
S2: Um , I texted , uh , with Victoria's husband , Victor yesterday , and he said that she's sort of still recovering and trying to trying to get back to some , some sense of normal. But , um , Victoria says that she is still thinking about all of these people , all of these , these women especially , and her family has talked about trying to figure out what they can do to help them. So , um , I think that , you know , that's another , uh , that's another open question about what what comes next for , uh , for Victorian , for her family.
S1: I've been speaking with KPBS , South Bay and Imperial Valley reporter Corey Suzuki. You can read more of his reporting on Victoria's Story at KPBS. Corey , thanks so much for sharing more about this important reporting with us today.
S2: Thanks for having me , Andrew.
S1: When roundtable returns , we'll talk a little bit about some holiday food and drinks coming up next. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Though it may not come with December snowfall or a need for scarves and mittens. San Diego does celebrate the holidays , albeit in its own style , and one way we celebrate is with food and drinks. Today , some ideas for where to celebrate the season , and we take a look back on some of San Diego's biggest food trends in 2025. Joining me today are Jackie Bryant. She is a San Diego journalist and host of the Hop Happy Half Hour podcast , and Helen Huang is also here. She is a food and travel journalist in San Diego. And I welcome you both to roundtable. So holiday season it's I , it's like fully in effect by now. This week I saw my first like trolley bus taking a tour of holiday lights around town. That's the signal for me , Jackie. One thing when I think about the holidays , you know , family traditions are a big part of it. And food traditions , you know.
S6: It might be a little obvious and a little boring , but we like to go to the del. I'm from the East coast originally. I've been out here for ten years. My husband is not from here. We have a young son and I mean , if you were doing Christmas in San Diego , the Del obviously activates for you. They've got the rink , they've got Santa. They did that $550 million renovation that was completed earlier this year. So they've got a lot of new restaurants , but they took it out for Christmas. And so for me , my family's coming in from the East Coast. We're going to spend a few days there around Christmas. We are we are just very stereotypically San Diego. And we they provide it all.
S1: And the del to me is like the pinnacle of , like , traditional , you know. Yeah. Holiday season in San Diego that I can think of. Helen , you've lived in many different cities. You've covered , you know , other cities in your travel writing.
S7: So like , we incorporate like a Christmas beach walk. And generally I am doing the cooking like we are all doing the cooking and we love to do rack of lamb. And I think that's leftover from our British. My husband is from England and we lived in Scotland for eight years , and then they definitely do Christmas in a different way.
S1: Which well , Helen , you know , another part of , you know , the holidays come with these holiday themed drinks , whether it's just going to Starbucks but also a lot of bars , you know , cocktail bars and stuff , do certain special things. You recently profiled some holiday pop ups.
S7: So one of the ones I covered was The Golden Girls , um , Christmas pop up , which is definitely nostalgic. You know , I think they're celebrating their 40th anniversary of the sitcom. And , um , I think that we're seeing a trend for nostalgic times. Even Duck Dive and Pacific Beach has this great Dickens pop up , and they've been doing that for years. And it's super fun with , you know , Charles Dickens and Scrooge and , um , and they're actually playing , like , British , um , British holiday music , so I was. Wow.
S1: Wow. Jackie.
S8:
S6: Building on the the pop up trend. Um , for me , there's a lot of nostalgia plays in there. I feel like , especially in the age of social media and Instagram , um , holiday pop ups are a great way for restaurants to really do it up and get some extra attention around the holidays. And so there's one really nostalgia tinged one that I love. It's the emo Christmas at L after in the Gaslamp. And so if you can , if anyone who's middle aged right now , you know , came of age in the early aughts can get there with me , you're in your parents basement. Maybe they had a finished basement that still looks kind of 70s. And you're playing screamo , emo , anything that was on rock radio at.
S1: Wearing tight black jeans. Exactly.
S6: Exactly. Maybe some black eyeliner. Maybe you have some Hot Topic hair dye. I don't know what's going on , but it's also decked out like Christmas , so you can go and listen to your favorite emotional rock songs from your early life , while also just getting in the holiday spirit , so that's a really cool one. Um.
S1: Pretty unique.
S6: Yeah , there's Snowden at Fort Oak in Mission Hills , and so they I mean , they've turned that whole front center of their bar that used to be an old Ford dealership. So it's just paneled windows all the way around. They basically turned it into a snow globe. I don't know if it gets more nostalgic than that than going to drink inside of an actual snow globe. So that's a very , very cool one. And then there's a Yoho Holiday Tavern at the landmark in the new Margaritaville Hotel in Mission Bay. So that's just another way that San Diegans can do Christmas in a different , nostalgic way. Get your parrot head on. Obviously vibes with the very hot weather that we're having now thanks to the Santa. Anna's , right ? Yeah. So I actually think pop ups do a great job of bringing nostalgia into Christmas , because they can bring like a fleeting moment or memory and get people really into the season. And then it's gone. Just like the holidays. Yeah.
S1: Yeah.
S6: Um , surprisingly , maybe. I think a lot of people are re-evaluating their drinking at this point in history. Again , I am middle aged. I'm 40. I know a lot of my contemporaries are evaluating their health in that way and Gen Z. I teach at San Diego State University. It's very clear that a lot of my students just don't really drink at all. When I used to be at San Diego Magazine , we did a story about Gen Z and how they're not really drinking as much alcohol. So I think bars have had to reimagine their offerings. And I think the pop ups and all the decorations are actually part of what's bringing people in for a full experience , rather than maybe just the specificities of the drink menu. You want to provide something for everybody. So I think no alcohol is actually a huge theme. You can pretty much walk into any really good bar restaurant with a pro cocktail program these days and ask for a very well crafted non-alcoholic drinks. So for me , I'm not drinking much at this phase in my life. I want to make sure that the environment is providing like a full 360 experience for the holidays.
S1: The drink itself ? Exactly. Yeah. Helen does that. Yeah.
S7: And then you see some , like , really ambitious restaurants that are also offering non-alcoholic cocktail pairings , non-alcoholic beverages that I think. Leila. Uh. And am Addison. They are on Florette. They are doing non-alcoholic and even the welcome cocktails for the holidays. Um , or they can choose between champagne or non-alcoholic champagne. So. Yeah.
S6: Yeah. So I think that's actually just like a big trend in general for this year because I've talked to a lot of bar owners specifically , and they said that it's very hard to get people in the door these days and stay there. And when they are there , they are just there's not as many drink tickets , even if there's live entertainment or what have you. So I actually think that that's it's just a big operating challenge for , for bars and restaurants this season , so I think many of them are just pulling out the stops to get people in the door. And these really big festive things are part of it. I think also just being cozy , like , obviously you're going to blow it out , but it has to be cozy too. I was just at the University Club , for example , and this isn't necessarily made public , but there is a very well-heeled member there who throws her Christmas party every year , and she allows the club to keep the decorations up for a couple of weeks around the season so that anybody coming in to enjoy them. So if you go to the university club right now , there's like this incredible decoration tunnel. There's um , there's a British , you know , red phone booth in there. There are there's a Santa's outpost. It's very decked out. So obviously I think maximalism is kind of required , but there has to be an element of of coziness. It has to be recognizable for people. And and bottom line , it has to provide an experience.
S1: Well , you know , Helen , one holiday pop up that you recently mentioned in one of your writeups was actually a tiki themed bar , the grass skirt and a pop up there doing , I mean , that that caught my eye as something that's kind of particularly San Diego. I mean , tell us about that.
S7: Well , the grass skirt is , um , it's it's such a cute little place , and it's it's always a tiki bar , but they're doing a sipping , sipping Santa , um , cocktail experience right now. So Santa on a surfboard and things like that. But it's also combined with all their tiki cocktails and , um , but I will say sipping Santa is national , but Grass Skirt , among other tiki bars are , um , in San Diego. It's a particular trend that I think Jackie could speak more about. So yeah.
S6: We have a very storied tiki culture here in San Diego. So Tiki goes back to the World War Two era , specifically in Hollywood and Oakland , where the first two bars were founded by trader. It was Trader Vic's and and Donn Beach founded the other one. And then Bali Hai was opened here in 1952 by the same. Well , it changed hands shortly after to the family that still owns it , but the original family was involved and it was originally called Christian's Hut , which was a restaurant that they used on the set of the mutiny of the HMS bounty. The MGM production was filmed here. That was part of it , and then after filming stopped , Bally High became Bally High and is really the reason why there is tiki culture here in San Diego today. And so out of that whole apparatus , the family that's involved in it is very involved in tiki culture around the world. They helped bring Tiki Oasis here to San Diego , where it's been for decades , based at town and country , and then to.
S1: Like a convention , right ? Yes , exactly.
S6: Tiki Oasis is an international convention. People fly in from all over the world. They get individual rooms and parts of the resort and just basically build their own little tiki bars and tiki installations. And so that's a big draw for that culture here. And in 2016 , we saw a modern revival , um , CH projects opened up False Idol and Sccm opened up the grass skirt and those opened actually in the same month. It was October 2016 , and since then there have been another a number of tiki speakeasies , pop ups , standalone bars , and you can all count that as that modern wave of this continual culture that has always been very , very strong here. The tourism culture supports that. We're not a tropical region , but because we have palm trees in the beach , I think visitors come here expecting that. Right. And so it's a culture that has kind of died out elsewhere , even in the cocktail revival. But it it's always been very strong here. And I think it's , it's the combination of just the natural geographic environment , the fact that we're a tourism town and , you know , just that that cocktail culture revival also helped it too.
S1: Helen , we all know San Diego is not a cheap place to live. So I wanted to kind of call out and see if you had any tips for , you know , experiencing the holidays without spending too much this holiday season.
S7: Without , um , well , I think , um , another holiday tradition is going down to convoy district and spending , um , like getting a Chinese dinner or , and , um , there's a number of restaurants down there , um , like Dumpling Inn and.
S9: Icy City is always packed out. It's always. Christmas.
S6: Christmas. Day.
S9: Day. Yeah.
S7: And , uh , dumplings like China. Max is one of the one. A big one that can accommodate people. Jasmine. So , um , that's been a tradition. I think they would say like a Chinese and Jewish tradition.
S9: To avoid the the whole hoopla. Yes , yes.
S7: Um , so. But I think that's also like spreading out to other places , like Glass Box and , uh , one in Skydeck in Del Mar or Carmel Valley , things like that. So I think that's one way to to.
S9: Handle the holidays. Also , probably.
S6: The other downtowns around the country like El Cajon and , and obviously you have a third street in Chula Vista and you've got all the other downtowns. They all kind of get decked out for the holidays. They all have their little parades and installations , and their local storefronts and local restaurants that have all kinds of different specials. So , like some of the big fancier ones , everyone is getting decked out for the holidays and the same as Thanksgiving. Like , um , hotels are a really good place to do that. And though the offerings may be a little more expensive there , they tend to do packages , so it's a good way to get a bang for your buck because they anticipate families coming. They anticipate the needs of families and the things that you'd want to have wrapped in , like Santa , for example , or , or something like that. And so hotels are a good place for the budget conscious just to look , to make sure that you spend , you know , you spend your money once and you're not going to be constantly opening your wallet the whole time.
S1: And I know you've also talked about just hotels as being such a great source of of great restaurants here , Jackie in San Diego.
S6: So the Gaylord Pacific Resort , which opened this year on the Chula Vista waterfront and is actually the most expensive hotel project ever constructed in California. So Old Hickory Steakhouse there is serving a three course Christmas dinner. They've got spiny lobster , roasted quail , goose cassoulet , filet mignon. It's pretty legit. They've apparently decked out. I haven't seen it , but they have decked out the whole thing for the holidays.
S7: I used to live outside Nashville , and going to the Gaylord for Christmas was a thing that everybody did. And it was the Gaylord in Nashville. Yeah , like it was just everything that people had to do at the holidays. So I'm planning on going there this Sunday and hopefully it will live up to my expectations from I'm sure it will.
S6: Yeah , I didn't know that was like another regional tradition. Oh yeah. Cool.
S7: Cool. Well. Yeah.
S6: Yeah. You've got the Lafayette um , in North Park. They've got holiday tea service , winter cocktails. If you've even peeked inside the lobby. It is completely. It is a Christmas fever dream. Obviously projects they're going to do it up.
S1: Yeah , well , a lot of great ideas. And we'll be we'll continue our conversation on San Diego's food scene and hear about some of the best new restaurants for 2025. Take a look at some dining trends all after the break. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today we're talking about San Diego's food and drink scene. I'm joined by San Diego food writer Helen Huang , along with journalist Jackie Bryant. Okay , so now I want to move on to , you know , some of your top food trends for 2025. And you know , Jackie , earlier we talked a little bit about these pop ups.
S6: We we were joking. You know , I'm on the San Diego Magazine podcast and we joke there that 2025 is year of the pop up. In fact , I think there was one point this summer where we were like , we have a moratorium on pop up news , brick and mortars , only because it really is just such a thing. And that speaks , you know , to everything going on socially and economically here , especially since Covid. Um , basically a lot of chefs , there's a high build out costs , long permitting timelines , and obviously just the appeal of being able to test concepts without that pressure. It's all led to people not wanting to commit to leases. And then because there is , you know , some stalling in certain lease activity , commercial lease activity , there are a lot of properties where people are kind of just able to slide in for these fractional periods of time and try things out. So there was peak San , which is a vegan Mexican tasting pop up , They emphasized masa and Mexican regional cooking pirate Pita open serving as Smashburger style pizza hybrid , and they opened in various kitchens at various times around San Diego. Milos also opened that's a Mexican Vietnamese tasting menu hosted inside of a wine shop. 24 sons was a pop up that became a brick and mortar in Oceanside. And there that's a bunch of Addison trained chefs who also got a michelin nod. And then I'm sure we'll talk about this in a second , but the Tony Hawk and Andrew Bachelier restaurant chicken hawk that just opened its brick and mortar after like a million years , and it was a pop up. It grew out of that as well. So you're going to see a lot of these pop ups just sort of end where they are. And some of them do eventually become brick and mortars. There's also two new bagel spots , Marigold and New Wave , both of which were pop ups for many years. Both of them , actually , and both this past month just opened their brick and mortar in Solana Beach and North Park.
S7: And there's another pop up pop up bagels , which opened in La Jolla , which actually started as a pop up on the East Coast , and they have opened their first storefront in La Jolla , and they plan on expanding and opening like nine other locations in San Diego.
S1: Yeah , but 2025 also year of the bagel.
S6: Well , yeah. That's. Yes , that is actually a trend. We wrote about that at San Diego Magazine , too. I'm forever we've had very an anemic bagel culture here. And as a native New Yorker , I can extremely claim this. And now we have an unbelievable bevy of options of great bagels around San Diego. So that is definitely a 25 , 2025 trend.
S1: Helen , it's sort of interesting to hear. You know , I was talking about restaurants and bars and stuff and talking so much about real estate and , you know , it's like something we , you know , associate with our housing crisis. Yeah. But you say that is a real important part of what's happening in San Diego cuisine this year , right ? Right now. Yes.
S7: Yes. I mean , you see , as , as long as in addition to the ones that Jackie mentioned , we also have , like , you know , faux gorga that opened and this was a pop up in Crab Hut in kingfisher. So it's the same owners and they're testing out this , this whole concept of chicken for noodle soup and seeing if that works. And but there's also like you see some like people coming from ghost kitchens and opening up their storefronts like Relic Bakery. They had a place in Myanmar and they've just opened up their East Village , the one downtown. It's like. And it's it's an amazing croissant and some bagels , like , probably. Yeah.
S6: And the best stuff. She she trained at a bakery in , in Copenhagen and brought all of her , like , lamination techniques that she , she discovered there in like the melding of savory pastry and sweet pastry to open it.
S7: She has , like , lamb pastries and pork pastries , which are really amazing.
S6: The and I would say building off of that also you have a big , big trend is restaurants changing their business models because of Uber Eats and takeout. This is something that happened during Covid , largely a big shift to delivery and takeout , and it is not something that has gone away in the way that remote work is still a debate out there. What to do about restaurant delivery is definitely still a debate , and you'll find many restaurants around the country. There are balance sheets are based very heavily on takeout and delivery , which is completely transformed. There are there operating models that you have to get takeout counters. You have to redo the kitchen , your cooking techniques , how much staff you need to have and when and how. It has just.
S1: A larger kitchen , maybe , rather than not where it's at the tables.
S6: And so like Terra , American Bistro is one really good example. Um , over near here on the San Diego la mesa line. And that was a restaurant that was open for 30 years , that closed its dining room this year and made the shift to 100% catering , catering based on the fact that no one's coming in for dinner anymore.
S1: Earlier you mentioned Tony Hawk's.
S7: Yeah , Chicken Hawk in Leucadia and Encinitas. So they finally were able to open their own restaurant , which is which is fantastic. It's hot chicken , but they also have like seafood and black and tuna and tuna to Torquay and just amazing dishes. And it's from Tony Hawk and chef Andrew Batchelor who also has Attilio Mana and which also has a michelin nod. And it's just it's something that they've really worked hard on opening and they've done pop ups at Fox Point Farms at the Roxy in Encinitas. So they have a lot of like friends who have supported their launch and now they're finally open.
S1: Is that a pretty common journey now to opening a restaurant is like going the pop out route or doing. You even mentioned a couple of different pop ups before.
S6: And then there's also there's definitely a big Nimby , not in my backyard culture in San Diego and Santurce definitely has a strong culture of that. You can , you know , look at you could Google those two terms and a lot of reporting will come up. Um , there's a lot of mixed residential and commercial areas in San Diego where you have homes very close to businesses , and there are a number of people who are very active in the public sphere. Challenging new alcohol licenses. This has been happening forever , but it's very popular in places like Encinitas or in North Park , for example. And so it's going to be very unattractive for somebody opening a restaurant to get a lease and then not be able to nail an alcohol license with it , that's obviously going to cut majorly into there. So you'll find that the pop up is a great way of testing this , while maybe they're trying to actually work a deal and sometimes it can it can take years to get some of those licenses. If you don't buy a property that already has one transferred to you. Yes.
S1: Yes. You mentioned Encinitas there. I know North County is kind of went through a lot of change , right ? Yeah. Tell us more about what you saw from from Encinitas and North County more broadly. Wasn't just Encinitas. Right.
S6: Right. Yeah. So so Encinitas food scene has just completely I mean , North County's food scene has completely transformed. You have the North City development in San Marcos , which has been being built for decades , but is really finally just opening storefronts , opening apartments. It's near CSU San Marcos , and a number of like , original restaurants are opening there and also offshoots of other county enterprises.
S7: Yes , they have like Kristoff Rule Patisserie that just opened , which is amazing. Croissants as well. I know you're.
S6: Also having a bakery.
S10: There's a lot of Renaissance.
S6: And a bakery Renaissance. Those are not the same , but they overlap. And then obviously you have Lilo and Carlsbad , which opened in April and I think like 40 days later got its first Michelin star. And that's the effort from chef Eric Bost , who previously owned a star at Gianelli and worked in Michelin level French kitchens and had opened a restaurant in LA just at the start of Covid. This was his big effort and it had to get shut down. And so this is his coming back to his rightful fine dining heritage and it's really stunning. He opened Lelo with John Resnick , a long time local restaurateur who found a campfire Angelina Jolie and also came from the C-H pedigree. And and obviously it got a michelin star within 40 days. So their wine program is is excellent and very California focused. And the , the the architecture is just this beautiful , natural , modern wood dining room. And it's just like a very austere , beautiful , serious. But but the experience is intended to , like , wake you up sincerely. So it's a very cool thing that we have.
S7: And there's a couple of other like , fine dining Michelin restaurant or the ones that are going to have ambitions for Michelin that opened up in La Jolla , Lucien , which is in La Jolla. And it was founded by four team members who moved from New York City , who all worked in like , you know , super posh. Michelin restaurants per se. Daniel. And and then there's also floret that just opened , which is , I think the largest kitchen in in San Diego , which is in La Jolla as well.
S6: Yeah , there's a lot.
S7: Happening in La Jolla Playhouse.
S1: So we've kind of hit , you know , North County. You mentioned La Jolla. There's a lot happening there. And convoy of course.
S6: You've got fish guts , which has recently reopened and is. You know , they work very closely with the region's fishermen's like Tommy Gomez and Tuna Harbor Dockside Market to get , like , really fresh local catch in there. I know that that's one that's open. I know it's Salud closed , which was really big news this year. There was a big it was a big to do with that and a lot of lease arguments and what have you. But they've closed.
S7: And I think a brewery closed too. Was it brewery ex or something. Exactly.
S10: Exactly.
S7: Close closed down there. So yeah I think but then there was a new one , Fonda del barrio , that is um , a Mexican restaurant that is celebrating like indigenous dishes and , and it's from the same , um , Jerry Torres who opened , uh , City Tacos. So he's really trying to focus in on some more , I guess , more complex dishes that more than just like tacos.
S6: That and , um , of course , um , you have a Chicha osteria , which is in the neighborhood and beloved by the local community , the very in tight with the local community. They just re-upped their Michelin nod. And , um , obviously Los Cuatro milpa , which was billed as San Diego's oldest taqueria. That fact can be debated , but it's definitely one of the oldest. It was operated by the pseudo family continuously since the 1930s , and unfortunately it just closed. Yes.
S7: Yes.
S1: So we have about two minutes left. I just want to really quick Jackie , wondering if you , you know , you cover so many different food stories throughout the year.
S6: He teamed up with his longtime friend and collaborator Vali Gilly to he. He bought her coffee shop and they re-upped it. And , um , basically the story behind that is that they it's been open since the early 90s , and it was one of the coffee shops where Jason got his start originally , uh , in tandem with Java Joe's down in Ocean Beach , which is also where Joel and a lot of other singer songwriters got their start in San Diego. And so over the years , it's been a hub for local musicians and just local people coming up to see. So bought it. They redid it. Um , they they gilded out the bathroom , redid the stage. They redid some of the food options. They have a very it's vegan kitchen. And so now they're actually doing pop up shows. And , um , Jason Mraz , very quietly can be known to be at some of these shows. If you , if you see a billing , it's so-and-so and friends. He's the n friends. So , um , there's , there's kind of a homegrown vegan food coffee scene , guitar. Music.
S1: Music.
S6: Scene coming back up. Yeah , it's called jitters. I think I just realized I didn't say the coffee name. They bought jitters.
S1: And we'll put a link up to that on our site. Helen , we've just a few seconds left , but I'm wondering , I don't know any San Diego food predictions for 2026.
S7: And what we're talking about , the non-alcoholic Dry January seems to be like starting in December. And it'll continue on , Um , I think maybe we're going to go to more like homestyle dishes , like Bosphorus , another Turkish restaurant that's opened. And it's amazing. Like , really , really. I spent like three weeks in Turkey , so I'm glad they opened they.
S1: Jackie Bryant is a journalist and co-host of the Happy Half Hour podcast. And also Helen Huang has been here. She's a food writer here in San Diego. Thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you for listening to KPBS roundtable. You can listen to the show anytime as a podcast. I want to thank our technical producer this week is Brandon Truffaut producer Ashley Rush. Thanks again and have a great weekend.
