sayonara ono

14 May
2012

Lots of restaurant and bar news going on, and one of the most interesting items is Verant Group’s purchase of the Ono Sushi location in Hillcrest, according to Keli Dailey’s twitter feed. Verant owns the very successful True North bar (among several other San Diego establishments) that’s had a major impact on North Park – positive and negative, depending on whom you ask. Come July, Hillcrest will see the opening of Verant’s Uptown Tavern, and it should make for quite a mix of patrons on that stretch of University, alongside neighboring gay clubs Eden and Rich’s.

Hillcrest’s nightlife continues its straightening trend with the opening of Kitty Diamond in the current Flame location, from the former manager of Beauty Bar and Voyeur.  Glad to hear they’re keeping the iconic sign, but will the rest of the Mondrian-modern facade remain?  (Probably not.)  The location will consist of “three distinct spaces… a dive bar called The 40th Door, the dance club Kitty Diamond and live music space in the back of the club”.  It’s good to see renewed activity in the Hillcrest bar and club scene after watching North Park blow up the past few years, but it’s notable that these new entities target a straight clientele.  Even Eden, the newest gay club in the neighborhood, draws a fairly mixed crowd.  Times change, and as gays feel more welcome at non-gay establishments and straight clubs open in the gayborhood, gay clubs seem to be on the decline in San Diego.  Online and mobile meeting sites/apps like Adam4Adam and Grindr must have an impact too.

Still, with Hillcrest Brewing Company, the “world’s first LGBT brewery” (from the Mo’s/Baja Betty’s/Gossip Gril folks) set to open soon on the new Harvey Milk Street (dedication on May 22nd at 5 pm), things aren’t all bad.  The city council votes on the 65-foot Pride Flag there tomorrow (Tuesday)…  Top of the Park expands on their popular Friday evening rooftop happy hour with a Sunday afternoon BBQ and tea dance starting 5/27 and running through Labor Day weekend.  Hopefully the sunny May weather we’ve been having will continue all summer, since it’s usually chilly up there for the Friday sunsets.

Over in Kensington, Lauren from Kensington Cafe is opening Passero’s Pizza in the former photography studio space next door to Kensington Grill… SPUN, a 24-hour “bicycle cafe” is set for 30th and North Park Way in North Park, says Dianne Y. on her twitter feed… Babycakes has opened a non-alcohol location near the Morley Field tennis courts, of all locations… Tender Greens is opening their UTC location soon, but is also set to open a location somewhere on Broadway downtown.

More stuff:

  • San Diego River Days is in full swing this week.
  • San Diego gets its first bike corral at 5th and University in Hillcrest (enraged over the loss of a car parking space, Crest Cafe owner Cecelia Moreno’s head reportedly explodes).  While it’s a positive first step, during our recent trip to New York City we witnessed dedicated bike lanes throughout the city, a weekend bike event that closed down major thoroughfares, and the launch of a $41 million dollar bike share system.  Something to aspire to.
  • A bayfront shuttle (warning: Papa propaganda link) starts on Memorial Day and will run every 15 minutes from 9 AM to 7 PM.  Its route along Harbor runs from the Hilton Bayfront to the Sheraton Harbor Island.  Cost is $1; free for hotel guests and certain parking lots.
  • The North Park Festival of the Arts is this Sunday from 10-6.  Wang’s North Park passes on word that they’re “sponsoring the World Stage at Grim and University. We’re opening early at 11:00 with all day happy hour and a full menu”.  Sounds like a good excuse to post this dusk picture of the Madsteez mural on the side of their building:

 

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adams ave unplugged

23 Apr
2012

Adams Ave Unplugged, the former Roots Festival that moved mostly indoors this year, had a good turnout this weekend with sidewalks full of people checking out the performances and businesses along Adams. One highlight was actor John C Reilly’s Saturday afternoon set with former San Diegan Tom Brosseau at the Normal Heights Methodist Church, where they played country/folk/spiritual songs to an enthusiastic crowd. The overflowing audience wasn’t shy when Reilly suggested they come up and sit in the choir seats.



Check out a video of the performance on Tom’s site.

As a Kensingtonian it was gratifying to see live music throughout our neck of Adams for once, with stages at Kensington Cafe, Ken Club and outside the library. The stage on the west side of Ponces was a bit awkward though, with a parked van blocking it at one point.

While on Adams in Normal Heights we stopped into Bine and Vine, across from Lestat’s, where they’re putting together quite a craft beer collection; “500 different kinds for now, increasing to 700 shortly”, we overheard the owner telling a customer.

Just down 30th from Adams, Pour House Brewing Company and Supply is going into the location shown below, says San Diego Beer Blog:

Over in Mission Hills, Brooklyn Girl Eatery opens this Friday. There was a private event going on there when we walked by last Thursday, so I took a picture of the interior from outside. There’s a decent-sized bar with a common seating area in front of it, which reminded me a bit of the Searsucker setup downtown. Check out their Facebook for much better interior shots.



Finally, Imig’s Kitchen is open at the Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard, serving breakfast and brunch on a patio overlooking the pool and its “hipster version of Intervention at Hard Rock” (as one Yelper puts it).

- Five years ago this month, KPBS reporter Tom Fudge was seriously injured riding his bike on Montezuma Rd. near SDSU. Last week a cyclist was killed in the same location when a road-raging driver, impatient with a slow transit bus, veered into the bike lane and rear-ended the cyclist. No charges have been filed. Protest San Diego’s bike-unfriendly roads and the city’s unwillingness to protect its cycling citizens by participating in Wednesday’s Chuck Gilbreth Memorial Ride from Balboa Park to the City Administration building.

Also upcoming: Dining Out For Life is this Thursday throughout San Diego, with restaurants donating a portion of their proceeds to The Center’s HIV/AIDS initiatives… Little Italy’s Art Walk is this weekend… The San Diego Leukemia and Lymphoma Society holds their Man and Woman of the Year Grand Finale at Anthology on Thursday 5/10 at 5:30 PM… Cruisin’ Califas – The Art of Lowriding exhibit opens at Oceanside Museum of Art on Saturday 5/12.

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collide at community

14 Apr
2012

The new Community at Carnegie project downtown hosts the Sezio art event COLLIDE tonight (Saturday) from 6-10 PM. The flyer describes it as:

…a multi-disciplinary, contemporary art show and benefit curated by Sezio and featuring works from 16 San Diego artists and collectives. Individual art exhibits and installations will inhabit apartment units throughout the property. The event is all ages and open to the public. Admission is $5 with 100% of event proceeds benefiting Sezio…

Our friend David attended the grand opening event at Community in Bankers Hill a few years ago and said it was a lot of fun. With craft beer bars from Stone and Karl Strauss, and cocktails from the El Dorado folks, this one should be even better. Here’s some more information on the historic building’s makeover via the UT: Pearl Hotel owner delves into community living, and the Community Facebook page. And I learned from the comments in the UT article that the building was named after the donated Carnegie library building next door, later demolished.

- My last post was on the dome going on to the library downtown, but I didn’t realize it was such a unique structure until yesterday’s article in the UT explained its complexity and size. Cool stuff.

- Not quite as cool: ripping out all the shade trees on Broadway downtown and replacing them with palm trees. I can see putting palms along the Embarcadero on Harbor as part of the bay front makeover (where there are amazingly no trees for a several block stretch) – it’s an iconic tree and won’t block views there. But to pull out mature trees that provide shade to pedestrians in favor of a tree that’s been banned from Los Angeles due to environmental, maintenance and rat issues is silly.

- Even less cool: Papa Doug donating $100K to help make the bronze version of the gigantic kissing sailor statue a permanent bay front reality. Whether he’s donating $125K to deny others the right to marry, or forcing awful art on San Diegans, PD’s always getting up in your business, isn’t he?

- Not remotely cool: gay mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio having a fundraiser with notoriously anti-gay demagogue Roger Hedgecock.

More stuff:

 

2 Responses to collide at community

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Carrie

April 14th, 2012 at 6:43 pm

I’m looking forward to the spoofs to be played on the kissin’ sailor sculpture, ala Cardiff kookisms.

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paul jamason

April 14th, 2012 at 11:12 pm

So i’m not the only one who’s been plotting this then… It’s going to take a big ladder!

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library dome going up

8 Apr
2012

We were driving on the connector from 163 to I-5 south last weekend and noticed the dome is starting to appear on top of the new library downtown. Here’s some pictures from the surrounding neighborhood:



Completion is scheduled for summer of 2013. Updates can be found here, where they’re still taking donations.

On the other side of Petco Park, Lucky’s has opened in the Culy Warehouse (also coming to Culy: Block No. 16 Union and Spirits club, where their 25 by 35 foot LCD screen just went up).

A deli counter tucked into a small space, they’re serving sandwiches, salads and breakfast late into the night. We were impressed with their service – even though you pay at the counter, staff come by to refill your soda and check if you need anything. Our turkey and roast beef sandwiches were piled high, but at $11 a pop they better be:

Up in North Park, northparkscene.com says the folks that brought you Golden Hill’s Counterpoint have purchased the Post Office building that closed last July. And there’s a new mural up on the west-facing wall of Wang’s, painted by NYC artist Mark Paul Deren:



3 Responses to library dome going up

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caninecologne

April 13th, 2012 at 10:10 pm

nice to see progress on the library…

ooh, what an awesome mural! must see it in person!

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paul jamason

April 13th, 2012 at 11:14 pm

hey canine, we saw the mural last night, it’s huge. i like it.

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Gregg N

April 26th, 2012 at 12:01 pm

That sandwich above looks amazing. I might just have to give Lucky’s a try next time I visit the park.

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adams ave unplugged

30 Mar
2012

The Adams Avenue Roots Festival, the smaller of the two free annual music events in Normal Heights, has been renamed Adams Ave Unplugged and returns on April 21/22. It expands into Kensington this year with stages at the library, Ponce’s, Kensington Grill, Kensington Cafe and Ken Club. As a Kensington resident I’m pretty excited to have a music festival going on in the neighborhood. There’s a free trolley that will run along Adams too.

Also on tap for this weekend and April: the San Diego Bicycle Summit, put on by SD County Bicycle Coalition, is at the Omni Hotel downtown this weekend. Also, not one but two craft beer events in April: Sunday brings the Mission Valley Craft Beer and Food Festival at the Handlery Hotel, and City Beat’s Festival of Beers is Saturday the 7th in front of the Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Blvd. Next Thursday the 5th is Opening Day at Petco Park, with the requisite free block party from 11-6.


UCSD’s Visual Arts Gallery has an open studios event on Saturday April 7th, with nearly 50 students participating (Josh Tonies piece shown here)… Likely a bit less edgy: ArtWalk is April 28th/29th in Little Italy… North Park Historical District has a walking tour of the neighborhood’s Dryden District on Saturday 4/14 at 9 AM – meet at 28th and Upas Streets. And finally, Sunday April 16th brings two events: the second annual Taste of College Area and a benefit at Ponce’s in Kensington for Franklin Elementary. Full calendar here.

- We enjoyed the vegetarian offerings at newly-opened Lotus Cafe in Hillcrest (my dairy-free peanut butter milkshake was surprisingly good), but it was disappointing to see it nearly empty on a Saturday evening… Bunz is open in Mission Valley, with Terra’s Jeff Rossman serving up some delicious burgers in the former Pam Pam spot attached to Days Hotel. Our waitress said the clientele has been an interesting mix of hotel patrons and Terra-familiar diners. If you get the vegan burger be prepared to use your fork, the bean/quinoa/peppers/oats concoction was tasty but got a bit squidgy.



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