Let’s collect all the 2016 restaurant closing here
And the first restaurant closing is Sea & Smoke in Del Mar.
Not really surprising as the last visits were only OK and it never seemed
get real traction. Hopefully Matt can now focus more on his other two
restaurants as they also started to get a little bit stagnant with
hardly any menu changes and a lot of room for improvement in the service
part.
I don’t think that was a surprise…
The surprise, I suppose, was that it lasted so long.
Agree. That was a weird place. We were there just once. The food was OK as I recall, but while the front of the restaurant had a nice Mexican-style ambience to it, the back part (with booths) was really strange. Not to mention the peculiar night-club / restroom area in the far rear corner. Just wasn’t at all motivated to return.
We walked by a few times after, though. Once, there was a piano in the area where our table near the front window had been. And later it was gone. The changes didn’t seem consistent with business continuity.
Noooooo! They have been around for many many years
After a decade in San Diego, The Tractor Room has closed it’s doors.
Went over to Char House on Balboa at 6 pm this evening (Friday). The doors were locked, the lights were out, and there was stuff on the tables. I think that means they’re gone.
And their “Grand Opening” sign is still up.
I was very sorry to read that Salt & Cleaver is closing, which will take place before Christmas. They had the best bratwurst in town, and it was one of the few places I was still visiting in Hillcrest. Maybe they’ll re-open in another location? I’d like to hope so.
S&M Sausage & Meat also recently closed.
Yes, but I didn’t realize that S&M Sausage & Meat was owned by Slater until today’s article in SD Eater. Interesting that his Slater’s places are also undergoing a transition…
While on the subject of closings, there’s one nearby that has me sad in a way, but interested. It’s the Yum Cha Café, a counter-service dim sum kind of place, in a space that was contiguous on the south end with Tuong Phat market on Linda Vista Rd. Just closed. I’ve occasionally gone there for their bbq pork soup with wide noodles, even though the plastic spoons they provided were caviar-sized, because it was tasty and dirt cheap. (I love that combination.)
The reason for posting is because that fairly large space would be ideal for a nitty-gritty, down-to-earth, new-Baja style restaurant – something BayPk and SW Clairemont would love and really pick up on, I think. Something like a Romesco’s North, for example.
Mama Testa is closing in Mira Mesa
That seemed like an odd spot for them. I was there twice at lunch last spring, and it rarely had more than a few tables of people.
Will they relocate again, or call it a day?
Not sure but my guess is that they might call it a day. They seem to have problems finding the right spot with the right customer base. Hillcrest was OK with their higher prices but rent was too high. Mira Mesa had better rents but the customers were missing due to too high prices for this area.
I think the extraordinarily long delay to relocate didn’t do them any favors. El Patron and the latest iteration of Santana are a block away serving a similar menu only cheaper and Vallarta is across the street from them serving a large menu at rock bottom prices.