For Pacific Beach residents and small business owners, supporting local events is a cause close to heart. With this in mind, Discover Pacific Beach is inviting the community to bring its appetite and its walking shoes to the 10th annual Heart of PB Restaurant Walk, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 12, from 5 to 9 p.m.
The self-guided culinary tour will showcase some of Pacific Beach’s favorite dining establishments along Garnet Avenue from Cass to Olney streets.
“It’s definitely an eclectic mix of restaurants,” said Sara Woodcock, program manager for Discover Pacific Beach. “We have a really good mix of different genres of food.”
Discover Pacific Beach is the neighborhood’s business improvement district. Though the restaurant walk is not one of the group’s largest fund-raisers in terms of revenue, Woodcock said, it does help bring new business to local eateries by giving people a chance to patronize places they may not otherwise go.
“It’s really more of a promotion for the restaurants,” Woodcock said.
With a restaurant closing or opening on Garnet Avenue what seems like every day, attracting new customers through sampling events such as the walk is a great help.
A newcomer to this year’s restaurant walk is Shaka Hawaiian Grinds, 1315 Garnet Ave.
“We are proud to be part of PB events,” Shaka owner Cicely Meng said. “We have great Hawaiian and Pacific Islander food we would like to share with locals and people who visit PB.”
Shaka Hawaiian Grinds will be sampling chicken katsu with special katsu sauce and Kalua pork.
Roughly 500 people participated in Heart of PB Restaurant last year, according to Woodcock. The event is typically held in the fall, opposite the Coast of Pacific Beach Restaurant Walk, Discover Pacific Beach’s showcase of restaurants west of Cass Street, which is held in the spring.
Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance at Discover Pacific Beach, 1503 Garnet Ave.; San Diego National Bank, 1945 Garnet Ave.; Shaka Hawaiian Grinds, 1315 Garnet Ave.; and Lotsa Pasta, 1762 Garnet Ave.
Local radio stations 91X and 94.9 FM will also be giving away a limited number of promotional tickets on their radio programs.
This year’s participating restaurants:
“¢ Broken Yolk Café
“¢ Bub’s Dive Bar
“¢ Café Athena
“¢ Charlie’s Best Bread
“¢ Chipotle Mexican Grill
“¢ Costa Brava
“¢ Ephemeral City Bakery
“¢ Great News!
“¢ Henry’s Marketplace
“¢ La Cosa Pizza
“¢ Lotsa Pasta
“¢ Pick Up Stix
“¢ Quizno’s
“¢ Round Table Pizza
“¢ RT’s Longboard Grill
“¢ Shaka Hawaiian Grinds
“¢ Tavern At The Beach
“¢ TJ’s Oyster Bar
“¢ World Curry
For more information, call (858) 273-3303.
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It’s going to be a restaurant marathon next Wednesday, Sept. 13, as more than 50 eateries open their doors for the seventh annual Taste of Downtown.
“We tried to get the most fun, hip and trendy restaurants that we could,” said Jackie Burgio of McFarlane Promotions, the event coordinator. “It’s a great way to keep the Gaslamp and downtown area thriving.”
The self-guided culinary tour, benefiting the Downtown San Diego Partnership, will feature samplings of dishes from all over downtown and the world.
Restaurants from the Gaslamp, Little Italy and the East Village will be participating, and McMillan Realty’s Gaslamp office will sponsor a shuttle to move the anticipated 1,000 guests back and forth throughout downtown the entire evening.
Burgio said 10 new restaurants were added to this year’s tour, with efforts made to include establishments inside Horton Plaza and the up-and-coming East Village/ballpark area. She added that many of the event guests are downtown residents, some of the thousands of families and singles streaming into new high-rise condo developments.
The Taste of Downtown provides an opportunity to try out a variety of dishes from several new and familiar San Diego restaurants, establishments that seem to come and go like the tides in a high-turnover urban neighborhood.
The Indigo Grill will feature flatbread and salmon bruschetta, Deco’s will serve individual pesto pizzas, La Cantina its grilled flank steak, and Ra Sushi Bar its Viva Las Vegas Roll, to name only a few.
The Taste of Downtown will run from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $25. Organizers anticipate tickets will sell out and recommend pre-purchase by calling (619) 233-5008. The free shuttles run from the Horton Square/NBC plaza area to the East Village and Little Italy on a continual basis. Guests who park at Horton Plaza can visit the participating restaurants in the plaza to receive validation for three hours of free parking.
More information can be found at www.dtsd.org.