An upscale burger joint called Smashburger will soon occupy the building at 1000 Prospect St. where Powell\u2019s Sweet Shoppe once sold old-fashioned candies. The restaurant opens to the public March 24. Smashburger will host a private party the day before to celebrate its entry into the San Diego market with live music and broadcasting by radio station 91X. Smashburger is a Denver-based chain that sells artisan-style burgers and fries paired with a glass of wine, a microbrewed beer or a H\u00e4agen-Dazs ice-cream float in a casual setting. There are 56 Smashburger stores across the country. Elkins Whisenhunt, Inc., based in Bankers Hill, bought the rights to open Smashburger stores in San Diego County and intends to open seven Smashburger sites in San Diego within the year \u2014 starting with the store in La Jolla. Both owners of Elkins Whisenhunt, Inc. grew up in and currently live in La Jolla. “The market\u2019s ready for a concept like this,” said co-owner David Whisenhunt. “It has an affordable price point and the real estate prices are coming down, so there\u2019s more available real estate. It\u2019s not so much a push as a pull.” Smashburger\u2019s concept is to “smash” the Angus beef on a very hot grill to caramelize the meat on both sides and then to pair it with fresh produce, dressings and cheeses. The San Diego Smashburger, for example, features avocado, cilantro, onions, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and chipotle mayo on a torta roll. Whisenhunt, 46, said he\u2019s “not particularly” worried about competition from other restaurants serving high-quality burgers like Burger Lounge on Wall Street. Whisenhunt said he\u2019s confident in the concept behind his product. “We have an environment that is inviting and friendly that has no real class distinction,” Whisenhunt said. “It\u2019s just about the better burger and a place to get it at the right price point. I don\u2019t know that we\u2019re competing as much as we\u2019ve positioned ourselves to be available to everybody.” The Smashburger site on Prospect Street will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. For more information call (858) 750-2531. A website for the La Jolla store has not yet been activated.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An upscale burger joint called Smashburger will soon occupy the building at 1000 Prospect St. where Powell\u2019s Sweet Shoppe once sold old-fashioned candies. The restaurant opens to the public March 24. Smashburger will host a private party the day before to celebrate its entry into the San Diego market with live music and broadcasting by […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":272620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Beefy new burger alternative set to open","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}