John Vallas has been brewing up success in Mission Beach since 2011. That’s when the submariner-turned-entrepreneur bought a coffee shop down to its last drop and transformed it into the tidal Swell Café, a laid-back, eco-friendly, Fair Trade java joint serving up an eclectic health-conscious breakfast and lunch menu in an open-air setting. On Sept. 27, the business perked up again with a grand reopening that showcased a remodel, a new partnership with Gina Champion-Cain and the Patio Restaurant Group (PRG) and an expansion into the coffee-roasting business. Now roasting in small batches at the café, the Swell Coffee Roasting Company will soon open at a larger facility. Swell provides signature coffee blends to wholesale and retail customers and to all of the PRG brands: The Patio restaurants in Pacific Beach and Mission Hills and The Front Porch, a culinary boutique recently opened in Mission Hills.
Vallas calls his approach to coffee a “seed-to-cup” endeavor that’s sustainable and traceable. He said he’s currently working with a farm in Peru. “By doing what we’re doing — spending a lot of time sourcing coffee from farmers and serving a quality product — we are connecting the customer to the experience and elevating the coffee scene in San Diego,” he said. The café’s remodel embraces the neighborhood’s history by paying homage to San Diego’s lifeguards on tabletops emblazoned with black-and-white historic photographs. Images of beach-town heroes show the evolution of San Diego’s Lifeguard Services. From the early 1900s, fresh-faced, knobby-kneed young men dressed in dark muscle shirts labeled Police and ]Lifeguard hark back to a time when the two services were part of the same department. From the 1970s, there’s a photo of Carol Tyler, the city’s first female lifeguard, climbing a tower with binoculars in hand, wearing a two-piece swimsuit. The rest of the decor takes on the earthy family traits of The Patio restaurants: repurposed wood, a verdant-colored exterior and a “green wall” of succulents cascading over the dog-friendly outdoor dining space.
“Restaurants like this are our (San Diego’s) lifeblood,” said District 2 City Councilman Ed Harris, who was on hand for the reopening. “Tourism is our third economic tool. [Visitors] come here to get a great meal, have a great experience and want to come back.”
Harris, a veteran lifeguard, joined Vallas that day in a salute to San Diego’s Lifeguards of the Year: Daryl McDonald and Tore Blichfeldt. McDonald and Blichfeldt were thanked for their service by Swell Café with free coffee for a year. Their names are also etched on an outdoor wall plaque, which has room for future lifeguards to be celebrated in an annual tradition.
Swell Café, located at 3833 Mission Blvd., serves breakfast and lunch daily and offers catering and rental of the restaurant for meetings and events. For more information, visit www.theswellcafe.com, or call (858) 539-0039.
