San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

Patricia Sebold, Kalani Millsaps, and Kerry Pierce join Happy Half Hour to discuss their new concept: a women's-focused sports bar opening in North Park. We find out how the project came together and why San Diego is ready for it now.  From Title IX to the Wave's record-setting crowds, they talk about the rise of women's sports, the frustration of watching games on phones in bars that won't put th...

#415 On the latest Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson traces a proper Sunday roast into its evolution as a distinctly American handheld obsession. Following the breadcrumbs leads straight to Big Jim's Roast Beef in Pacific Beach, which is owned by today's guest, James Jones.    He's a North Shore Boston transplant who brought the "super beef" to our fair shores. His version has a griddled onion ro...

On this episode of  Happy Half Hour , co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with Niccolò Angius, the Italian-born chef-owner behind Cesarina and Elvira, to explore why pasta holds such an enduring grip on our hearts, memories, and nervous systems. Raised in his parents' Roman trattoria in Trastevere, Angius traces his journey from Rome to San Diego, where he and his wife Cesarina Mezzon...

#413 On Happy Half Hour , host Troy Johnson talks with chef Elijah Arizmendi about leaving home at 15, training in Vegas and New York, and opening Lucien — an ingredient-obsessed, 30-seat destination built around San Diego produce, house ferments, and meticulous coursing. On this week's  Happy Half Hour , host Troy Johnson sits down with chef Elijah Arizmendi, the 30-year-old behind Lucien, La Jol...

#412 This week, Happy Half Hour host Troy Johnson talks with Food Network megastar Guy Fieri about how a one-off Flavortown joke grew into a national food brand, from pop-up kitchens to a fast-growing sauce line and a major new partnership rolling its offerings into 6,500 Circle K stores.  The two also revisit Fieri's early Food Network days, the demo tape that launched his career and the evolutio...

#411 Bebemos cofounder Preston Caffrey and Waterfront Bar & Grill's Dennis Glover talk cocktails, what makes a good regular's bar, and running a local legacy This week on  Happy Half Hour , the crew posts up at the iconic Waterfront Bar & Grill, open since 1933 and still run by the same family. Co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant are joined by Bebemos Tequila cofounder Preston Caffrey and Wate...

#410 We sit down with San Diego's longtime restaurant power duo to unpack their two-decade partnership and their latest La Jolla project. On this episode of Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson catches up with chef Brian Malarkey and restaurateur Chris Puffer to explore the story behind their newest venture inside the iconic former Herringbone space, now reborn as Le Coq. The trio rewinds through the ear...

#409 Andrew Zimmern, a four-time James Beard Award–winning TV host best known for Bizarre Foods and for using food as a lens into culture joins Happy Half Hour co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant this week. A longtime champion of global food culture, Zimmern shares his new book, The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future and discusses why Americans misunderstand...

#408 On this week's Happy Half Hour, co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with Joe Bower and Dan Valerino, the duo behind Finca, one of North Park's buzziest and newest restaurants. The pair met during their Juniper & Ivy days and reunited to open a spot that blends the warmth of Spanish wine culture with California's seasonal bounty and upscale tapas culture. They dive into vermouth,...

#407 You've probably seen the video: A woman casually hand-rolling gnocchi on a cross-country flight, dusting flour across her tray table like it's just another day in the friendly skies. That woman is Katie Brooks, founder of Buona Pasta, and she joins Happy Half Hour co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant on this week's episode to talk about how a mid-air pasta moment went viral—and how it all...

#406 On this week's Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson traces how our beer nerds turned San Diego into a food town—from Karl Strauss in '89 to the Brewers Guild in '97, the 2018 peak of 150+ breweries, and today's saner "new normal." Guests Estela Davila (Guild president), Kevin Hellman (Capital of Craft co-founder), and Brandon Kroegel (Coronado Brewing) preview San Diego Beer Week and its kickoff par...

#405 This week on Happy Half Hour , co-host Troy Johnson heads north to Solana Beach, where LANA has transformed the old California Pizza Kitchen space into a relaxed, wood-fired restaurant with real neighborhood soul. Co-owners Travis LeGrand and Mark Wheadon have built something rare for the coast: a spot that's stylish but still feels local, where dishes like gold-spotted Baja sea bass with agu...

#404 This week on Happy Half Hour , co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant go solo for a special Halloween episode. They talk restaurant news like Chefsgiving at Provisional Kitchen on November 13 benefiting the San Diego Food Bank; Valle's four-year anniversary dinner; and celebrity chef Claudette Zepeda's departure from Leu Leu to focus on filming projects, Chispa Hospitality, and her upcoming...

#403 This week on Happy Half Hour, co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant head to the Marine Room, La Jolla's oceanfront dining landmark waves slam against windows and the food matches the drama. Chef Derek Dupree introduces new fall dishes, including roasted king trumpet mushrooms with garlic miso emulsion, butternut squash with goat cheese espuma and toasted hazelnuts, and blackened swordfish w...

#402 Happy Half Hour co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with Sami Ladeki, one of the most influential figures in San Diego dining to trace his long and unlikely career. He shares stories of leaving Lebanon in his twenties, washing dishes in Germany, running food and beverage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and eventually landing in San Diego to open Sammy's Woodfired Pizza in 1989. ...

#401 After the economic sucker-punch of Covid robbed chef Eric Bost of his LA restaurant Auburn, he entered into a values-first partnership with restaurateur John Resnick. Despite months of permitting and supply snags and personal and operational hits, the two succeeded at last in turning an old Carlsbad boogie-board factory into all-day bakery and cafe Wildland and the smaller, tasting-menu-only...

#400 On this week's  Happy Half Hour  with hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant, we're joined by siblings Sam Tall and Rebecca Tall-Brown, the second-generation owners of City Farmers Nursery in City Heights. They talk about their family's 52-year journey turning discarded plants and reclaimed materials into a thriving nursery, the importance of biodiversity and community support, and how Nate's G...

#399 This week on Happy Half Hour, Troy and Jackie sit with one of San Diego's most influential chefs, Carl Schroeder, who rarely interviews. After years at the helm of Market Restaurant + Bar, Schroeder has sold his shares and is stepping back. We talk about the glory days of Market, the early 2000s when "farm to table" actually meant something, his start in storied San Francisco kitchens, and wh...

#398 On this week's Happy Half Hour, Troy and Jackie camp out on Monarch Ocean Pub's waterfront deck in Del Mar Plaza where owner-operator Drew Vick runs plates of halibut ceviche, pepperoni-and-broccolini flatbread, and that five-day–brined short-rib pastrami while Bebemos Tequila cofounder Preston Caffrey pours crisp paper planes and talks zero-additive agave and San Diego roots. We hit festival...

#397 This week on Happy Half Hour we sit down with Kory Stetina, whose first restaurant Kindred shifted San Diego's idea of plant-based dining. He's since teamed with CH Projects on Mothership, and now opened Dreamboat and Vulture in University Heights. Dreamboat is a compact, all-day diner; Vulture is the moody dining room behind it, serving martinis fussed over for a year, lion's mane "Steak Dia...

#396 Herb & Wood changed the city's dining culture when chef Brian Malarkey and Chris Puffer opened it in Little Italy 10 years ago. In restaurant culture, 10 years is 100 years. A feat. But how do you stay relevant in the new-new-new social-media restaurant craze? You hire a "kid" like Aidan Owens, who's one of the fastest-rising young chefs we've seen in the city in a long time. He started cooki...

"He was wearing two dog tags. The bullet went through the first dog tag, but the second deflected it down into his ankle. The bullet's still in his ankle." As Ky Phan shares on this week's Happy Half Hour podcast, her father's dog tag with the terrifying hole not only saved his life, but eventually became the ticket to a new life for his young family. The Phans are from a small village in South Vi...

#394 This week, Happy Half Hour details Del Mar's legendary past with longtime restaurateurs John and Sara Wingate of En Fuego Cantina & Grill. Co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant retrace the beach town's transformation from Victorian bathhouses and racehorse legends to its current food scene, anchored by icons like En Fuego, which is now celebrating 30 years in business. The Wingates reveal h...

#393 This week on Happy Half Hour , co-hosts Troy and Jackie sit down with Emily Brubaker, executive chef of Omni La Costa Resort & Spa, to talk about her recent win on the premiere season of Yes, Chef! , a national cooking competition judged by Martha Stewart and Spanish-American chef and restaurateur José Andrés.  Brubaker shares what it was like to step away from her kitchen and her family for...

#392 On this episode of Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant take the show to Waverly in Cardiff for a tequila-soaked taste test with San Diego-based brand Bebemos. The mission continues to find the ultimate dish to pair with their joven-style tequila. Along the way, they're joined by Camino Riviera and Waverly bar manager Stephen O'Halloran and SDCM executive chef Brian Redzikowski to...