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Artelexia interior, Observatory North Park marquee, Mabel's Gone crudo, North Park Beer Co. pint, Verbatim Books exterior
(Chris Reynolds/ Los Angeles Times; Kimberly Motos; Jenny Mann Photos)

14 things to do in North Park, the liveliest hipster haven of San Diego

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At Lovesong Coffee, the bold and beautiful gather to sip caffeinated concoctions and peck at laptops in a space as bright and minimal as a stage set.

A few blocks away at sleek ramen restaurant Underbelly, a well-tattooed young customer sits at the bar in snug jeans and a crop top displaying the words: “I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison.”

Meanwhile, workers put the finishing touches on the LaFayette Hotel, a lavishly redesigned midcentury landmark reopening tomorrow with several on-site restaurants and bars. One room looks like a Parisian salon, another like a ’40s diner, another like an old Mexican church, the light filtered through stained-glass windows.

“This is either going to be something really special,” says co-owner Arsalun Tafazoli, “or one of the biggest flameouts in San Diego hospitality history.”

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This neighborhood, Angelenos, might be the liveliest corner of San Diego that you’ve never heard of, a place with more beer, more resilience and less parking than you’d suspect. To get in on the action, head north of Balboa Park and look for the NORTH PARK sign rising over the middle of University Avenue.

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Here, you’ll find breweries and gastropubs, a seafood joint that recently won praise from the Michelin people, a listening bar with a stash of buyable classic vinyl in the backroom, and a 90-foot-long mural outside Verbatim Books that features a typewriter protruding from the roof and a crazed face in a doorway between oversize horror books. It might be Stephen King. Or his evil twin.

As I approached the crazed face, I found longtime North Park local Jay Lind already on the sidewalk, grabbing photos with his phone. The neighborhood “has really blossomed,” he told me.

Many of North Park’s most visible assets, including the mural, the LaFayette’s new incarnation, the listening bar and seafood restaurant Mabel’s Gone Fishing, have only shown up in the last two years. But as someone who first encountered this neighborhood decades ago and renewed the acquaintance in recent weeks, I know there’s a backstory — by turns inspiring and horrific — just beneath its well-decorated surface.

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It was 1893 when neighborhood pioneer James Monroe Hartley decided to start a lemon orchard on 40 acres north of the city’s biggest park. But soon he realized there wasn’t enough water to irrigate it.

If life won’t give you lemons, you can’t make lemonade. But if you’re in Southern California, you can still develop a residential neighborhood. Which Hartley did.

Before long, North Park had grown to include about 30,000 residents in about three square miles, just south of Mission Valley, just east of Hillcrest (and just north of Balboa Park, of course). Its many Craftsman homes and Spanish Revival bungalows made it one of the most densely populated areas in the city, with streetcars running up and down 30th Street and University Avenue, the neighborhood’s thirst fed by a water tower that’s still a local landmark.

In the 1960s, suburbanization and the completion of Interstate 8 in Mission Valley began draining the area of money and homeowners. Look-alike apartment buildings multiplied where bungalows once stood. (Even now, you can start a healthy debate among longtime locals just by saying the most prolific apartment mogul’s name: Ray Huffman.)

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North Park’s commercial strips, El Cajon Boulevard, University Avenue and 30th Street, slipped into a long slump. And then came Flight 182.

On Sept. 25, 1978, an incoming PSA 727 and a small Cessna collided 2,600 feet above North Park, raining wreckage on the neighborhood. The disaster, which killed 137 people aboard the aircraft and seven on the ground, remains the deadliest plane crash in California history.

For years afterward, said Joseph Kraft, owner of Atypical Waffle Co. on 30th Street, “North Park really went downhill. Nobody wanted to live here.”

So much has changed since then, in part because of the area’s central location and surging demand from young families seeking relatively affordable homes.

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“When my wife and I first bought a house in 1998, there were a couple of restaurants, Caffé Calabria and Ranchos Cocina. And [much of] the rest was boarded-up buildings. It’s come a long way,” said Mark West, executive director of Main Street North Park.

Those two restaurants are still neighborhood fixtures, Calabria known for roasting its own coffee beans, Ranchos known for its vegan and vegetarian dishes. Other locals speak reverently of restaurants Urban Solace and the Linkery, along with gastropubs Toronado and Hamilton’s Tavern, all opened between 2004 and 2009, all gone now.

But in their wake came eateries like City Tacos and Breakfast Republic, both born in North Park in 2014-15 and grown to include locations across Southern California. There’s also Artelexia boutique, which specializes in colorful Mexican fare and last year sprouted an adjacent kitchenware offshoot, Casa y Cocina. There’s the home-and-garden shop Pigment, an early player in the neighborhood resurgence, which features an indoor fig tree that rises to the rafters.

And then there’s the beer.

“Beer blew it up, pretty much,” said Greg Theilmann, manager at Verbatim Books. “There are so many breweries.”

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North Park has been central to San Diego’s emergence as a craft brewing capital. More than a dozen craft breweries and pubs fill the area, sprinkled among restaurants, independent retailers and cocktail lounges like Botanica, Seven Grand and 619 Spirits North Park. Near the hipster-magnet corner of 30th and Upas, Bluefoot draws dive-bar aficionados and soccer fans.

Still, North Park and its sidekick South Park don’t attract hordes of tourists the way the beaches and Balboa Park do. When you show up, you’ll be joining plenty of savvy locals, especially along pedestrian-friendly 30th Street and University Avenue.

If you’re coming from Los Angeles, the increasingly lively commercial strips and buffed-up bungalow blocks might remind you of Virgil Village or Atwater Village. But North Park is its own place. Here’s a guide to get you started.

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People browse in a shop before a wall painted with Frida Kahlo's face and the words "Love Yourself."
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Artelexia

San Diego Gift Shop
The bright retail space features Mexican arts and gifts, a rainbow-hued inventory that includes loteria cards, blankets, books, oilcloth, serape bowties, sombreros, cards, bags, alebrije earrings and a notably high FQ (Frida Quotient). Owner Elexia de la Parra began this business as a farmers market stall, then moved to North Park in 2017. You can’t miss the selfie-ready mural outside proclaiming “You are radiant!” or the Frida Kahlo mural inside (not far from an icebox holding paletas).

In 2022, de la Parra added Casa y Cocina, a cookware shop around the corner at 3030 N. Park Way.
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Large glass chandeliers hang over an old-fashioned-looking bar with leather banquettes nearby.
(Arlene Ibarra / LaFayette Hotel)

LaFayette Hotel

San Diego Hotel
The LaFayette Hotel and its Neo-Colonial façade have stood since 1946 on El Cajon Boulevard, but the hotel’s latest incarnation looks like nothing this 2½-acre property has seen before.

Besides its 139 guest rooms and pool, the five-building complex includes a lobby bar that may remind you of a grand hotel in London; Quixote, a Mexican restaurant outfitted with furnishings from a century-old deconsecrated church; Beginners, a faux-’40s diner; and Gutter, a basement-level bar with a two-lane bowling alley. Later, a upscale French restaurant is expected to join the mix.

The LaFayette’s plans also include a live-music venue and a new treatment of the Mississippi Room (which is where Tom Cruise and company filmed the scene featuring “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” in the first “Top Gun” movie).

The San Diego company behind this venture, Consortium Holdings, already runs several restaurants and bars in North Park (including Underbelly, Part Time Lover, Polite Provisions and Fortunate Son) and 19 San Diego bars and restaurants in all. After 16 years of growth, this is Consortium’s first hotel.

“Hotels were always the dream,” Consortium co-founder Arsalun Tafazoli told me when I toured the property in early July.

Not only does a hotel’s creator get to “synthesize art in all its mediums,” Tafazoli said, a hotel “incorporates all of life’s core rituals.”

Tafazoli grew up in San Diego and knew of the LaFayette long before buying it in 2021. To bring new life to a site that’s been “held together with love and Scotch tape” for decades, the Consortium team is mixing styles, eras, patterns and materials with a creative promiscuity that will make you smile or run away screaming. Rates begin at about $300.

Custom wallpaper. Hand-painted toilets. Stained glass. A wall of custom Portuguese tiles. Checkerboard marble floors under Murano glass chandeliers. Leopard-skin-pattern upholstery. Parquet flooring. Four-poster beds. Audiophile speakers by Devon Turnbull. But you’ll find no TV in any of the public rooms, because Tafazoli likes the analog feel.

How do you know, Tafazoli was asked, when you’re going too far in dressing up a room?

“We have this thing, which is: More is more.”
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The exterior of a restaurant, with tables and chairs out front under yellow umbrellas
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Mabel's Gone Fishing

San Diego Restaurant and lounge
This seafood restaurant, which draws on Iberian influences and ingredients from Baja, opened in 2022. It has already won approving notice from knowing locals and visitors, including Michelin and Eater. The bar menu is strong on gins and natural wines. Make a reservation well ahead, or get there at opening and make a beeline for the bar. (There’s an Oyster Hour on weeknights.) Dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays and brunch on weekends.

The founders, Chelsea Coleman and Rae Gurne, also run the Rose Wine Bar on 30th Street in South Park. The Michelin Guide praised Mabel’s for “the crispy, meaty swordfish schnitzel, served with salsa verde and creamy tomato sauce alongside a salad of caper berries and shaved fennel,” but not all of its winning points come from the sea. I loved the juicy mushroom starter plate, served with an egg on top.
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A man and a large dog stand at a bar
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

North Park Beer Co.

San Diego Restaurant and lounge
It is wise to arrive thirsty on 30th Street. North Park Beer Co. (opened 2016) is just one among many brewpubs in the neighborhood, but its beers won more prizes than anyone else’s at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival in Denver. Its dining/drinking room is cavernous and its Mastiff Kitchen (sausage a specialty) offers plenty of burgers and beer-friendly foods. But leave some room. The neighborhood includes so many options. Among them: Original 40 Brewing Co.; Bivouac Cider Works; and Mike Hess Brewing.












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Verbatim Books, North Park, San Diego, as seen from the North Park Garage.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

North Park Garage

San Diego Parking
In a neighborhood where street parking and parking lots are so rare, a spacious, 24-hour parking structure counts as a highlight.

This one rises four stories, with nice panoramas from the top, including the view here of Verbatim Books and 30th Street. A spot here will cost you no more than $10 per 24 hours (and there’s a $5 flat rate between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.). Especially if your destination is around 30th and University, save yourself some trouble and head here first.
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A person seated outdoors playing guitar, with an amplifier and a microphone on a stand
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

North Park Thursday Market

San Diego Farmers' market
If your introduction is like mine, you’ll see the flowers first, then hear a busker doing a complicated picking pattern on his guitar, and then some very healthy-looking guy will step up to invite you on “a flavor journey.”

Whether or not you say yes, you’ll probably be pleased you tried this market. It happens from 3 to 7:30 p.m. weekly and grew by a block in 2022. Sponsored by the North Park Main Street organization, it includes about 50 vendors and a performer or two, with Peruvian chicken, churro doughnuts, Thai superballs and — favorite — a Kansas City-Baja barbecue fusion stand right across the street from the Mexican-Japanese fusion cuisine stand. The market takes over North Park Way between Ray Street and Granada Avenue, and includes the mini park behind the Observatory/North Park Theatre, giving children more car-free room to roam.
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The Observatory North Park theater marquee touts a show by the Skints.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Observatory North Park

San Diego Live Music Venue
Long before the first electric guitar was plugged in here, this noble old building— which has nothing to do with astronomy — began its life as a Fox movie house in 1928.

It showed movies into the ’70s, then sputtered into idleness until the city of San Diego stepped up to repair and revive the building and add a parking structure behind it. The signage outside still says North Park Theatre, but pop music people know it as the Observatory.

Live music dominates the stage these days. Music mega-promoter Live Nation owns the building and runs the shows, while West Coast Tavern does food and drink business in the lobby Thursday through Sunday (and show nights). The venue’s 13 shows in July include Sky Ferreira (July 7), Circle Jerks (July 14) and Los Yesterdays (July 21).

Many say the building’s rebirth in 2005 played a key role in the neighborhood’s resurgence.
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People sit around a low table in a room with wood-paneled walls
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Part Time Lover

San Diego Bar
Los Angeles has only a handful of Japanese-style listening bars, where audiophiles gather to talk softly and obsess over classic vinyl. San Diego has just this one, which opened in 2022. It’s very comfortable and, if the disc on the turntable lines up with your taste, difficult to leave.

Though Part Time Lover is officially the bar’s name (and a Stevie Wonder song), the local shorthand (and the lettering on the storefront) is PTL. In addition to the bar’s plush and paneled main room and impeccable sound system (which includes a McIntosh tube amp to wow the audiophiles), there’s a vintage record shop in back that’s especially strong in jazz. On the sound system while I was there: an LP from the ’70s Nigerian rock band Ofege.

“It’s not a dive bar and it’s not a club,” record selector Sophia Moreno told me. “It’s something different. To promote curiosity and to promote wonder. It’s really about slowing down.”

The vinyl, for sale from 4 to 10 p.m. nightly, is supplied by Folk Arts Rare Records, a venerated San Diego boho institution whose main location is at 3610 University Ave. PTL offers musical theme nights (“left-field jazz and experimental dance tracks”) and an endlessly varied parade of selectors and DJs that has included the Chulita Vinyl Club and members of the band Thee Sacred Souls. There’s plenty of chatter among customers, but they tend to speak quietly. The music is a far higher priority than in most other bars. Also: “no reservations, no cassettes, no requests.”
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Books on high shelves spell out the name of Verbatim Books
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Verbatim Books

San Diego Bookstore
The folks at Verbatim say they’re running San Diego’s largest independent bookstore (and yes, those are exact words). The inventory is mostly used books, wittily arrayed, with a smattering of new. You’ll be wowed first by the 90-foot-long mural on the longest exterior wall, completed in 2021 by Armando Hernandez (a.k.a. @Elizarraras_art).

Once inside, you’ll be charmed by the volumes stacked up high to spell out the bookshop’s name. Not to mention the long blue shelf of Hardy Boys classics and literary wall art. You’ll also find zines, small-press products and tarot decks. The shop opened in 2015, then in 2019 tripled its size to 5,000 square feet. Closed on Tuesdays.

Also: If romance novels are your weakness, you might want to try Meet Cute Romance Bookshop two and a half blocks north at 4048 30th St.
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A small home from the early 20th century, with dirt in front and awnings over the windows.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Ted Williams' house

San Diego Historic Home
For baseball fans only: Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams did some of his growing up in this modest home, which is privately owned and, in early July, had its side windows boarded up. Zillow says the 1,128-square-foot house was sold in 2022 for $850,000. A note in the window warns against trespassing.

Williams, who didn’t talk about his Mexican American heritage until years after his career was over, was born in San Diego, graduated from Hoover High School there in 1937 and signed his first pro contract with the minor-league San Diego Padres. He later said he built his immense hitting skills as a boy on the diamond at North Park Community Park, which has been renamed Ted Williams Field. (When I passed, it was closed for maintenance.) Williams died in 2002 at age 83 (and was cryogenically frozen).
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A white popsicle on a cardboard tray, held up in front of a colorfully decorated wall
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Zonkey Paletas

San Diego Dessert
Zonkey Paletas, an outgrowth of the Lucha Libre Taco Shop next door, is a pink-walled wonderland of frozen treats, including customizable popsicles. (I liked the coconut paleta.)

The shop’s name comes from Tijuana, where a donkey painted to look like a zebra is known as a zonkey. (Zonkeys has been the name of Tijuana’s pro basketball team for more than a decade.)

It’s a clever idea, pairing a street-food eatery with a dessert stop, and it’s not unique on this stretch of University Avenue. About 150 yards east of Lucha Libre/Zonkey stands Gelati & Peccati, which combines Italian frozen treats and pizza (which comes in seven styles to match the seven deadly sins).
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A person hand-tosses a pizza in a room with big windows.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Tribute Pizza

San Diego Restaurant
This “neo-Neapolitan” pizzeria draws mobs to its dining room in an artfully adapted 1951 post office. The menu notes that all Tribute’s dishes are made from scratch, and the drinks list includes plenty of beers from neighborhood brewers. Since its opening in 2016, Tribute has found its way onto several best-pizzeria lists. Open Wednesday through Sunday.
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The dining room of a Vietnamese restaurant, with blue banquettes, a tiled wall and yellow, red and blue metal chairs.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Shank & Bone

San Diego Vietnamese
This eatery, born in 2018, serves modern and classic Vietnamese food, especially upscale pho, beneath the regal gaze of “Revolution Woman,” a mural by Shepard Fairey.

The atmosphere is designed to evoke Ho Chi Minh City (a.k.a. Saigon) with vintage travel posters and mounted scooters and metal chairs of red, blue and yellow.
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