Birria El Rey opens its first physical location in Golden Hill

Golden Hill’s Birria El Rey is the best taco truck. There are only a few tables on the sidewalk next to a parking lot and a laundromat, but what they lack in seating they more than make up for with insanely decadent birria tacos, chilaquiles, fries, and even ramen. Birria is what chef and owner Cristian Marin Vazquez specializes in and what he believes people want.

Luckily, we’ll get a lot more when he moves down the block this summer to the former Krakatoa spot at 1128 25th Street in Golden Hill.

“I think it should be ready within three months,” he said during our conversation this month, adding that they are just waiting for the final permits and the ABC license. He pauses for a moment and thinks about what that means. “I started selling birria only on Sundays with just a small jar of birria. In three years I will almost have my restaurant ready.”

Vazquez received formal training at the Culinary Art School in Tijuana before working in San Diego at places like Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina. However, when the pandemic hit, he found himself unemployed and ready to try something new. He decided to launch a birria pop-up in Golden Hill on Sunday, despite the hospitality industry coming to an abrupt halt in early 2020.

“I wasn’t getting any income, so I said, ‘This is my time to try something,’” he says. He calls that period of uncertainty scary, but an opportunity to do what he always wanted to do: open his own restaurant and stop working for someone else. “If I hadn’t lost my job, I wouldn’t have done anything,” he says. But his bet quickly paid off.

“People started liking the birria, so I decided to do it on Saturday,” Vazquez explains. “Then people seemed to like it lot. That’s why I decided to open from Tuesday to Sunday.” Since then, he’s been selling his food as fast as he can and looking for a place to expand his burgeoning birria empire. When Krakatoa ceased operations in 2022, he knew it was the right place to develop while maintaining close ties with the Golden Hill community.

The new spot will have the same favorites, plus a few more. Vasquez says he will be adding menudo and more proteins to the menu, like beef and chicken, as well as beer and more seating options. “I will have a little more space to create more things with birria,” he promises. Once open, daily hours will run from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. (the original location at 1015 25th Street is still open.)

But Vasquez looks even further ahead. “I want to go further north to open more birria places,” he says. But in the future I want to open a breakfast restaurant. That is my dream after I open a few more birria restaurants.”

Breakfast? I wonder. Why?

“I like breakfast,” he says, laughing. If you eat a good breakfast in the morning, the rest of the day will be good.”

San Diego Restaurant News and Dining Events

Golden Coast Mead joins Cardiff Farmers Market

It wasn’t until 2016 that California alcohol producers with Type 84 permits were allowed to “offer instructional tastings to consumers” at farmers markets under Assembly Bill 774. Golden Coast Mead immediately seized the opportunity and flocked to the markets in Otay Ranch, North Park, Vista, Poway and Hillcrest. Now they have added Cardiff Farmers Market to their rotation every Saturday from 10am to 2pm at the MiraCosta San Elijo Campus at 3333 Manchester Avenue.

“We can offer customers three one-ounce educational tasters and sell bottles to-go of our organic, honey-based, regenerative, Southern California-style, refreshing, sometimes tart, enlivening, all-natural, with no preservatives or artificial ingredient added mead ” says Frank Golbeck, founder of Golden Coast. Mead is much more complex than the reputation of ‘just honey wine’, he adds. “The bees must visit more than two million flowers to make one pound of honey, (and) our bottles contain half a pound of honey each. That means there are more than a million flower visits in each bottle. If there are one hundred sips in a bottle, that is 10,000 flower visits in one sip,” he explains. “Pretty inspiring, beautiful things if you ask me.”

Beth’s bites

Goodbye Starbucks, hello Amoré Caffe! At the corner of Robinson and Fifth Avenue on Hillcrest’s busy thoroughfare, coffee is still on the menu, but corporate chains are being pushed aside. Amoré, owned by husband and wife, will open sometime in late summer or fall 2024.

(Cue Cookie Monster voice) COOKIES are COMING! Schmackary’s, the New York City-based cookie franchise with ties to Broadway, will open its first location in San Diego sometime this year. We don’t know much, but we know there will be cookies.

On Sunday, April 28, the first Cocktail Championship Block Party kicks off at 1 p.m. with 21 bars in the mix, including Rustic Root, Union Kitchen & Tap, The Deck at Moonshine Flats, Lumi and more. Plan to attend and drink plenty of water – tickets include 21 mini cocktails (Egad!)

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