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PODCAST

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour

San Diego Magazine

The weekly guide to San Diego"s food + drink scene, hosted by award-winning food writer and Food Network host Troy Johnson and San Diego Magazine"s culture brain, Jackie Bryant. Field notes and perspectives on restaurants, bars, and chefs—including dishes and drinks you gotta try, restaurant openings and closings, events worth your time, and laugh-cry interviews with chefs, restaurant owners, farmers, brewers, and makers who make San Diego"s food + drink scene hum.

society & culture food

All Episodes

01:07:44

Before Oceanside's Food Boom, There Was the Flying Pig

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/10/05

Fifteen years ago, Oceanside's food scene looked pretty different. Then Flying Pig Pub & Kitchen opened in a not-exactly-prime location in South Oceanside and started serving Southern-influenced food with pork chops, red beans and rice, pork belly, and the kind of cooking that made people wonder why they'd driven past the place so many times. On this week's Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson talks with Flying Pig owners Aaron and Roddy Browning about the restaurant's unlikely beginnings and the

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01:11:39

San Diego's Artists Need More Than Applause

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/09/30

San Diego has beaches, sunshine, biotech, and enough stucco to wallpaper a small country. But what actually gives a city its personality? The artists, musicians, designers, dancers, galleries, theaters, museums, and all the other creative people making things that give a place its identity. That's the question at the center of this special edition of the podcast, recorded as part of San Diego Magazine's September arts and culture issue, created in collaboration with the Art + Design District and San

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01:12:11

SDFC Is Building More Than a Soccer Club

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/09/24

What does a soccer team have to do with San Diego's arts scene? Quite a lot, as it turns out. When San Diego FC launched, the club could have spent its marketing budget on billboards, bus wraps, and digital ads. Instead, it went into neighborhoods, found local artists and creatives, and started building the club's identity with them. Through its Playmakers initiative, artists have designed limited-edition merchandise, had their work featured on the stadium's jumbotron, and found themselves in front

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01:03:15

Golden Door Has Been Making Wellness Food Taste Good...

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/09/17

The wellness world has gotten a lot more complicated since the Golden Door opened its doors in 1958. Today there are powders, potions, trackers, supplements, and approximately 9,000 ways to turn a chia seed into a personality. But the San Marcos retreat, guided by Deborah Szekely's vision, was already taking a whole-body approach—bringing movement, food, and wellness together—long before wellness became an industry. On this week's Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson talks with Golden Door executive

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01:02:06

The Cookbook They Wish They'd Had

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/09/10

If you think a cookbook about pregnancy sounds like a collection of sad smoothies and recipes involving seven different kinds of seeds, Eric Wolfinger and Torie Borrelli Hall have some news for you. Their new book, Eating for Life: A Holistic Cookbook for Pregnancy and a Thriving Family, has carbonara, lasagna, steak, chocolate mousse, and plenty of other delicious food to keep you both satisfied and nourished. This week on Happy Half Hour, Eric—a James Beard Award-winning food photographer and San

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58:55

Brunch, Benedicts, and a Little Tequila

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/09/03

Brunch is a meal that exists because we decided breakfast needed a later start time and a liquor license. This week on Happy Half Hour, hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant are in Oceanside at Toasted Gastrobrunch with chef Alfie Szeprethy and Preston Caffrey of Bebemos Tequila. They talk about the strange and winding history of brunch, from its British origins to its inevitable American evolution into a social event involving eggs, enormous plates of food, and drinking before noon. On the menu:

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01:11:37

The Family Behind Some of San Diego's Best Sushi

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/08/13

If you've been to a big San Diego food event and there's a whole tuna getting broken down in front of a crowd, there's a good chance Jeff Roberto is somewhere nearby. Roberto has been making sushi in San Diego for 38 years, back when there were only seven sushi restaurants in the county. Now, through Sushi on a Roll, he and his nephew Austin have become one of the city's go-to teams for high-end traditional sushi catering—and tuna breakdowns big enough to stop a party in its tracks. On this week's

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55:02

Inside Glass Box's Award-Winning Omakase

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/08/06

Glass Box isn't your typical sushi restaurant. Tucked inside the Sky Deck in Del Mar, chef and owner Ethan Yang serves omakase from inside a literal glass box—a transparent kitchen built around the idea that what you see is what you get. It's a fitting philosophy for a third-generation restaurateur whose food is rooted as much in family as technique. On this week's Happy Half Hour, Yang joins host Troy Johnson to talk about growing up in his family's Rancho Bernardo restaurants, learning to make

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01:10:12

A Steakhouse Worth the Mission Valley Detour

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/07/30

The Remy occupies a building that's been serving San Diegan's steaks for more than 50 years. Longtime locals remember it as Hungry Hunter. Today, it's been reimagined as a modern American steakhouse—one that still nods to its past while carving out a new identity of its own. This week on Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson, Jackie Bryant, and Bebemos co-founder Preston Caffrey head to a western-grit-meets-contemporary steakhouse for Golden Hour with chef José Ruigomez and Beverage Director Ken Fordan

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33:55

MADE: The Story of 4-Skin

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/07/22

There's a new very serious skincare brand for men coming out of San Diego called... 4-Skin? Host Troy Johnson interviews founder Arturo Kassel—one of the city's top restaurateurs (Whisknladle, Catania, Gravity Heights) who watched a friend get fool-level sunburnt, made a joke about what it would take to get men to pay attention to basic skincare—and that's how he ended up launching a high-quality sunscreen and moisturizer with product names like "Morning Rub." Funny? Incredibly serious? Yes

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01:13:48

How One San Diego Bartender Became One of America's Best

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/07/16

Behind every great cocktail is at least one terrible idea. Sometimes it's a French onion soup martini. Sometimes it's setting a drink on fire inside the Casbah. And every once in a while, it's the kind of experiment that lands you on a list of America's best bartenders. This week on Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson sits down with Dominique Muñoz of Polite Provisions, who was recently named one of the country's top up-and-coming bartenders by Punch. She talks about going from mixing sugary daiquiris at

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01:12:52

How Ciccia Osteria Became a Barrio Logan Staple

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/07/09

Sometimes the best restaurant is the one everyone tells you not to open. This week on Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with chef Mario Cassineri, who left Michelin-starred kitchens behind to make handmade pasta in Barrio Logan. Raised in Milan, he trained under Italy's first three-Michelin-star chef before trading fine dining for a burned-out building everyone else overlooked and building Ciccia Osteria from the ground up. Mario talks about why he chose Barrio Logan, why

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01:05:44

From Michelin Kitchens to San Diego's Best Mochi

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/07/06

Fresh fruit, pillowy mochi, and a philosophy rooted in slowing down. This week on Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with Gemma Matsuyama Yamada, the pastry chef behind Kimochi, whose seasonal fruit mochi has quietly become one of San Diego's most sought-after pop-ups. After honing her craft at some of the country's most celebrated restaurants—including Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Michelin-starred n/naka—Gemma traded fine dining for a more personal mission: creating

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01:16:50

North County Finally Has Its Hidden Cocktail Den —...

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/06/25

Encinitas just got its first-ever speakeasy — or rather, its first hidden cocktail den — and the Happy Half Hour crew couldn't even find the front door. In this week's episode, hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant broadcast live from inside Anigma, the stunning new bar tucked behind the legendary Roxy on First Street, joined by Bebemos tequila CEO Preston Caffrey to sip on some of San Diego's best agave and name their favorite hidden gems across the city. Built by the same team behind the Roxy —

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45:22

All the Winners of the San Diego County Fair-tastic...

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/06/16

We tried 18 dishes across savory and sweet categories, these are our favorite dishes Every year, the San Diego County Fair becomes the city's biggest pop-up restaurant with 150+ vendors, a million visitors, and one very serious food fight. In this episode of Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant go behind the scenes of the Fair-tastic Food Competition, now in its fourth year. Troy and Jackie try all 18 dishes across savory and sweet categories before sitting down with the winners. First

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01:08:44

Switchfoot Takes Us to Their Poke Spot

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/06/11

It's Switchfoot Bro-Am week. The epic, annual, San Diego-est thing—one of the best free beach parties in the country that does good for kids who need a community to rally around them. Doesn't just raise money, but makes the kids part of it. For this episode of Happy Half Hour, we asked Switchfoot lead singer Jon Foreman and drummer Chad Butler to take us to one of their favorite local spots—and they manifested poke bowls at Fish 101. Bro-Am is more rare and awe-striking than most people realize

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01:18:55

How Luigi Agostini Built One of San Diego's Favorite...

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/06/04

The chef and owner of Luigi's shares his journey from opening a small bar above Lake Como to lines forming around the block in Golden Hill for his pies. At 23, Luigi Agostini left his hometown of Varese, Italy for America, finding his way to San Francisco in search of adventure and new beginnings. Living with 17 other strangers, he soon began working in restaurant kitchens across the city and eventually found his niche in making pizza. From Los Angeles to Hawaii, and eventually San Diego, he honed

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01:13:02

From Tia's Pozole to Top Chef—Claudette Zepeda Books It

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/05/28

The border is a huge part of why San Diego's food culture took off. The kitchen exchange of chefs and ideas and burning wood and seafood acid parties across San Ysidro built a Mexican-American style that's unlike anywhere else in the US. That bordertown verve is the topic of conversation for the dinner party this week on Happy Half Hour. Hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant welcome back Claudette Zepeda—Imperial Beach–raised, border-crossing kid, plus Top Chef and Iron Chef Mexico alum—to talk

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01:06:17

Why Valentina Is the Most Leucadia Restaurant in...

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/05/21

Leucadia's charm is in no small part because someone planted eucalyptus trees for railroad ties, but that wood turned out to be useless. So they just let those peely giants grow and grow, which is why the Leucadia stretch of PCH is now a majestic leafy canopy into what Troy calls "the mood"—not a city, but a state of mind. Spiritually Spanish, no sidewalks, dirt under your toenails, more than its share of people who may or may not use crystals as financial advisors. Leucadia's pretty grand. Plus,

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48:51

The Wild Tale Behind Relic Bakery's Origin Story

San Diego Magazine"s Happy Half Hour ·

2026/05/14

On this episode of Happy Half Hour, Relic Bakery owners Samantha Bird and Derek Hadden pulled up with a selection of their best fare including Crunchwrap Supreme croissants, paté en croûte, an XO sausage wrapped in laminated dough, and a tahini strawberry cookie. Derek and Samantha share their Midwestern pandemic love story and discuss their culinary training in Copenhagen which includes a bike crash outside of Noma (Chef Rene Redzepi's restaurant) that remains the most expensive night in bakery

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452 results

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