{"id":844161,"date":"2026-06-04T16:17:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/844161\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:17:19","slug":"publishers-note-restaurants-are-people-june-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/844161\/","title":{"rendered":"Publisher’s Note: Restaurants Are People, June 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent time in a hot dog stand<\/a> on the edge of San Diego Bay, looking out a window that mattered. Mattered to a kid whose mom taught him to fish<\/a> on this pier. They\u2019d turn on a little transistor radio, find a signal through the static, stare at the water, and talk life and his dad. Dennis Borlek\u2019s dad was out there, somewhere, commanding a naval submarine through god knows what. When his dad would dock in Point Loma<\/a> weeks or months later, Borlek biked down the street along Shelter Island to see him and steal back stolen moments.<\/p>\n

Later, Borlek helped midwife the craft beer scene<\/a>, managing seminal spots like Small Bar and Liar\u2019s Club. Wondering what to do with the rest of his life, he went back to that pier and saw a for-lease sign on the bait and tackle shop. He tore through the public library<\/a> and spent the whole night learning how to write a business plan (he had no clue). A couple days later he found himself at the intimidating end of a massive conference table, pitching his dream to the very official Port of San Diego executives.<\/p>\n

They gave it to the San Diego kid. Not sure if they ever imagined Fathom Bistro<\/a>\u2014the tiniest, mightiest craft beer and hot dog stand, filled with spear guns, ocean monster figures, and seafaring oddities\u2014would still be there 13 years later, let alone be a local\u2019s favorite. It\u2019s the most San Diego place in the world. Borlek taught himself to make kimchi and puts it on his Explodo Dog<\/a>. His friend Kevin, who played with him in a punk band, dresses as a pirate and works the door on weekends. Has done so for years.<\/p>\n

And when Borlek stares out the window, he can see the sub base and the memories of his dad.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Wayfarer Bread<\/p>\n

Later, a few beach towns over, I sat in an employee break area\u2014a shaded back-alley alcove with grape vines that serves as an escape garden for the crew. The place used to be a taco shop<\/a>. Owner Crystal White<\/a> points to a window of a single bedroom behind the dough-mixing part of the kitchen. She lived there when she started, often finding herself on the roof at midnight, staring at a broken compressor, trying to will it into working.<\/p>\n

A blue-collar kid who fell in love with bread, she moved to San Diego with a business plan and zero cash. Banks don\u2019t loan money to bread dreamers. Fate, kismet, and door-knocking found her enough investors. In the weeks leading up to opening that dream\u2014perfect croissants, kouign-amanns, sandwiches<\/a>, pizzas, baguettes fermented with wild La Jolla<\/a> yeasts\u2014she was outside hammering and painting. Locals would pause to ask what she was putting into the spot. \u201cA bakery<\/a>!\u201d she\u2019d reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, we don\u2019t need one of those,\u201d they\u2019d say. Eight years later, White has moved out of the bedroom, and Wayfarer Bread<\/a> is one of the best bakeries in the land. I ask if she\u2019ll ever open another location. \u201cI grew up dirt poor,\u201d she says. \u201cThis has surpassed even my wildest dreams. This is enough. Please make sure you mention Emma Koehler, K-O-E-H-L-E-R, my kitchen manager. She deserves the credit now.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are the people and the stories behind \u201cBest Restaurants.\u201d This issue is dedicated to them, the culture they\u2019ve gritted into being. On the surface, the annual tradition<\/a>\u2014naming a list of \u201cwinners,\u201d my favorite places and my honest answers to \u201cwho has the best taco\/pizza\/Thai\u2026\u201d\u2014is a good-natured competition among friends. But the deeper point is that it\u2019s a way to highlight hundreds of places that have risked it all to build a little magic across the city. Sure, some owners were born in the stars and used that dust to make more stars. But many or most restaurants started with a scrappy go-getter or two. And now those places are filled with dozens or hundreds of people who love the work, show up day in and day out, for years. People like Koehler and the ones we feature in our story, \u201cBehind the Line\u201d.<\/p>\n

So please use this list as a beachhead. Try these places, email me ([email\u00a0protected]<\/a>) to say \u201cthanks\u201d or \u201cyou truly messed up.\u201d Eat, drink, commune, say hello, get to know the stories of the people making your favorite food. Make your own list, and share it with us.<\/p>\n

PARTNER CONTENT<\/p>\n


\n \"Vi
\n Vi at La Jolla Village Brings Good Living to Life
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Inside
\n Inside SeaWorld San Diego\u2019s Mission of Education and Cons…
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

(Note: Fathom didn\u2019t win anything, probably because there\u2019s no category for \u201cBest Hot Dog Craft Beer Stand on a Pier with a Pirate,\u201d which is a shortcoming on our part. So I put him here because he should be a part of any conversation about best San Diego things.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I spent time in a hot dog stand on the edge of San Diego Bay, looking out a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":844162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,56383,8364,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-844161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-editors-note","tag-food-drink","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116692745231418083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}