Some of those vendors have previously been announced, including Venissimo Cheese, Le Parfait Paris, Liberty Meat Shop (run by local butcher icon, Tommy Battaglia), Cane Patch Pies, Cecilia’s Taqueria, Fully Loaded Juice, Local Greens, Mastiff Sausage, MooTime Creamery (a Blue Bridge concept), WestBean Coffee Roasters, Wicked Maine Lobster, Pasta Design, Stuffed, Point Loma Tea, Fishbone Kitchen and Parana Empanadas.

Today San Diego Mag breaks news on their newest projects. First, four new vendor concepts: Crafted Baked Goods (from Blue Bridge’s pastry chef Francis Laureano, formerly of Bottega Louie), Mama Made Thai, Bread & Butter (a co-op of the city’s best bakeries) and a produce section featuring San Diego farm goods. Then, four big announcements:

1. Mess Hall. An on-site, sustainably-focused restaurant headed by Blue Bridge exec chef Tim Kolanko (ex-A.R. Valentien). What will the restaurant do? It’ll take the best of what the vendors bring to market that day and create a daily menu. The restaurant will also host pop-ups by local chefs, traveling chefs, culinary education dinners, etc. It’ll also give Kolanko’s talented younger chefs (from Leroy’s, Stake, etc.) a chance to design their own menus for a day.
2. Bottlecraft. The popular San Diego-based craft beer bottle shop will open their third location in the main room leading out to Liberty Market’s large patio. It’ll have a tasting bar with 24 beers on tap and big retail aspect.
3. Grape Smuggler. Stake Chophouse and Bar has one of the country’s top sommeliers in Greg Majors, who formerly worked at Tom Colicchio’s Craft Restaurant and Robert Bohr’s former CRU, to name a couple. Grape Smuggler will have about 300 different wines, pulled from everywhere.
4. A killer liquor license: Liquor licenses are weird. You can often drink in this part of a place, but not that part. The way that Liberty Market is set up, Mess Hall and Bottlecraft will occupy about a third of the space, with the vendors set up in partitioned areas in the “market” part. Thanks to a good liquor license, you’ll be able to grab a beer at Bottleshop or a glass of wine at Grape Smuggler, and then walk throughout the market and shop with your drink. Sounds awesome, and dangerous.

With Stone’s success next door, and San Diego’s top pizza joint Buona Forchetta opening their second location a few hundred feet away, it looks like Liberty Station is finally hitting its stride.

Rendering of the incoming Liberty Public Market, set for a November open (we guess more like December).

The post Incoming: Liberty Public Market appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The third location of Bite of Boston will be going into Pacific Beach on the corner of Emerald Street and Mission Blvd. (caddy-corner from Bare Back Grill, next to Taco Surf). Their business model is kind of a middle finger to the “buy local” movement, since they fly their submarine rolls and breads in from Plantedosi Bakery in Massachusetts, their cold cuts from Philadelphia’s Dietz & Watson and their lobster from Maine. But their lobster rolls will reportedly make your eyes spelunk into the back of your skull from pleasure.

Just when it looked like donuts were edging out the cupcake in the battle for cute-food supremacy… Yummy Cupcakes is coming to Encinitas (1514 Encinitas Blvd.). Yummy isn’t a tagalong in the cupcake herd, though. The L.A.-based chain started in Burbank in 2004 and have been featured in every major media outlet that hasn’t yet gone bankrupt (Bon Apetit, O Magazine, Food Network, etc. ). They do cupcakes in a jar, cupcake truffles, cupcakes on a stick, cupcake pies, cupcake biscotti, cupcake push pops, you name it. Lots of pretty celebrities eat there.

The guys from Bare Back Grill were forced to shutter their Downtown location, pouring more resources into the recently opened Queenstown Public. Into that space at 6^th and E Streets will go Magnolia Tap + Kitchen. The first murmurs I’m getting are throwback speakeasy/cocktail vibe, reportedly from a former GM at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. More soon…

The Bierr Garden has opened in the former Barracuda Grill in Encinitas. According to some, this place looks real sexy.

Wine Vault & Bistro just hired a new chef. They pulled Gregory Chavez from Leroy’s in Coronado. Meanwhile, chef Chris Walsh has reportedly left his post at Heat Kitchen. The spot, which looks great, has struggled to keep someone on the burners.

Lastly, a thought: If you open a small restaurant based on one gourmet food item, shouldn’t you be making at least a small portion of that item in-house? Or “forget you pal I’m just a conduit for the great stuff I can buy”? A newly opened spot might want to look in the mirror and ask that question soon.

Cupcake mania continueth. Cupcakes in a jar from Yummy, coming to Encinitas.

The post SD FOOD NEWS: April 25 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.