San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour
Food Network's Troy Johnson and San Diego Magazine's Jackie Bryant and David Martin talk dining out, drinking up and what’s making news on the restaurant scene.
Episodes
June 4, 2024 • 83 mins
He got fired. He sold fruit out of a postal truck. He slept near the citrus. Then he and his family became the backbone of the restaurant culture in San Diego. The wild, never-give-up story of Bob Harrington, his brothers, and Specialty Produce.
Mark as Played
May 23, 2024 • 67 mins
This week’s Happy Half Hour takes place from one of the best perches in all of San Diego: Top of the Market. It’s a fully windowed and partially outdoor restaurant, separate and with a more fine dining or special occasion bent than its counterpart downstairs, the equally beloved and lauded Fish Market. To our front are sprawling views of Coronado and the bay. Directly to the right, the Midway, and to the left, hotels, docks, and th...
Mark as Played
May 15, 2024 • 59 mins
This week we got out-broadcasted on Happy Half Hour, and we couldn’t be more honored to pass the torch, to, as Troy dubbed it, “the best monosyllabic baseball broadcast duo in the major leagues.” The crew went to Petco Park ahead of the start of the Padres/Rockies series to chat with the voices of the franchise, Don Orsillo and Mark Grant (the Friars lost last night, but there’s another game beginning as I type. Go Padres!).
Orsi...
Mark as Played
May 8, 2024 • 73 mins
Did you know one of the country’s most celebrated sommeliers lives and works in San Diego? It’s true! This week, we welcomed Coco Randolph of Black Radish and San Francisco’s Californios to the Happy Half Hour podcast.
Randolph is new-ish to town, having moved here about a year and a half ago from San Francisco, where she helped her family run two Michelin-starred Californios. Her sister is married to its decorated chef, Val Cant...
Mark as Played
Sometimes, it’s the most fun to chop it up with friends. And when your friends include legendary sushi chefs and top DJs, all the better. This week we brought to Happy Half Hour Chris Cantore, a former voice across San Diego’s radio airwaves, and his long-time buddy, North County sushi chef Tyler Mars. Troy goes way back with the duo, having been both a music and food journalist during his career.
The pair just launched Needlefish...
Mark as Played
April 24, 2024 • 93 mins
Jordan Howlett just needs a minute. Give him that, and he’s liable to have you hooked. Thanks to his highly recognizable, signature mirror-selfie videos, Howlett (San Diego Magazine’s cover star for our 2024 Best Restaurants issue) has amassed upwards of 30 million followers across his social channels by sharing fast food hacks and wisdom with deadpan delivery and a genuine love of food. Some 70 million people see his videos every ...
Mark as Played
April 17, 2024 • 67 mins
This week’s Happy Half Hour extra special guest is a longtime friend of San Diego Magazine, Feeding San Diego. If you tune into our channels, this fantastic organization probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. And if you’re lucky, you would have caught Troy emceeing their gala last month (in a sequin jacket, of course).
But for the uninitiated, Feeding San Diego is easily one of the most impressive non-profits in town. We’v...
Mark as Played
April 10, 2024 • 76 mins
Our Happy Half Hour guest today is the local chapter CEO of probably one of the most beloved and recognizable charities in the world: The Make-A-Wish Foundation, San Diego chapter.
We invited Suzanne Husby, who garnered her title in 2021, to talk all things Make-a-Wish at Matsu in Oceanside. Husby has been with the foundation for 17 years, moving up the ranks from intern to wish coordinator, a few more big titles, and finally end...
Mark as Played
April 3, 2024 • 68 mins
“Close my eyes, she's somehow closer now / Softly smile, I know she must be kind / When I look in her eyes / She goes with me to a blossom world”
The lyrics to the iconic Beach Boys song “Good Vibrations,” penned in part by Mike Love, are likely about a woman from long ago. But they could just as easily be about the flavors and sensations from his brand new rum, Club Kokomo Spirits.
We had Love in-house along with his children wh...
Mark as Played
March 26, 2024 • 102 mins
Everyone’s favorite Mission Hills karaoke joint, the Lamplighter, has brought its talents down the hill to the Gaslamp—and so has this podcast. The team, led by fourth-generation bar owner Frankie Sciuto, launched the Gaslamplighter, a new upscale cocktail and karaoke bar, in January. Sciuto joins us on the Happy Half Hour podcast today as we check out the bar’s digs.
Sciuto hopes the Gaslamplighter will become the go-to spot for ...
Mark as Played
March 20, 2024 • 102 mins
If you received this month’s San Diego Magazine, you already know about Warung RieRie. Happy Half Hour host and food critic Troy Johnson dubbed it “the star of the city's thrilling backyard restaurant scene.”
Wait. There’s a thrilling backyard restaurant scene in San Diego?
Indeed, there is, and the individual restaurants are formally dubbed MEHKOs—Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations.
We had Chef Rie Sims and her right hand...
Mark as Played
March 6, 2024 • 66 mins
Stop us if you’ve heard the Happy Half Hour cast claim a particular food item was the “best in San Diego” before (to be fair, San Diego Magazine devotes an entire issue to the topic). If we assign superlatives, we tend to stand behind them, so buckle up for the following: We’ve found the best falafel in San Diego. Hands down, bar none, et cetera.
Falafel Heights takes up a small storefront on 30th, near Lincoln, in North Park. Th...
Mark as Played
February 21, 2024 • 69 mins
To know the illustrious Tony Tee, real name Antonio Ley, is to love him. The Chula Vista-born-and-bred, man-about-town has appeared in popular shows, like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and Vice News, and he even had a brief career as a politico after he got his law degree in Tijuana.
These days, the former party promoter is running a food truck parked in North Park at Fall Brewing. Called Corazon de Torta, it specializes in ...
Mark as Played
February 12, 2024 • 90 mins
I think it’s fair to claim that this week’s Happy Half Hour guest is the most special visitor we’ve ever had on the podcast (which is saying something): Jason Mraz, the two-time Grammy Award–winning singer and songwriter who has gone platinum and multi-platinum in more than 20 countries. His tune “I'm Yours” also surpassed one billion streams on Spotify and was the most-streamed song by a solo artist in the naughts. His eighth albu...
Mark as Played
February 8, 2024 • 92 mins
“It’s not just a spirits company, but a way of life.” That’s what Fierce & Kind’s owners and founders, Cyndi Smith and Basem Harb, say when talking about the ethos behind their company. In addition to peddling high-quality vodka and bourbon, Fierce & Kind donates a whopping 25 percent of net profits to charity. To learn more, we asked them to come on Happy Half Hour.
Smith and Harb, former tech entrepreneurs, stopped by the SDM of...
Mark as Played
January 31, 2024 • 65 mins
In case you haven’t noticed, we just debuted our first-ever issue dedicated to all things South Bay. On February 25, we are also holding our first Taste of South Bay food and drink extravaganza at Novo Brazil Brewing in Imperial Beach. In conjunction with that, we’re also asking various South Bay food folks to come on to the HHH podcast to talk about all things south of the border…of the city of San Diego, that is.
This week, we a...
Mark as Played
January 24, 2024 • 65 mins
Avid HHH listeners will remember a few episodes back, when we announced that Ramen World, celebrity chef Lauren Lawless’ first restaurant, would open somewhere in San Diego. That opening is imminent, and so we decided to have the cooking show star and Pacific Beach native in to tell us what’s up.
Ramen World’s opening is notable for a few reasons, but mostly that it’s the country’s first serve-your-own ramen joint. The model is ot...
Mark as Played
January 16, 2024 • 95 mins
Our HHH guest this week, the legendary Trey Foshee of George’s at the Cove, has been in San Diego’s restaurants for a long time.
Actually, scratch that. He’s been in one kitchen during the entire 27 years he’s lived, cooked, and managed here, and that’s in La Jolla at George’s (and its related establishments). In an age where people hop around faster than you can post about a new job on Instagram, there’s something to be said for ...
Mark as Played
January 5, 2024 • 70 mins
When your boss tells you to do something, you do it. When your boss is Troy Johnson, food critic and Chief Content Officer of San Diego Magazine, texting you: “I just left Tunaville. He’s doing amazing stuff. Get Tommy on the podcast,” well, you get Tommy Gomes on the Happy Half Hour podcast.
Gomes, a commercial fisherman by trade and blood, is no stranger to the airwaves and pages of SDM. He’s been a guest on the pod a few times ...
Mark as Played
December 28, 2023 • 94 mins
According to some of San Diego’s finest food minds (umm, us), one of the hottest restaurants of 2023 is easily Bird Rock’s Paradisaea. The Michelin Guide thinks so, too—it recently gave the restaurant, which opened in late 2022, a special recognition for being pretty damn good (and also new).
A year or so is a good length of time for a restaurant to find its groove. Ideally, the service kinks will have been worked out, the menu wi...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Shootings are not unusual in Belize. Shootings of cops are. When a wealthy woman – part of one of the most powerful families in Belize – is found on a pier late at night, next to a body, it becomes the country’s biggest news story in a generation. New episodes every Monday!
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.