The World Vegan Travel Podcast
The World Vegan Travel Podcast
Vegan Travel in San Diego | Food, Culture & Coastal Adventures
In today’s episode of The World Vegan Travel Podcast, I’ll be chatting with Danny O’Malley, the founder and CEO of Before the Butcher, a pioneering plant-based meat company based in San Diego. Danny will be sharing the story behind his company, how San Diego has become a hub for vegan innovation and culture, and why this coastal city is such a fantastic destination for vegan travelers. We’ll explore everything from dining gems and the craft beer scene, to outdoor adventures, cultural attractions, and even Comic-Con!
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[00:00:00]
Hello Danny, and welcome to The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Thank you so much.
I am so excited about today and talking about all the wonderful things that you can do down in San Diego.
Yes, that is going to be our topic for today. I'm sure many listeners have either been to San Diego or they would love to go to San Diego. I have been. Just for a short time. It was beautiful. Amazing. But we'll talk more about that in a moment. But in the meantime, Danny, would you mind telling our listeners about what it is that you do in the vegan space?
Oh yeah, I'd love to. I actually have a company that I founded almost eight years ago, called Before the Butcher, and we make plant-based meats in San Diego.
Tell us more about this company. I've heard a little bit about it, but it's not like hugely on my radar, so maybe it's not hugely on our listeners radar either. It looks really interesting.
We make a lot of, by the way, if you wanted to go check it out, it's [00:01:00] beforethebutcher.com. We make meats with plants. That is vegan, that mimics animal-based protein. So we make pepperoni, we make burgers, we make sausages, chorizo, grounds, chicken chunks, beef tips, pulled pork, all kinds of fun things. And most of our products are sold into distribution on the food service side. So you would find it in restaurants, in various restaurants around the country. So we are nationwide. You might not even know that you're eating our products, which you are. And in the grocery stores, we sell what we call industrial as well, to other companies that make vegan products that you find in a grocery store. So if you're eating a pizza that'splant-based and it's got Italian sausage, that probably is ours on top, or a burrito or a bowl or anything of that sort. We service a lot of other operators and manufacturers that make plant-based or vegan foods for retail as well.
Wow. Maybe that explains why it's not [00:02:00] hugely on my radar, the fact that you are like business to business. That makes sense.
Right.
And may I ask which restaurants you work with, if you are able to share. Or which companies do you work with that use your products as ingredients?
Yes.We do private labor for Whole Foods. So if you're going to Whole Foods, you would find our products on their shelves there. That's probably the most predominant. And then various restaurants throughout the country, you would find our products in the US from one coast to the other. Most of them won't mention the name of our product, but they use our products.
That's incredible.
We'll talk about a couple of them in San Diego while we're talking.
Oh, fabulous. Fabulous. Okay, well let's get onto the topic in hand, San Diego. I'm sure many listeners will know where it is. but would you mind like getting people, maybe, who are not US based listeners, a little bit oriented about where San Diego is, like the climate, the geography, just to kind of set the scene for us?
[00:03:00] Sure. So San Diego is located between Los Angeles and Mexico, is the best way to describe it. If you know where Tijuana is and you know where Los Angeles is, it's just north of Tijuana and south of Orange County. You might've heard of Newport Beach or Laguna Beach and in Orange County. So it's south of there, and it's the most incredible Mediterranean style climate in the world, I think. It is just amazing. Temperatures hover throughout the year between the lows, probably in the lower sixties to the mid to upper eighties when it's warm during the summer. If you're near the beach areas, if you're in more innerSan Diego County, it can get up into the hundreds. It can get hot. But the climate is just amazing. The city itself is right on the ocean. Incredible beaches. If you go a little North, there are cliffs, and the water is beautiful. It's going to be a little colder, perhaps, than most other tropical areas because we're on the [00:04:00] Pacific Ocean. So the water is a little bit colder, might get up to low seventies during the summer. So it's refreshing, is the best way to put it.
I love it, and I'm always so interested by cities that are located near borders. How much does the border and its proximity to the border play into the culture of the city, the makeup of the city, that kind of thing?
So, San Diego, as you would expect, is very Latino or Hispanic driven. If you want great Hispanic, Mexican food, you will find it in San Diego. It is incredible, the food down in that area, and it really is a foodie spot and a foodie spot for vegans as well. There are some really great vegan restaurants. By the way, I'm going to do a little plug here for Forbes Magazine because San Diego was listed as the number four most friendly vegan slash vegetarian city in America. So in the top five. Yeah. It's just a great [00:05:00] spot for vegans and vegetarians. But yeah, you can literally, if you're in San Diego, you can cross the border in about 15, 20 minutes and be in Tijuana, which is a lot of fun down there. Tijuana is a lot of fun. I could tell you that much.
Awesome. I have not been there, but it certainly does sound it, from what I've read about Tijuana, for sure. Okay, so I mean, that climate just sounds perfect, and amazing, and incredible. The fact that it's like that most of the year is just absolutely dreamy.
Yeah.
What are the main kinds of things there to do in San Diego? How can visitors spend their time?
Well, there is such an incredible variety of things to do in San Diego. They have one of those old school amusement parks on the water, like you would see maybe on the East Coast. It's called Belmont Park. It's got the rollercoasters and the games, and all that kind of stuff. It's been there for a hundred years.
Wow.
If you [00:06:00] want to dig in and do some really cool, unusual, different things, there's an area just a little bit North of San Diego, the city called La Jolla, and it is one of the most gorgeous places in the world, I believe. There is a cove there that you can go swim with the sharks. Now they're Leopard sharks, so they're friendly. They're not going to hurt you, but you can either take a kayak out there and you can see all the sharks. It's timing, of course, they're not always there, but at the right time. And the tours out there know when to go. You can literally get in the water and feel the shark. These little sharks around your feet scooting around on the sand. It is quite the experience. And while you're in that area, you're going to want to jump on a kayak and go into the seven hidden coves. They're water caves and you can take Kayaks into these water caves, and it is amazing. There are huge cliffs in that area down there. You actually have to walk downstairs to get down to the beach area where you do this. It is a [00:07:00] lot of fun, and you don't have to be a great kayaker. They'll put on life preserves and things like that. It's a fairly calm area unless there's a storm or something like that. And the tour guides are really great in that area.
Oh, I mean, I think a lot of vegans are often looking for the opportunities to see animals in nature. So I'm guessing all of that is quite well managed. Like, there's rules in regards to how you interact with the sharks and the other wild animals, I'm guessing.
Yeah. You are instructed ahead of time what to do and how to do it, and they're very cautious about that. And they watch you, for various different reasons, but they want to make sure that those areas, those are preserved areas that are taken care of.
Oh, that sounds like a great activity.
Let's talk about food. What are the best food opportunities in San Diego? I'm always very interested in specifically learning about amazing food that is really specific to the destination or, you know, maybe Mexico?
I'm going to mix it up a little bit from [00:08:00] Northern San Diego down to Southern San Diego. in Northern San Diego there's a city called Oceanside, and it's becoming a bit of a vegan food mecca. But there's one restaurant, the one vegan restaurant that is just off the hook to me, and it's called The Plot. Every time I'm driving past,I either stop by and get something to eat or I think about it because you don't always have time to do that. But The Plot is an interesting mixture. They have some really cool foods that are ethnic type foods, that are specific to that area; Hispanic and Mexican foods. They also have sushi and a variety of different things, but what's really cool about The Plot is, they actually have a little plot of land there where they grow their own vegetables and herbs, and they bring it in fresh every single day. So that's very California chic.
Very farm to table.
Exactly. Farm to table. And so that is by far my favorite vegan restaurant in San Diego. It's a little bit north of the city itself, but it's definitely worth the trip, and it's [00:09:00] a cool area. There's other very vegan-friendly restaurants in that area too. As you head down a little bit further South, for breakfast, you can go to, it's a chain that goes from San Diego up to Orange County called Breakfast Republic.
Oh, never heard of it.
Yeah, and I think they have 12 or 15 restaurants, but it's a fun little breakfast place, breakfast slash lunch. They have some really cool, foodie type items on the menu. The one that I love the best is called Jammin' Bennie. I love it for a couple of reasons. One is, it actually has our Italian sausage on it, but it's like an eggs benedict, but
really
unusual style. They have a jalapeno, blackberry jam, Italian sausage. They have vegan egg on it, and it's on a muffin and then they put the béarnaise on top, and it is it is just off the hook. I don't know, it's such an unusual combination of different [00:10:00] types of ingredients that you just don't expect. The flavor burst that you get. It is so delicious. They have quite a few restaurants in the San Diego area, so that's a fun place to go for breakfast. And then, believe it or not, pizza's a very big thing in Southern California. Okay.
I think it's because there's such a mesh of people from all over the world here. So there's all different styles of pizza, whether you want Neapolitan or you want New York style or Chicago style or deep dish. And there's all variety of different pizza places, but there's one in San Diego that I love because they have a separate section just for vegan.
They have one called the Meat Haters Pizza. And this thing is just loaded with plant-based meats, so there's a plant-based pepperoni, plant-based sausage, plant-based beef, plant-based chorizo, all loaded on this pizza. And it is the best crust. It's called North Park Beer Company, and it's kind of in a unique little neighborhood, not too far from [00:11:00] the beach, but it's just a fun little place with all different types of beers and they're all local beers. So that's good too. And then this pizza's off the hook. Whenever I'm in that area, I gotta go over there and gotta have this pizza, the Meat Haters Pizza.
That is such a great name.
I know. It is completely hilarious, but it's really great. It's really great.
You mentioned, before you go onto the next restaurant, you mentioned there's like a craft breweries, or should I say local breweries. Is craft breweries and wines and other kinds of beverages, is that something that's very popular in San Diego? Because where I am, like breweries, and craft breweries, and micro breweries are very de rigueur.
Yeah. Yeah. So craft brewery, about 10 years ago in San Diego, it was the hottest spot in the country to go for new craft breweries. Now they're still there. It's just now, it's all over the country. Everybody's doing it. But that was the hot spot from Northern [00:12:00] San Diego all the way down toSan Diego proper and South San Diego. There are tons. You could spend three days doing a brewery tour, just going from brewery to brewery to brewery.
Okay. Did not know that.
They are all over, and fantastic beers down here. And then on the wine side, if you go a little bit North and a little bit inland, there's an area called Temecula. And It's the, Southern California, Napa Valley. I did
not know that.
It is amazing. It's probably about an hour drive North and a little bit east of San Diego, still part of San Diego County. The wineries and the wine that are produced there. It's really a great little place and a great place to stay. There are so many bed and breakfasts, and little winery hotels, and things like that, that are really unique and fun. And,the tours, again, that's another place you could spend the entire weekend, going from winery to winery. San Diego has almost everything you can imagine down there, and the [00:13:00] climateand the area. It is just a hotspot for just about all these kind of things that are just so fun to go out and do.
I did kind of interrupt you from telling us your favorite vegan restaurants in San Diego, so I want to open it up as well, for you to continue if you have any other recommendations.
I do have some others. So if you're down in San Diego and you just want a quick bite to eat, there is another little chain called, Plant Power Fast Food, and they are known for burgers and fries, basically, but it's all vegan. I always get the Big Zack, which is like a Big Mac from McDonald's, but plant-based, and the food's good. So if you just want to grab and go, you can run by Plant Power Fast Foods. There's a handful of them down in San Diego, and they're all the way up.
In San Diego proper, one of my favorite restaurants to go to for vegan food, and it's not a vegan restaurant, but it's called Civico 1845. It's an Italian restaurant,a high-end Italian restaurant. Not too high-end, but it's [00:14:00] really nice, and they have a vegan menu, and it is fantastic. It's in an area called Little Italy. So it's a hotspot area in San Diego. By the way, they have a couple of breweries in that area too. But anytime I'm there, I stop at Civico. They are always changing up the vegan menu. Obviously it's Italian style, so there's always Italian food, but it is fantastic. I'm always amazed at how well they do down there. I'm going to give you one more thing for food.
Yes, please do.
When I'm there, I go into Civico 1845, and I have my Italian meal, but I do not have dessert because I walk across the street and up just a little bit, and there's the ice creamshop called Salt & Straw. They are fairly well known on the West Coast. They have quite a few of these ice cream shops out here, but it's all homemade ice cream. And they always have two or three vegan choices on the menu, and it is not your normal [00:15:00] ice cream. It'll be like strawberry, olive oil, lemon zest, ice, just all these really cool combinations. One of the reasons I look forward to going there is obviously, the ice cream's fantastic, but the other reason is, it's so different and unusual. The flavors that they do, that I get so excited to see what they're going to have. They're always rotating flavors. It's really fun.
I love that. Yes, very often vegans can get the short end of the stick when it comes to ice cream and ice cream flavors. So as an ice cream fan, I really, really appreciate that. Any more recommendations or are those your top ones?
Those are my top recommendations to eat.
Fabulous. So a question that I have about San Diego is,are there any kind of museums or other attractions within the city that would be interesting? Whenever I travel to a place, I love to learn a little bit about the city and how it came to be that way. Are there any like city museums, [00:16:00] whether about San Diego or about another topic that listeners might like to check out?
So there's a really cool area called Old Town San Diego.
Oh.
Old Town San Diego is basically a street in an area that has been preserved for 150 years maybe.
And they have old churches and things like that. Remember, the area in San Diego was influenced very heavily by the Mexicans because that used to be part of Mexico hundreds of years ago, before the United States actually purchased it from them. There's an area called Old Town San Diego that you want to check out. They have the shops with the Mexican garb and the pots and all that kind of stuff. A lot of that history is there. So they havean old church there, and a museum type area where they will educate you on the history of San Diego, and how it got started, and what was going on during the periodwhen there were transitions and things like that. So it's, and of course, very good Mexican restaurants right there [00:17:00] too. So it's an area of bars, restaurants, church, historical buildings, and it's all walking. You literally can get there on a little tram from San Diego itself. It's probably a 10 minute tram ride up. And there's great transportation systems in San Diego, which most California cities don't have.
San Diego does,
where you can jump on a tram or a little train and get somewhere very quickly down in San Diego. Old Town San Diego is where you want to go and check out the history. It's really fun. And then not too far from there is an area, I call it 'museum row.' There's a name for it, and I'm going blank on it, but there are a dozen museums all in one area where you can just about walk from one museum to various different museums, all in this one area, which is really fun too. And there's a lot of history there too.
Oh, I love it. I love it. Are there any festivals in the San Diego that people might like to time their visit for or maybe time their visit to avoid? For example, if there was [00:18:00] Formula One in San Diego, I probably wouldn't want to go there that weekend.
Well, there were a bunch of San Diego festivals. There's one called, Taco Fest, which is really cool and fun. Delicious.
Yes. And they have fun there. They bring in the Mexican wrestlers with the masks on, and it's just a real kick. There's good music. They usually do some retro music there. That runs in August, I believe. But actually a couple of Taco Fest type festivals down there. There's none of the big festivals that I can think of down there, like Coachella, which is the big music festival in the desert, or some big ones like up in LA. There is in San Diego at the Convention center, which is right on the water as well, is Comic-Con, which is a big comic festival, the biggest one in the world, which started in San Diego. That's a massive event that happens every year. I believe it's in the spring, and if you're not going there for that, you might want to stay away from San Diego for that weekend because it is [00:19:00] crazy down there. Absolutely crazy.
I can imagine.
But it's all the big Marvel movies and the DC movies where they bring the big movie stars in and things like that. It's a big event.
Oh, for people who were into that, I'm sure that is like the highlight of the year.
Yeah. don't know if it's the biggest convention they have down there, but it's definitely one of the biggest, and maybe if you're not into that, maybe the weekend, you don't want to go there.
Right. Okay. So definitely Google those times if it's not your thing.
Yeah.
Do you have any specific recommendations about which areas are really good to stay in or maybe a favorite hotel? you don't live there now, so I'm sure you have to go and stay there, maybe, overnight?
Yeah. I have a couple of hotels that I think, just fantastic, and one of them is Hotel del Coronado. Now there's an island just right off the mainland called Coronado Island. And half that island is a naval base, and the other half is, you know, [00:20:00] people's homes. Hotel del Coronado is probably a hundred and twenty five, hundred and thirty years old, and they just spent the last five, six years remodeling this hotel. It is amazing. And for a beach, Coronado Beach is one of the best beaches in San Diego. This is a beautiful hotel, walking distance to everything on the island. If you want to get to the mainland, there's a little ferry boat that takes you across to the mainland. It is such a beautiful hotel and such an amazing experience, and a great beach, all of that right there, in San Diego. Another hotel that just opened in San Diego, it's a little bit south of that, in South San Diego, called the Gaylord PacificResort. Gaylord Resorts are known as these massive, big properties. You don't have to leave the resort, right? So you go there, they have seven, eight, sometimes 10 eating facilities that are all top-notch. They have entertainment there. They havebig pools and things for the kids, and everything.
I've been to Gaylord [00:21:00] Hotels in other parts of the country, and they are just fabulous. They are incredible hotels. So if you want to go somewhere, bring the kids along, that is a great place to go. And then one last one is the lodge in Torrey Pines. So I was talking about La Jolla, which is Northern San Diego, a little bit earlier. Torrey Pines is right on the campus of UC, San Diego. It's amazing area where it overlooks the ocean. And when they say pines, there's pine trees that have this kind of wind swept look. And it is just a unique hotel because it's a boutique hotel, but it's a good size, and it's got what we call a craftsman style, which is this kind of unique style from over a hundred years ago in California. The ocean views. You can walk into Torrey Pines National Park and take a hike,and everything is so beautiful and natural. You probably don't want to leave when you go there. That is probably my [00:22:00] favorite place, is Torrey Pines,or the lodge at Torrey Pines. Just a beautiful hotel.
I want to talk to you about things to do outside of San Diego. But before I do that, I'd love to know what are the opportunitys for nightlife, like live music and clubbing if people are interested in that, and just, you know, doing concerts and theater for people that are interested in these cultural aspects?
San Diego actually has a theater district. We're in Southern California, from LA down to San Diego, is not far. So there is a theater district that has theater there, and some really cool little theaters down there as well. Small theaters with small programs as well, which is really fun. Nightlife, you would go to downtown San Diego. There's an area called the Gas Lamp District in downtown. These lamps, some of them still are being fueled by gas. The old school gas lamp, and that's why they call it the Gas Lamp District. There's a bunch of hotels down there that have [00:23:00] rooftop bars, and
Oh, fun.
I guess, you'd call it disco or something like that. So dancing. So there's some really cool places down there on well-known hotels like Marriott and Hilton will have them up on the top level, and the weather's always great. So some of these are actually outdoors as well. So you know, there'll be an indoor, outdoor aspect to some of these. There is a true nightlife down in San Diego if you're looking for that. I would go to the Gas Lamp District and just walk the streets, and they'll be grabbing you and pulling you in to have some fun. There's a lot of fun down there in that area for nightlife.
Fabulous. And I'm curious about what are the to do outside of San Diego, you know, for day trips. What are some really lovely opportunities for those that want to leave the city, for people who maybe, are spending a longer amount of time in San Diego?
Well, what I mentioned was the Torrey Pines State National Reserve. So that's North, that's outside of the city in Northern San [00:24:00] Diego. If you want to go hiking and just spend time with nature, with a nice ocean breeze, that is the place to go. It is an absolutely gorgeous part to go to. San Diego is basically two hours from the ocean to the mountains. So you can get up into the mountains, and there are some areas with a mountain that kind of separates San Diego County and the desert areas where you can go up into the mountains during the right time of the year, which would be late fall, winter and early spring. It's cold up there, and they actually get snow up in the mountains up there.
No way!
Yeah. And if you
So surprising.
go a little bit further North, if you really want to take a little jaunt,you can get up to an area called Big Bear, which they have skiing. It's probably a two and a half hour drive from the beach, to get up there. You could go swimming in the ocean, and then drive up and go skiing on the snow the same day, if you wanted to.
Wow. I am [00:25:00] shook. Absolutely shook about that. That's incredible.
Cool.
San Diego has beautiful beaches. I remember that from my visit there and you know, I know so many people love to go and spend a lot of time on the beach. What would you say are your favorite beach is in San Diego?
I'm not a big swimmer. I've surfed, but I'm not a surfer. So my favorite beach is Coronado Beach.
It is just a beautiful, calm beach. Not heavily influxed by the people coming to that beach. And the sand is beautiful. The water is nice. It's about as warm as it gets, down in San Diego, and I just love it. There are tons of beaches, obviously up and down the coast because San Diego is on the coast. If you want to go surfing, there's great surf beaches. If you want to go exploring, there's great beaches to explore. Like I said earlier, the caves, there's beaches near the Seven Caves, in La Jolla. And then a Pacific Beach, which is near [00:26:00] that amusement park. That's one of those beaches where everybody goes. So there's, if you want to be with the crowds of people and you enjoy that, not really my thing, but if you enjoy that, Pacific Beach is a great place to go.
Fabulous.
Danny, I want to thank you so much for taking time to be at The World Vegan Travel Podcast. It really was so eye-opening to talk about San Diego. I will say, I feel like I hardly scratched the surface of San Diego during my visit there, many years ago, now. I can't wait to go back. Before we say goodbye, may I ask you to kindly, share again your social media handles and how people might follow what it is that you're doing with work. You never know. Maybe we've got a restaurant owner that's listening to the podcast, that might like to stalk your vegan meats.
Yes. Yeah. So again, you can go to beforethebutcher.com or just @ before the butcher for any social media, and you'll learn more about us and what we do. It's a lot of fun.
Fabulous. [00:27:00] Thank you so much, Danny. It was lovely to chat with you about this fabulous topic.
I had a great time because I love it down there, and you will too if you go check it out. San Diego is an amazing, amazing place to go visit.
Thank you.