Author: Matthew Wood

By Matthew Wood

Calling all soccer fans: The place to be if you want to watch the World Cup in OB is at Niagara and Bacon Streets.

That’s where neighboring spots Bar 1502 (aka the New OB Noodle House) and Raglan Public House will be showing all the games with the best specials in the ‘hood.

“We’re really excited for it,” Bar 1502 owner Steve Yeng said about the World Cup. “We want people to come out and have some fun.”

They will have an array of specials as well as jersey and soccer ball giveaways throughout the tournament, which runs through July 13.

Get select drafts for just $2 each day, as well as $10 glass boots (10 liters). Shots will flow freely, with specials including $3 Jim Beam, $4 Jameson and $5 Makers Mark, as well as $3 shots of Fernet – the official drink of Argentina.

Bar 1502 will also be open for breakfast during the games, …

By Matthew Wood

It’s just after noon on Friday afternoon and Steven Yeng looks nervous.

The man who opened the wildly popular OB Noodle House is standing in the middle of his new creation, Bar 1502, and the place – which opened less than a week before – is half empty during the normal lunch rush.

“I don’t think people know we’re open,” he says.

It’s hard to imagine being able to walk into Noodle House and get a table. At the original location, on Cable Street just north of Voltaire, the wait is almost always an hour-plus can grow to more than two hours.

NEW UPDATES !

By Matthew Wood

OB Restaurant Week is back. This time it’s bringing some hotels along for the ride.

The week kicks off Sunday -April 27 – with four hotels/B&Bs hosting a launch party with samples from the 20 participating restaurants. Then the restaurants take over, offering specials every day from Monday to Sunday.

“We’re excited. We really have enhanced the event since the first year by letting the hotels host the event,” said Liz Greene, Creative director for Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, which is one of the event sponsors.

“It’s like an open house for them to be able to show locals, visitors, everyone who wants to see.”

By Matthew Wood

You might have heard about the new crosswalk that opened next to Ocean Beach Elementary School on Santa Monica Avenue. We’ve certainly talked about it enough.

Now that the crosswalk is finally in place and the street is open again, you would think that all is safe with the school and the only looming threat for the kids are this week’s spelling quiz and forgetting their backpack.

But that’s not the case, as I learned firsthand.

In talking to the two volunteer crossing guards – Wayne Simard and Joseph “Moondoggie” Pina – they said it’s still pretty crazy in the morning rush and that people still don’t always stop for the kids.

UPDATE: A sign on Santa Monica Boulevard says the street will be closed through April 14 between Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Ebers Street. So much for the project getting done by the end of spring break. Good luck to all the parents taking their kids to school this week. It should be interesting.

By Matthew Wood

It’s not all fun and games at Ocean Beach Elementary School during spring break.

Santa Monica Avenue has been closed between Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Ebers Street all week as workers have been frantically trying to finish putting in a much-anticipated crosswalk outside the school.

The project was supposed to be finished before students came back on Monday, but as of Friday morning, there was still a big hole in the street and a construction crew working frantically to get the job done. Rain earlier in the week helped to delay the construction.

By Matthew Wood

Jim Liener knew there was a better way.

Working as a special needs teacher in San Diego, mostly dealing with autistic children, he saw how the public schools system would routinely fail the kids that needed the most attention.

Then he started working with an autistic child who was being home schooled, not able to make it in a normal school environment. He turned the family’s gazebo into a one-room home schoolhouse. An epiphany hit: Why can’t we take this home-school format, which works best for kids with these needs, and make it into an actual school?

“It was kind of like I told myself, ‘Shut up and do something about it,’” Liener said.

By Matthew Wood

If you would have told Gretchen Newsom a year ago that she would be in consideration for the District 2 seat on the City Council, she probably would have sent you home and told you to sleep it off.

After all, it was just this past year that she was elected president of the Ocean Beach Town Council. Now she is officially “campaigning” – for lack of a better word – for the position, holding a signature-gathering meet-&-greet with friends and supporters Thursday night at her home on Santa Cruz Avenue.

“It’s a bit of a whirlwind, but I’m feeling pretty positive,” Newsom said in between introducing herself to supporters on her front stoop and watching her son, Leif, play in the yard.

“I never, ever, ever foresaw this situation happening. It’s a really unique opportunity.”

In case you haven’t been following along, it more or less all started with former Mayor Bob Filner. When Filner stepped down from office in disgrace, his seat was eventually filled by former District 2 Councilman Kevin Faulconer.

By Matthew Wood

For years, Cheswick’s West bartenders Allie Shea and Shelly Hutchison would ring the bell behind the bar whenever one of the local fire trucks would drive by on Newport Avenue to show their love.

Now they do it with a purpose: To raise money for the Fallen Firefighters Foundation (link). That’s because every time one of the trucks drives by, the bar passes around the firefighter’s boot they have perched behind the bar for everyone to donate.

“Every time they drive by, we ring it. People love it,” Hutchison said.

The idea to raise money came about after Shea took part in the San Diego Memorial 911 Stair Climb at the Hilton Bayfront last year. More than 900 people gathered to climb 110 stairs in honor of the firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ocean Beach is digging out of palm fronds up to our ankles after the weekend’s big storm.

The Pier was closed Saturday morning and there’s no time table for reopening it after waves crashed over it throughout the weekend.

Things got a bit dicey during the weekend’s biggest rain and winds, but could have been worse. Most businesses stayed open as usual, despite most places on Newport putting out sandbags.

By Matthew Wood

So this is what a winter storm in SoCal is like. Who knew?

Spending my first winter in San Diego after numerous cold, barren, lifeless years in the Midwest, I was kinda getting the impression that winter was like every other season here: Warm, sunny, pretty much perfect in every way.

Except for, you know, that massive drought we’ve been having. We need this rain, real bad.

As I watched the weather reports this week that are calling for the biggest storm in Southern California in years, I have been rooting for the worst. Maybe we could even get a name out of this one! Rainmeggeden? The Gusting Ghost? Wind-zilla? OK, we’ll work on those.

We have an update on the opening date for OB Warehouse, the new spot on Newport Avenue from the Cohn Restaurant Group.

Apparently Tim Spann’s estimate of “a couple weeks” that we reported was a bit optimistic.

“We don’t have a definitive opening date,” said Kelly Brown, a publicist with the Cohn Group. “It’s going to be in the next couple of months.”

Ding dong, the wicked sign is gone.

You know the one I’m talking about. The Portugalia sign – that garish Ed Hardy-tattoo-esque design (that yes, included a cross) painted two stories tall over the now shuttered club on Newport Avenue – has finally been removed, thanks to Tim Spann and the folks at Cohn Restaurant Group.

Spann, who is in charge of signage and some of the interior design for the new OB Warehouse, aided in taking down the old and now out-dated sign – which lorded over the upstanding exteriors of Newport Avene like an hulking gargoyle. Its reign over the village is finally over, as the new “OB Warehouse” sign went up on Wednesday.

We got a sneak peek inside the new place, …