A long vacant North Park building known best for its iconic New Orleans-style look — and its former tenant, Urban Solace — is vacant no more. On Monday, a Los Angeles-born concept, Bacari, will formally open its doors to the public.
The debut of the Mediterranean-style eatery, which will be the Los Angeles restaurant group’s ninth location and its first in San Diego, arrives nearly seven years after the beloved Urban Solace closed, following a 12-year run.
Bacari North Park will largely mimic the Old World feel and menu of its sister properties, but it will be most notable for filling a long-standing hole in the North Park neighborhood and its dining scene.
The Bacari restaurant group had been scouting San Diego area locations for some time, and co-owner Robert Kronfli was immediately attracted to the two-story North Park space on 30th Street near University Avenue. But when he first came upon it, it wasn’t being marketed for rent. Circumstances changed, though, when a new owner — Arsalun Tafazoli, a prominent San Diego restaurateur himself — wanted to find a new tenant.
The familiar exterior of the former Urban Solace restaurant remains. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
While restoration of the building interior presented some challenges simply because it had sat empty for so long, the Bacari owners were undaunted, Kronfli said.
“Obviously, we did our due diligence before we did this,” said Kronfli, who owns the Bacari restaurants with his brother Danny and executive chef Lior Hillel. “If something is vacant for a while, there will be issues, but not enough for us to walk away. We had to redo a lot of the electrical and plumbing fixtures. The building was in pretty bad shape so we had to bring it up to 2026 standards. We spent two or three months just doing that kind of stuff. The floor plan is the same, but every inch you can see was refinished with new material and a new design.
“The uniqueness fit very well for our band, and we took that risk because we really liked it.”
The investment to reinvent the space was close to $2.5 million, Kronfli said.
Robert Kronfli, left, Lior Hillel, executive chef, center, and Danny Kronfli, right, are the owners of Bacari, which is the first San Diego location for the Los Angeles-based chain. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The concept behind the Los Angeles Bacari restaurants, which began in 2008, was inspired by the wine bars in Venice. The San Diego restaurant, which draws from Old World, European-inspired design for its decor, features two full bars, including one in the upstairs space, which was never accessible to dining patrons. The second-story dining space will also feature a small wrap-around balcony area overlooking 30th Street.
Konfli said that in executing the design, Bacari tries to use reclaimed materials wherever it can, whether it’s the terracotta floors or marble used for the bar countertops. The walls are finished with hand-done plaster, and there are accents of Mexican wall tiles and rustic stonework. The color palette draws from a lot of earthy and rustic tones, said Konfli, adding that he tried to avoid brighter, primary colors.
Outside, a plant-filled covered patio serves as both the restaurant’s entrance and a seating area. In all, the restaurant seats roughly 200 people.
The menu includes Bacari staples like glazed pork belly, five-cheese mac and cheese, lamb hummus, and a selection of pizzas. A popular menu item, said Kronfli, are the Moroccan “cigars” filled with lamb, chicken, roasted nut and garlic honey glaze, and pickled onion.
Among the Bacari signature drinks are house-made sangrias and cocktails like the Bacarita, a combination of tequila, watermelon, jalapeno, basil and lime.
Even as Bacari is making its debut in the city of San Diego, the ownership team is already preparing to begin work on its second San Diego County location, in Carlsbad Village. That restaurant should open later this year. And still another Bacari may be in the county’s future.
“We’re still actively looking around San Diego County, in Encinitas,” Kronfli said. “But I do want to make the point that we are family-owned, very community-driven people. Still in our own mind, we look at ourselves as a mom and pop — there are actual humans behind the business who care about it a lot.”