On the day chef/owner Drew Deckman opened the doors of his highly anticipated North Park restaurant in August 2024, he was fully booked for 10 weeks out, with more than 3,000 tables reserved.
Those were heady times for Deckman, an internationally acclaimed chef with three successful restaurants in Baja California’s Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico, including the Michelin-starred shellfish and wine bar Conchas de Piedra.
But as a Georgia-born American chef and devoted San Diego Padres fan, Deckman was eager to expand the 14-year-old restaurant business he co-owns with his wife, Paulina, north of the border.
Eighteen months ago, they unveiled 31THIRTYONE by Deckmans, a three-story, 4,200-square-foot restaurant with a 50-seat dining room, 10-seat chef’s counter, 10-seat private dining room and 32-seat rooftop cocktail bar at 3131 University Ave., San Diego.
Michelin-starred culinary star Drew Deckman opens the doors of his North Park restaurant
The restaurant’s opening menu — combining seafood, land proteins and produce from Northern Baja and California — was a three-course, $125 prix-fixe menu with amuse bouche and dessert.
Things went great. Until they didn’t.
Deckman now admits his plans were too ambitious. He rushed the opening process, didn’t do his due diligence surveying the local dining landscape, was too focused in the kitchen to keep an eye on the diner experience and he pushed himself and his staff too hard.
“It worked for about 10 minutes. And when it was working, it was great. The food was really good. But the style and intensity wasn’t conducive to a positive atmosphere,” he said. “You have to go down to go up. It really helped me to understand what and where we needed to go and what we needed to be by suffering.”
The front entrance of Deckman’s North restaurant in North Park. Chef-owner Drew Deckman introduced weekday lunch service this week. (Salsa Digital)
Now Deckman is starting over at the newly renamed Deckman’s North, and he’s hoping San Diego diners will give him a second chance.
“In the last 18 months I’ve learned a lot about me,” he said, describing his personal journey toward the happier and humbler man he calls “Drew 2.0.”
“It’s about me being able to understand what’s important. My wife Paulina would say ‘he didn’t know what his priorities were and it affected everything in his life.’ Now my family life is better.”
A selection of dishes at Drew Deckman’s Deckman’s North restaurant in San Diego’s North Park. (Salsa Digital)
A fresh start
Since last summer, Deckman has been gradually and quietly reinventing the restaurant.
He has replaced the prix-fixe menu with a la carte options that are more affordable, but just as creative, and they’re still prepared with sustainably sourced ingredients from local farms, fishermen and purveyors in Northern Baja, California and the Western U.S.
He has expanded dinner service from five nights a week to seven. And on Feb. 9, he introduced a three-course, $49 business lunch service from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.
He is also preparing to phase out his labor-intensive, $190 seven-course chef’s counter menu, which is now offered for just one seating on Friday and Saturday nights. It will be replaced soon with the Fire Table at Deckman’s North, a five-course menu priced around $140 that will focus on dishes all “touched by fire.” It will be offered seven days a week, with two-hour reservation slots beginning at 5 p.m. nightly.
A housemade pasta dish at chef Drew Deckman’s Deckman’s North restaurant in San Diego’s North Park. (Salsa Digital)
The restaurant’s dining room has also undergone a glow-up.
Deckman designed the original, rugged black-and-white interior, which he described as a “clandestine superhero lair.” But the rustic look didn’t match the food or concept. So Paulina stepped in and redecorated with elegant new lighting, colorful artwork, plants and flowers and an overall warmer and more inviting feel.
But the biggest change in the dining room is the permanent presence of Deckman himself. At the end of October, he decided to step out of the kitchen during dinner service so he could both inspect every plate coming through the pass and interact with diners at each table to see and hear their responses to the changes. It was an unorthodox choice for a chef of Deckman’s background, but he said it has made all the difference in the world.
Pickled mussel tostada at Deckman’s North restaurant in San Diego’s North Park. (Salsa Digital)
“That move for me has been an absolute game changer,” he said. “One of the revelations I had is if I’m going to have any kind of growth, and my people are going to grow, I have to get out of the kitchen.”
Before October, Deckman said he had his eyes on only 25 percent of his business because he was so focused on plating up dishes in the kitchen. He still spends each afternoon in the kitchen prepping food for service with his cooks. But at 5 p.m. each day, he moves to the expo station in the dining room, where he can check every finished dish before it heads to diners’ tables.
The Carter Country Regenerative Beef cheeseburger with seaweed aioli and beef tallow fries at Deckman’s North restaurant in North Park. (Salsa Digital)
“I have more control of my kitchen by not being in the kitchen because I see and touch every plate that goes out. I can correct things on the fly. I can send food back,” he said. “There’s no resistance between the front of house and the back of house. Being now on both sides of it, I can see it has really brought the team together as one.”
But Deckman isn’t just checking plates. He has also become a waiter and a busser, delivering dishes and clearing plates. He enjoys the opportunity to visit tables to check on guests’ meals and answer questions about the food, farms, ranchers, fishermen and purveyors he works with.
“People recognize me and ask ‘why are you cleaning my table?’ But I know how to do that too,” he said. “It’s cool. And nobody can talk about the food better than me. Now I get to see hands-on how we make service better and improve this part. I’m enjoying it. I really am.”
‘Welcome to our house’
When diners sit down at Deckman’s North, the first thing they’ll experience is a complimentary amuse-bouche, a one-bite dish that fine-dining restaurants always offer guests to get the meal off to a tasty and surprising start. Deckman said it’s a tradition he has always practiced at his Baja restaurants.
“If a Mexican restaurant can give you an unlimited bowl of chips and salsa, we can give you a nice little taste that says ‘welcome to our house, enjoy your evening.’ It’s an offering a friendship. It’s just something I can’t imagine operating without,” he said.
The current menu at Deckman’s North features some dishes that diners will recognize from his and Paulina’s Valle de Guadalupe restaurants, including a pickled mussel tostada with chicharrón from Conchas de Piedra and a tongue and clams dish from Deckman’s En El Mogor, their flagship outdoor farm-based restaurant.
There are also house-made pastas and risotto, a local beet salad with fermented cream and fennel, naturally leavened sourdough bread from Black Hat Bakery in San Marcos, a guinea fowl with polenta made with corn from Jack Ford’s Taj Farms in Pauma Valley, and a hanger steak served with mushrooms from El Cajon’s Mindful Farms.
But the most unexpected item on Deckman’s new menu is his Carter Country Ranch Cheeseburger, served with seaweed aioli and caramelized onions on a Black Hat Bakery bun with a side of thick-cut beef tallow fries.
Deckman serves on the board of the Eversoil Coalition, which certifies ranches that raise livestock on regenerative rangeland, like Carter Country Meats in Ten Sleep, Wyo. Deckman is a longtime champion of sustainability, with two Michelin green stars for his eco-friendly, sustainable practices at Deckman’s En El Mogor and Conchas de Piedra.
“The only way the regenrative project works is me celebrating it. Everyone has to buy into it and understand it,” he said. “It’s got to be something I can stand behind and lean into the wind and say ‘it’s a burger and it’s awesome.’”
Deckman said the menu will change seasonally and it will evolve as he continues to learn from diners about what is working and what is not. The experience of having to start over with the North Park restaurant has been humbling, he admits, but he said he’s open to the challenge and excited for the future.
“We’re not on the other side yet, but having some real stress and real struggles in the business created some virtual mirrors for me that allowed me to look at what we’re doing, who we are, what’s important, what do we really want to communicate and share at the table and how do I feel at the end of the day.
“I don’t look at it as I’m just ‘leaning into me,’” he said. “People are accustomed to needing flash and that Instagram moment and I’m still learning what that is and what it feels like. In the meantime, we’re going to keep cooking great food, so come see us.”
Deckman’s North
Hours: Lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays. Dinner service, 5-9 p.m. daily
Where: 3131 University Ave., San Diego
Phone: 619-735-3761
Online: the3131.com