San Diego restaurant openings: Sky Deck, Samburgers and Luna Grill

From Carmel Valley to Santee to Little Italy, these three eateries are ready to serve the community

Jan. 22, 2021 1 PM PT

San Diegans, get ready to eat ... here is the latest news on regional restaurant openings.

Samburgers, the ghost kitchen concept launched this past fall by Sam “The Cooking Guy” Zien and Grain & Grit Collective, will soon open its first brick-and-mortar location inside Grain & Grit’s Little Italy Food Hall at 550 W. Date St. Samburgers will take over the station now occupied by Zien’s Not Not Tacos, which is moving to the station formerly occupied by now-closed Semola Artistan Pasta. Visit littleitalyfoodhall.com.

San Diego-based Luna Grill Mediterranean Kitchen will open a new location on Feb. 8 at 9828 Mission Gorge Road in Santee. Visit lunagrill.com.

Sky Deck, the long-in-the-works gourmet dining hall planned for the second floor of the Del Mar Highlands Town Center in Carmel Valley, has postponed its opening again, due to the pandemic. The hall is now scheduled to open May 5, barring public health orders. Visit delmarhighlandstowncenter.com.

Pam Kragen writes about restaurants for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Email her at pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com.

Restaurants Eat | Drink

Pam Kragen

Pam Kragen is the arts and entertainment editor, as well as the chief theater, dining and opera critic, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She joined the Union-Tribune staff in October 2012 after 27 years at the North County Times, where she served as the Arts & Features Editor, as well as the paper’s longtime arts writer and theater and opera critic. She is the co-founder of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from San Diego State University and completed fellowships in theater criticism at the University of Southern California and opera-classical music criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And in 2022, she was chosen as one of the fellows in the prestigious National Critics Institute, run by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterf, Conn.