Back in 2007, San Diego craft beer was not as available, recognized or bankable as it is today. There was just a handful of bars in the entire county offering local beer, U.S. craft brands and imports—Liar’s Club, O’Brien’s Pub and the brand-new Hamilton’s Tavern—none of which were of the trendy, high-concept variety. Then, Neighborhood sprang up in East Village, a young beer-enamored entrepreneur’s bar-and-resto bid to expand the visibility and appreciation of craft beer. Nowadays, it seems a formula for instant success…except it wasn’t. Owner Arsalun Tafazoli watched with dismay as his ahead-of-its-time bastion to what would later become one of San Diego’s most renowned regional exports failed to gain traction. The few people who would trickle in en route to Padres games, would scan a list of IPAs, Belgian ales, imperial stouts and award-winning, hard-to-procure brews, but all they wanted was Bud or Stella. Those patrons would move on to the next dime-a-dozen downtown watering hole. Watching this play out over and over left Tafazoli discouraged but rather than change course, he stuck to his guns, building relationships with local brewers who appreciated his enthusiasm for their underappreciated toiling and putting their ales and lagers on tap.
Years later, when the craft movement gained steam and consumers caught the beer bug, Tafazoli’s stylishly modern, well-stocked Neighborhood was ready to receive and turned heads in a big way. The spot took off and served as the foundation for Consortium Holdings, San Diego’s innovative it restaurant group. CH’s portfolio boasts hot spots like Born and Raised, False Idol, Noble Experiment, Raised by Wolves, Craft and Commerce, Ironside, Underbelly and Polite Provisions. After more than a decade and scads of hospitality venue wins, craft beer remains Tafazoli’s first love, even if he’s not in love with the direction the industry has gone in recent years. He’s not into paint-by-number tap lists, copy-cat portfolios and the ubiquity of hard seltzer. So, when he revamped Neighborhood, he tried to create a spot that would lead to discovery of the glories of bold, interesting craft beer, support of local breweries that are doing things right and spark conversations about his liquid medium of choice. Version 2.0 of the ‘hood debuted last month, prompting a 14-year trip down memory lane with one of the first San Diegans to bet big on beer.
What initially drew you to craft beer?
When I got into beer, it wasn’t part of the conversation in the culinary world. It was all about wine in the New York Times Food Section, and when experts talked about food-pairing, beer was non-existent. I’d go to wine-pairing dinners, and sommeliers would use descriptions like, “a warm autumn day’s walk”. Everybody at the table would nod their heads and go along, but I didn’t get it. Also, wine culture wasn’t that accessible due to my lack of sophistication or refined palate. By-the-glass wines in the $9 to $15 range tasted the same. If I spent $30 on a glass, I could pick up on differences, but I was broke. Meanwhile, I remember upgrading from a $4 pint of Bud Light to $5 pints of Racer 5 or Stone IPA, and for that extra dollar I’d get something monumentally, exponentially better. Also, brewers themselves were approachable. I found I could sit down and have conversations with them where they would describe flavor profiles in a way that was easy for me to understand, absorb and identify with.
What was San Diego’s craft-beer scene like when you first opened Neighborhood?
Back then there were 20 or so breweries and it felt much more counterculture in some respects. It was in the shadows, but also a little bit purer. It really was about this beautiful group of passionate people creating a product and a culture. There was this great DIY scene of people coming together and sharing ideas. The community was so welcoming, whether it was Tomme Arthur from The Lost Abbey or Greg Koch from Stone Brewing or Vince Marsaglia from Pizza Port or Yuseff Cherney and Jack White from Ballast Point Brewing, they were accessible. A lot of those guys ended up being my mentors. Their companies were much smaller and very interconnected; it was this pocket of a subculture that was so dense and had a really powerful momentum. I feel fortunate about being there in that time and place. You would go to Home Brew Mart, and you’d see these people out while picking something up and you’d spend hours there just having these great conversations with industry folks. It was pretty magical in those formative years.
What’s it been like to watch craft-beer’s growth over the years?
It’s crazy to see the industry as a whole now. It felt like it was always going to be this thing that was going to be smaller, tighter. I think that’s why there are parallels to the punk scene. You wouldn’t have expected craft-beer to become mainstream or part of pop culture, and I think breweries have become victims of their success to some extent.
Part of what attracted me at the inception of craft was passionate people with a voice. Brewers and brewery owners took a stance and had an approach. You either got it or you didn’t. What ended up happening, obviously, due to the evils of capitalism, was that the success fueled this growth and then you had to feed the beast. Then it became a race to the bottom. Unfortunately, now you see situations where it seems like the Sales Department is running the show.”
Arsalun Tafazoli, Owner, Neighborhood
The bottom line when you put together a draft list is that the accessible light stuff will sell the most. At Neighborhood, the idea for us was to get people to try bolder, more complex things and explain why those beers had more character and substance, but if bar owners and their staff don’t get behind and push craft, instead letting sales dictate direction, you can end up putting on 20 pilsners and, sure, they’ll sell, but there’s no soul and no character. As breweries have grown, many have had to give in to market demands, but it’s disheartening to see distributor lists filled with Mexican lagers, pilsners and less-challenging, more one-dimensional offerings like hard seltzers.
What inspired you to reimagine Neighborhood?
To be honest, doubling down on craft beer wasn’t a popular sentiment even with my own crew, because data doesn’t support it with this new generation. I was old man yelling into the wind. Craft beer was my personal foray into the hospitality world and I can’t turn my back on that. I am emotional about it in that way, so I thought about how we could create a space and environment that’s a celebration of what we appreciate. Not a better way, but a different way than anything happening in the culture right now. When Neighborhood first opened, it felt like something really special, and as the culture took off, everything started to feel and taste the same. Neighborhood ceased to have its own identity. Every beer spot I went to felt like more of the same. So for us, we wanted to counterbalance, good or bad. We’re not saying what we’re doing is better, but we want to try to add to the overall conversation.
What does the new Neighborhood have to offer?
It’s all about being able to create a design for an environment centered around great beer. We have allocated a portion of the space for retail where you can get a great bottle and pair it with a meal in a refined way like you would with wine. The inventory there is made up of a lot of beers that drink better bottled. With our taps, we have a less-is-more mentality. Most beer spots think an endless tap list is better. Instead, we thought about how to have more interesting, thoughtfully curated tap and bottle lists. We also have a rare-bottle section with some really special stuff as well as a couple bottles of crazy stuff like Blind Pig IPA from back when it was brewed in Temecula that’s been refrigerated since the mid-nineties. We wanted the search for the esoteric to factor in. Seeking out rare beers is fun, like searching for out-of-print singles in the music world, and it’s a part of the craft-beer culture worth celebrating.
Any recommendations for an ideal experience at your place?
Coming in with a friend and checking the retail section, buying a vintage 750-milliliter bottle of Speedway Stout, then spending an evening here enjoying it with a great food experience that pairs with the beer. No matter what, we hope you try something that you otherwise might not have tried. Neighborhood’s a place that will hopefully get people curious and get them interested in craft beer the same way that it did when it was founded. Places like that are a little tougher to find these days.
Neighborhood is located at 777 G Street in downtown’s East Village