If you thought that Consortium Holdings would slow down after opening its $6.5 million Born & Raised steakhouse in Little Italy late last year, think again. Fresh off of unveiling its Westfield UTC spirits shop and cocktail speakeasy, Raised By Wolves, earlier this week, the hip San Diego hospitality group is rumored to be planning more than a half-dozen concepts to be announced this year, including a breakfast-focused eatery in Little Italy and a rooftop sky bar & restaurant atop a new downtown hotel.
Started by Arsalun Tafazoli with the opening of Neighborhood in 2007, Consortium Holdings now has 13 concepts scattered around San Diego, including cocktail-focused Polite Provisions, classy dive bar El Dorado, neighborhood bar & restaurant Craft & Commerce, two locations of its Japanese fusion restaurant Underbelly, modern barbershop Dover Honing Co., seafood-centric Ironside Fish & Oyster, bi-level steakhouse Born & Raised, and the most recent concept - Raised By Wolves - a cocktail supply store, high-end spirits shop, and speakeasy that unveiled in Westfield UTC earlier this week. Last year, the ballooned budget of Born & Raised forced Consortium Holding's to sell off its Petco Park adjacent dual concepts Rare Form and Fairweather. The company is also working on transitioning the longtime Porter's Pub space on UCSD campus into the third area location of meatball and pie shop Soda & Swine.
Word on the street is that Consortium Holdings has plans to announce 7-9 more concepts this year, including a breakfast-centric restaurant called Morning Glory to open in the space atop the incoming Little Italy Food Hall, opening this summer in Piazza della Famiglia. This will mark five CH concepts sited in San Diego's Little Italy neighborhood. Morning Glory, which was originally planned for the space that now houses Ironside, will be designed by Paul Basile and devoted to the morning meal, making it the first breakfast restaurant for the burgeoning hospitality group. Expect elevated breakfast and brunch dishes and boozy morning cocktails.
Consortium Holdings is also rumored to be opening a rooftop sky bar & outdoor terrace restaurant named The Reading Club on the 19th floor of downtown's under-construction InterContinental San Diego hotel & resort. The Reading Room will have expansive views of San Diego Bay, a bar program from Anthony Schmidt, and a food menu likely to be developed by CH's corporate chef Jason McLeod. Overseeing The Reading Room project will be newly appointed Intercontinental Hotel San Diego Director of Food & Beverage Paul McCabe, a revered area chef who long oversaw Kitchen 1540 at L'Auberge Del Mar as Executive Chef before opening his own restaurant, the now-defunct Delicias in Rancho Sante Fe. Most recently, McCabe was managing the renewed culinary operations at Mission Valley's Town & Country Resort. The InterContinental Hotel will also house a two-story branch of Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, with more food and beverage concepts to be announced as the hotel gets closer to its Fall 2018 opening.
For more information about Consortium Holdings, visit consortiumholdings.com.
