Located harborside in San Diego's Mission Beach area, four-year-old Royal Rooster restaurant has announced its impending closure.
Chef Cory Rapp opened his quaint Royal Rooster restaurant at Seaforth Marina at Quivira Basin in summer 2019. The veteran chef previously worked at several California fine dining hotspots, including Spruce restaurant in San Francisco and celebrity chef Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc in Napa. Royal Rooster quickly became an under-the-radar dining destination in San Diego, with hungry patrons lining up to get a taste of the counter service eatery's scratch-made Mexican-style menu of smoked meat tacos & burritos, seafood options and hearty breakfast dishes.
In September 2021, Rapp launched a food truck at Bitter Brothers Brewing Company in Bay Park, offering a far more limited menu of "farm-to-trailer" sandwiches and specials. By spring 2022, both the Royal Rooster food truck ended its run at Bitter Brothers and the original location completely scrapped its popular menu, replacing it with a short list of only a handful of sandwiches and sides, much to customers' dismay. Most of the original menu eventually returned to Royal Rooster and Rapp announced a new seafood restaurant dubbed TheRawBar by Royal Rooster that was set to open on Mission Boulevard in San Diego's Mission Beach.
"To all our friends and followers, we would love to thank you for your love and support during our time here in Mission Bay," read the closure announcement on Royal Rooster's Instagram. "We appreciate every one of you who came to support us and spread the word to help make Royal Rooster something special that San Diego will never forget. This will be our last weekend of service. We know it is short notice, but we hope you can make it out to the restaurant and get some of your favorites before we hit the road. Thank you all again and we can't wait to see you at our next location!"
There is no word on the reason behind the sudden closure. We reached out to Rapp via his social media and he responded: "It is just time for me to leave CA." Based on his response, it leads to the conclusion that The Raw Bar by Royal Rooster is no longer happening.
