Coming Soon: Eat Play Stay At The Brick In Downtown Oceanside

OCEANSIDE, CA — There are new dining venues coming soon to downtown Oceanside. What makes these new foodie destinations unique is they will all be connected to The Brick Hotel.

In case you've been away from Oceanside for the last few years, The Brick Hotel is the restoration project by the Aldrich family, to transform a historic 1800’s-era building into a boutique hotel. Last week we caught up with Tom Aldrich for a progress update on the hotel as it is nearing completion.

The Brick Hotel Nears Completion In Downtown Oceanside: Photos

This week the Patch reached out to the cohorts in The Brick collaboration to get their take on the upcoming plans. The group of community-minded businesses includes the Q&A Restaurant & Oyster Bar and the CocoCabana rooftop bar, which will both be located within The Brick Hotel. The other local establishments in this alliance will be Frankies, Stone Brewery and the Succulent Cafe, which is returning to Oceanside.

Q&A Restaurant & Oyster Bar, CocoCabana Rooftop Bar

Photo rendering of the Q & A Restaurant and Oyster Bar (courtesy Grind & Prosper Hospitality)

Once complete, The Brick Hotel will be the home of two restaurants from Grind & Prosper Hospitality.

The ground floor will be the home of the Q & A Restaurant and Oyster Bar, an intimate, New Orleans-style restaurant and oyster bar, named after executive chef Quinnton Austin. The top floor will feature CocoCabana, a rooftop Caribbean cocktail bar with a small bites menu.

Photo rendering of the CocoCabana Rooftop Bar (courtesy Grind & Prosper Hospitality)

In this exclusive with Pete Cich of Grind and Prosper we delve into the dining experience plans at The Brick Hotel.

Can you tell us about the vision for the new restaurants and why you chose Oceanside as your next Grind & Prosper Hospitality project?

We saw an opportunity to not only live in such a unique location but also be a part of Oceanside’s rich history with it being such a historical building. After meeting Tom and walking the neighborhood and the hotel space we were immediately inspired to create a fusion of two of our original brands, Miss B’s Coconut Club and Louisiana Purchase, which both lend to the history of their locations.

We felt that The Brick Hotel in design and historical location reminded us of the architectural feel of New Orleans and the rich history of Mission Beach “Miss B’s “.

All of your other locations are standalone restaurants, while this will be your first location inside a hotel. How has the collaboration with The Brick Hotel shaped the decisions for Q & A and Coco Cabana?

All of our projects to date have been concepts created for spaces so this was no different in that aspect. Conceptual engineering is what we love to do. We view the Brick Hotel as one overall concept with the mission to blend the strengths of each area to create a high-impact experience for our guests.

Being located inside a historic building adds some obvious challenges in terms of design and size constraints. How have those challenges shaped the decisions for the restaurants?

In terms of size, it has been challenging to accomplish everything we wanted to do, but in terms of design, we feel the size constraints create a very intimate vibe. We feel that every challenge has led to something unique in design and all this was made possible with our architect and design team at GTC Design, who guided us through each challenge.

This location will be quite different from your other locations, with a smaller restaurant area but will also be servicing Frankie's and the Stone Tasting Room. How will this diversity impact the restaurant's operations?

Yes, it’s definitely one of our smaller dining room floor spaces, but Tom has been so helpful in finding ways to maximize space throughout the Hotel. This thoughtful planning was especially found in the additional food covers Tom was able to set up with the Frankie and Stone collaborations.

We are so very excited to be on this journey with the Brick and have found working with the City of Oceanside to be such an amazing process. Looking forward to being a part of such an up-and-coming beach town.

Frankie's

Mike Baca, GM of Frankie's shares his take on the upcoming collaboration with The Brick Hotel

Frankie's just celebrated its one-year anniversary on New Years. It must have been a real challenge to open up during a pandemic. What was that like?

I became a part of this project just before they opened and it's been super awesome. The owners are David and Emily Rassel who also own the Pour House in South 'O'. They came up with the concept for a more elevated craft cocktail bar, instead of a dive bar like the previous Firewater bar that had a reputation as a more extreme kind of nightlife bar scene.

In the last few years, the direction Oceanside has been going with the new hotels is definitely kind of the final frontier of up-and-coming San Diego beachside cities. So I think we're fortunate to have gotten in when we did. We feel like we're riding the cusp of this new wave of everything that's coming, which has been fantastic. The support from the city itself has been awesome.

We have the old Firewater license, so basically we are cocktails and no food. We actually don't have a kitchen here. We do offer small bites to munch on bread chips, olives, but outside that were mostly cocktails and that's kind of where we shine and that's the focus of our place.

Everybody who works here is from a craft cocktail bar background. Now we're bringing that craft cocktail scene to Oceanside. There's nothing really like that offered around here as far as a dedicated drink menu. We definitely like to have our own twists on things and everything on the menu right now, there's at least one ingredient unique to us that we're making for every drink.

Once the restaurants come in and you're able to offer food do you think that's gonna change your vibe? Is it going to improve it?

For sure! I'm excited. I know everybody in the area has been waiting for The Brick to open. It'll be great offering food and we'll probably end up having a small appetizer menu over here. We're not exactly trying to extend their kitchen seating into our area, but at the same time, we definitely want to work together. I think in the future we'll definitely be doing a lot more collaboration.

I think the Brick opening up those restaurants is really going to help extend people's idea of what downtown Oceanside is. It'll be so much more than just the Sunset Market.

Stone Brewing Tap Room

Store Manager Tony Davis talks about the Brick alliance and Stone's 10-year anniversary in Oceanside.

Tony, so tell us what you're doing here at Stone and about your plans with the Brick?

We've been at the Oceanside location for 10 years and are one of the longest-standing tasting rooms for Stone. Oceanside has changed a lot in the last decade, especially downtown and we feel like we were kind of at the early part of that.

Then just before the pandemic hit, Tom Aldrich, who is behind The Brick Hotel project, talked to us about having a food establishment in there, but during the pandemic, it definitely wasn't in the cards, but we always wanted to connect.

Tom has a vision of this corner of downtown being kind of a cool area with its own vibe and adding to it with the Brick hotel and we're definitely excited about being able to offer food inside the store. We've always allowed people to bring outside food, but this will be a little closer partnership. We'll have our own food menu and having a door into the business is a unique asset. We'll see where that goes beyond just food. There could be other ways that connect for the hotel guests

We are also looking forward to the return of the Succulent Cafe, which will be located between Stone and The Brick Hotel. Peter originally did our succulent wall when Succulent Cafe was still at the Bunker House, so I've known him for a while and he's clearly happy to come back to Oceanside.

So besides the collaboration what else does Stone have going on?

We recently had a beer educational event. One of our beer tenders that knows a ton about beer serves a lineup of beers tasters and they talk about the beers and people get to ask questions and hear stories about Stone's 25-year history.

Our 10th anniversary at this location is coming up in July and we're starting to look at plans for that. We've always celebrated our Oceanside anniversary here with music and special food vendors and definitely rare beers will be served. So that's going to be a big event. Other than that we're bringing back live music and other special events.

Succulent Cafe

Peter Loyola opened Succulent Cafe back in 2013 on N. Cleveland Street in what was then the Bunker House. After relocating to Carlsbad several years ago, he is planning to return to downtown Oceanside in a secluded patio running behind the Brick. The space will also be used for overflow by the Q&A Restaurant and Oyster Bar when the Succulent Cafe is closed.

According to Tom, the Brick openings will likely be in stages with the Hotel opening first and the Restaurants to follow. Stay tuned for more updates from The Brick Hotel as they get closer to the opening in Oceanside.

Related stories:

The Brick Hotel: Inside Look At Rebuilding An Oceanside Original

Sneak Peek: The Brick Hotel, Restoring An Oceanside Original

New Orleans Eats In Oceanside, The Brick Hotel Restaurant Plans

Have a news tip or suggestion on how we can improve Oceanside-Camp Pendleton Patch? Interested in advertising your business in Oceanside? Email any inquiries to me at lisa.frost@patch.com.
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