The building at 223 N. Coast Highway is city-owned and historic. It sits next to the Sunshine Brooks Theater, where Coast Highway meets Pier View Way. Since spring it has had three tenants. A bakery spent 15 years there. A café lasted a few months. Now an Oceanside barbecue name that dates back to 2008 is getting ready to move in.
Two blocks inland, at 326 N. Horne St., a former brewery building sat empty for 16 months before a San Marcos burger shop opened there in late August. Both addresses have the same draw: a working kitchen big enough to cook more than the operator can at its first location. That kitchen has also been the hardest part for the tenants who came before.
One Address, Three Tenants Since March
Here is the order of events at the corner beside the Brooks:
- Petite Madeline Bakery had been around since 2006 and moved into the corner in 2011. It stayed for 15 years, until owner Christine Loyola, who ran it with her daughter Rachel, decided to sell and retire. The bakery's last day was March 15, 2026.
- Kettle on Coast came next. It was the third location for Givino Rossini, who also runs Kettle On Grand in Escondido and Kettle On Main in Fallbrook. Rossini said he spent a year getting to know Loyola, and she picked him over several other offers. A soft opening was planned for early April, and The Coast News reported in mid-June that the café had been open "a few months."
- Felix's BBQ With Soul is next. By early October, Kettle on Coast had announced on Instagram that it was closing for good. It said the restaurant hadn't drawn enough early support to keep going. Felix's had already found the space and filed a liquor license application.
What Drew Kettle On to Coast Highway
San Diego Magazine reported in March that the corner space "comes with a full kitchen," which Rossini's first two shops didn't have. That kitchen shaped the whole plan. Rossini described the Oceanside location this way:
"This is going to lean a lot more restaurant than fast-casual coffee shop."
He hired chef David Lay, who had been chef de cuisine at Kettner Exchange and chef de partie at Juniper & Ivy. Lay wrote a menu "rooted in African diasporic flavors and traditions." Dishes included miso cheddar grits with berbere and Aleppo fried chicken with chermoula and preserved lemon relish. None of that works on a coffee-bar setup. The full kitchen is why a Fallbrook and Escondido coffee operator wanted this corner.
Rossini also said he tailors each location to "what we feel is missing or what's needed in that community." Escondido got skate competitions, and Fallbrook got poetry readings. In March, he said Oceanside's version was "yet to be written." The location closed before that part took shape.
The Horne Street Building Shows Both Sides of a Kitchen
The building at 326 N. Horne St. adds context to what happened at the corner. Northern Pine Brewing's last day there was April 15, 2025. The owners told San Diego Beer News they had been unexpectedly told to leave, which disrupted their talks to sell the kitchen. They said their food concept, The Lodge, wasn't sustainable, and they named kitchen-related costs as the main financial strain.
The same kitchen is what pulled in the next tenant. Copper Kings Burgers opened its second location there on Aug. 25, 2026. Irishman Dermot Owens and American Jonathan Petr founded it in San Marcos in 2020. They started it as a burger pop-up after the pandemic cost them their bar jobs. According to the Union-Tribune, the Oceanside location serves the full scratch-made menu from San Marcos plus four dishes the bigger kitchen makes possible: Guinness stew, spice bag chicken thighs, fish 'n' chips and a summer pasta.
That pattern now holds at both downtown buildings. An operator with a following elsewhere in North County takes the space and uses the kitchen to add dishes its original location can't make. Kettle on Coast did it with Lay's menu, and Copper Kings did it with an Irish pub list. At Horne Street, the kitchen was the strain for Northern Pine and the draw for Copper Kings.
Felix's Comes Back to Where It Started
Felix Berry, who was born in Alabama, opened the first Felix's BBQ With Soul in Oceanside in 2008. The menu covers slow-cooked brisket and barbecue styles from across the South and Midwest, and the business later added locations in Carlsbad and San Marcos. Berry named the restaurant in memory of a friend, Ruth, who had dreamed of opening a larger Southern food restaurant. What Now framed the Coast Highway move as bringing the concept "back to the city where that journey first began."
The previous Oceanside location at 3613 Ocean Ranch Blvd. closed in August. The two news accounts give different reasons. The Union-Tribune pointed to a pending rent increase, and What Now said the lease ended. Either way, the move takes Felix's from an Ocean Ranch Boulevard business park to the corner next to the theater.
According to What Now, the new menu includes baby back ribs, brisket, pulled pork, fried chicken, catfish, jambalaya, gumbo, oxtails and shrimp and grits. Sandwiches include Jimmy Lee's Pulled Pork, a Catfish Po'Boy and a Shrimp Po'Boy, with sides like collard greens, red beans and rice, mac and cheese and cornbread. Smoked meats, fried catfish and gumbo all need the kind of full kitchen that drew Kettle On to the space.
There is no opening date yet. As of Oct. 2, Berry told What Now the restaurant was in the final stages before opening and waiting on its last inspections. He hopes to hold a soft opening and a grand opening in October 2026. The Union-Tribune's September roundup prints the address as 2223 N. Coast Highway. Both What Now and The Coast News list it as 223 N. Coast Highway.
The Other Downtown Arrivals This Year
Downtown's other 2026 openings also came from operators with a track record elsewhere:
- Bier Garden opened its Oceanside location at 201 N. Cleveland St. on March 16.
- An's Gate D5 opened in July inside the restored Top Gun House at 250 N. Pacific St. It's an airport-terminal-themed gelato shop from An's, which USA Today has twice named the nation's best ice cream shop.
The Block's Fall Calendar
The schedule around the corner is already set, and it gives a sense of the nights a new tenant at 223 N. Coast Highway would open into. Everything below falls within a few blocks of Coast Highway and Pier View Way:
- Thursdays, 5 to 9 p.m.: The Sunset Market runs year-round on Pier View Way, west of Freeman and across Coast Highway, covering five city blocks. Weather or holidays can occasionally cancel it.
- Oct. 7, 6 to 8:30 p.m.: The Civic Center Library at 330 N. Coast Highway screens Forbidden Planet in its Beyond the Badlands movie series.
- Oct. 10, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.: The first Oceanside ʻUkulele Festival takes over the Civic Center Library Plaza, Courtyard and Community Rooms.
- Oct. 16 through Nov. 1: Oceanside Theatre Company stages Carrie the Musical at the Sunshine Brooks Theater, 217 N. Coast Highway, right next door to the Felix's space.
- Oct. 23, 5 to 10 p.m.: The Haunted Highway Block Party at Sound By the Sea, 325 S. Coast Highway, features local art, vendors and live music.
- Oct. 24, 7 to 11 p.m.: Art After Dark at the Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way.
- Oct. 25, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: The 25th annual Día de los Muertos festival at Civic Center, 300 N. Coast Highway. The city says setup on Oct. 24 and the festival on Oct. 25 will close Pier View Way plus nearby streets and parking areas.
- Oct. 29: The Sunset Market's Haunted Market, per MainStreet Oceanside's schedule.
- Nov. 13 through 22: The OTC Youth Academy performs High School Musical: On Stage! at the Brooks. Friday and Saturday shows start at 7 p.m. and Sunday shows at 2 p.m.
- Nov. 26, Thanksgiving morning: The O'side Turkey Trot 5K starts at 7 and 8 a.m. from 330 N. Coast Highway and finishes at The Strand and Seagaze.
On the museum side, OMA's Changing Terrain: Regional Artists Interpret Our Landscape runs through Jan. 17, 2027. Kaloust Guedel: Where Time Bends Softly opens Oct. 10. If Felix's hits its October target, its first weeks would overlap with the Carrie run next door, the Día de los Muertos street closure on Pier View Way and the Haunted Market.
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