After less than a year in business, Consortium Holdings hospitality group has closed its Underbelly Ramen location on the University of California San Diego campus.
In fall 2019, San Diego's ever-expanding Consortium Holdings hospitality group (also known as CH Projects) unveiled the $2 million, 14,000 square-foot third location of Soda & Swine on the University of California San Diego campus in the space occupied by Porter's Pub for more than two decades. Since then, CH rebranded the original Soda & Swine concept in Normal Heights to become Fortunate Son Chinese restaurant and shuttered the Liberty Station location after a 5 year run. With the company continually updating their locations, in 2021 they decided to abandon the Soda & Swine brand and reconceptualized the UCSD space to become Uncle Italian, serving a menu centered around Detroit-style pizza and East Coast-style Italian comfort food dishes.
Uncle Italian was short lived, and last year, Consortium Holdings transformed the expansive UCSD campus bar to become the third San Diego location of Underbelly Japanese restaurant. Started on the corner of Kettner & Fir in San Diego's Little Italy in late 2011, Underbelly offers a menu centered around ramen noodle soups, steamed buns, and Japanese-inspired small plates. The restaurant eventually launched an offshoot in North Park in 2014. For the UCSD location, dubbed Izakaya Underbelly, the ambiance was decked out in neon lights with an expanded menu to include Japanese entrees and Katsu sandwiches, as well as a full bar with cocktails, beer, wine, sake and a large variety of Japanese whiskey.
Underbelly's UCSD location closed for the summer and has not reopened since the start of UCSD's 2023 fall session. It has now been revealed that the UCSD restaurant will not be reopening. There is no word on whether Consortium Holdings hospitality group will rebrand the space again or abandon it to a new operator. We reached out to Consortium Holdings Chief Information Officer Brian Eastman for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publishing.
Underbelly UCSD is sited at 105 Eucalyptus Grove Lane on the University of California San Diego campus. For more information, visit godblessunderbelly.com.
