Wine-focused restaurant and bottle shop Graze By Sam The Cooking Guy is set to close soon in San Diego's Little Italy after four years in business and will be rebranded to become a sit-down Italian restaurant called Basta.
In 2018, Mike DiNorcia's Grit & Grain Collective teamed up with Internet celebrity Sam "The Cooking Guy" Zien and opened the 4,685 square-foot Little Italy Food Hall within Piazza Della Famigliain the heart of San Diego's Little Italy. In early 2020, Little Italy Food Hall ownership expanded into the space directly across Piazza Della Famiglia and opened Graze By Sam The Cooking Guy. Both businesses are currently listed for sale by local real estate company Next Wave Commercial.Graze By Sam will end its four year run after end of service on Sunday, May 5. The 1,600 square-foot space will then be converted to become a full-service Italian restaurant called Basta Cocktails + Italian Inspired Eats, which is expected to open in early June. Meaning "enough is enough" in Italian, Basta will offer classic East Coast Italian cuisine reinvented with a Sam The Cooking Guy twist. The new eatery will also serve wine, beer and Aperol cocktails.
The new Italian restaurant replacing Graze By Sam is set to open at some point this summer at 550 West Date Street in San Diego's Little Italy. For more information, follow Basta on Instagram.
