Almost four years after SanDiegoVille first reported the project, one of Coronado’s most ambitious new restaurants is finally preparing to welcome diners. By The Sea, a sprawling coastal Mediterranean restaurant from the hospitality and development team behind Little Italy’s Nolita Hall, will officially open on Wednesday, August 12, at 1300 Orange Avenue in Coronado. The approximately 6,500-square-foot, second-story venue sits inside Coronado Plaza, only steps from Hotel del Coronado and roughly 1,000 feet from the Pacific Ocean.
The long-awaited project represents an estimated $6 million investment by Coronado residents Douglas and Lara Hamm, who transformed a dark, compartmentalized former restaurant into a bright indoor-outdoor destination inspired by their travels through the French Riviera, Greek islands and Italy’s Amalfi Coast.
The European influence is also personal. The couple married on the island of Capri, and By The Sea was conceived as an attempt to recreate some of the warmth, beauty and unhurried atmosphere they encountered along the Mediterranean.The result is a restaurant designed to feel more like a coastal escape than a conventional Orange Avenue dining room.
By The Sea occupies the upstairs space above longtime Coronado restaurant The Tavern. Its dining room and outdoor areas will accommodate more than 200 guests, with a central lounge, custom wood furnishings, natural stone surfaces, plaster walls and a eucalyptus-shaded patio.
European cobblestone, limestone and flagstone are incorporated throughout the project. Large windows, new doors and two substantial skylights now bring daylight into a space that was previously defined by low ceilings, interior walls and limited natural illumination.
The renovation ultimately became far more extensive than originally anticipated. Portions of the roof were removed to raise the ceiling, nearly the entire interior was stripped back to its structural elements, and the former collection of disconnected rooms was opened into a more cohesive restaurant.
“When I first walked in and saw the space, I could see immediately it had a ton of potential, but it was a brutal design and layout, to be blunt,” Douglas Hamm told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It was just really dark and it had a drop ceiling. There were separate rooms everywhere.”
The finished restaurant will center on Mediterranean-influenced coastal cooking rather than adhering to the cuisine of any single country. The opening menu is expected to move among Southern France, coastal Italy, Greece and California, with seafood, vegetables, handmade pasta and large-format proteins sharing equal prominence.
Initial offerings include a mezze platter, linguine with clams, whole grilled branzino and a 28-day dry-aged Flannery ribeye. The broader menu will be divided among starters, salads, vegetable dishes, pastas and entrées designed for both individual dining and sharing.
The concept has evolved considerably since the project was first announced in November 2022. At the time, the space was described as an incoming seafood-focused restaurant and bar expected to open during 2023. Instead, the development stretched across nearly four years as its owners expanded the design, navigated permitting and undertook a far more substantial reconstruction than initially envisioned.
The address carries a complicated restaurant history of its own. The second-floor venue most recently housed Boardwalk Beach Club, a beach-themed concept from Coronado-based Blue Bridge Hospitality that opened in 2019 but closed only months later. The pandemic arrived shortly afterward, and the restaurant never returned.
Before Boardwalk Beach Club, the space was occupied by Maretalia Ristorante and previously operated as a Vigilucci’s location. Despite its highly visible position along Coronado’s primary commercial corridor, the upstairs layout, limited street presence and previously enclosed design made the property difficult to activate. By The Sea represents the most extensive attempt yet to reinvent the venue.
The restaurant is being operated by Black Swan Hospitality, the restaurant arm connected to Hamm’s real estate and investment company, Creative House. Black Swan describes Nolita Hall as its flagship restaurant and promotes a design-centered approach to hospitality.
The finished restaurant will center on Mediterranean-influenced coastal cooking rather than adhering to the cuisine of any single country. The opening menu is expected to move among Southern France, coastal Italy, Greece and California, with seafood, vegetables, handmade pasta and large-format proteins sharing equal prominence.
Initial offerings include a mezze platter, linguine with clams, whole grilled branzino and a 28-day dry-aged Flannery ribeye. The broader menu will be divided among starters, salads, vegetable dishes, pastas and entrées designed for both individual dining and sharing.
The concept has evolved considerably since the project was first announced in November 2022. At the time, the space was described as an incoming seafood-focused restaurant and bar expected to open during 2023. Instead, the development stretched across nearly four years as its owners expanded the design, navigated permitting and undertook a far more substantial reconstruction than initially envisioned.
The address carries a complicated restaurant history of its own. The second-floor venue most recently housed Boardwalk Beach Club, a beach-themed concept from Coronado-based Blue Bridge Hospitality that opened in 2019 but closed only months later. The pandemic arrived shortly afterward, and the restaurant never returned.
Before Boardwalk Beach Club, the space was occupied by Maretalia Ristorante and previously operated as a Vigilucci’s location. Despite its highly visible position along Coronado’s primary commercial corridor, the upstairs layout, limited street presence and previously enclosed design made the property difficult to activate. By The Sea represents the most extensive attempt yet to reinvent the venue.
The restaurant is being operated by Black Swan Hospitality, the restaurant arm connected to Hamm’s real estate and investment company, Creative House. Black Swan describes Nolita Hall as its flagship restaurant and promotes a design-centered approach to hospitality.
Black Swan Hospitality also identifies itself as the creative force behind Cow by Bear, the immersive pop-up dining concept that became one of San Diego’s more unusual and theatrical restaurant experiences. Along with the Orchid Award-winning Nolita Hall, Cow by Bear helped establish the company’s interest in highly designed, experience-driven hospitality rather than conventional restaurant formats. By The Sea extends that approach on a much larger and more permanent scale.
Hamm founded Creative House as a real estate development and investment company focused largely on unconventional urban projects. Before moving into restaurant operations, the company participated in projects involving Lofty Coffee and Half Door Brewing, using hospitality concepts in part to activate properties under its control. Creative House describes itself as commercially driven but willing to pursue projects that depart from traditional development models.
That approach became most visible with the 2018 opening of Nolita Hall at India and Juniper streets in Little Italy. The more than $3 million project was Black Swan Hospitality’s first restaurant and combined a soaring European-inspired beer hall, restaurant, bar and event space within a heavily designed environment.
Nolita Hall earned an Orchid Award for its interior and became known for its retractable roof, aviation-style split-flap display, communal seating, cocktails, pizzas and expansive drinking-hall aesthetic. The concept established Hamm’s preference for transforming real estate through large, design-intensive hospitality projects rather than simply leasing spaces to outside restaurant operators.
By The Sea also represents the first major restaurant opening by Hamm in years after several previously announced hospitality projects failed to come to fruition. Among the most notable was Cedar Park, an ambitious nearly 10,000-square-foot, bi-level restaurant and rooftop bar proposed for Little Italy as early as 2013. Publicly announced in 2017 with a projected 2018 opening, the approximately $5 million project was envisioned as a chef-driven indoor-outdoor destination featuring a rooftop deck, multiple bars and a new public piazza adjacent to the restaurant. Creative House repeatedly attributed delays to the City's permitting process, but construction never advanced beyond the redevelopment phase and the long-discussed concept quietly disappeared.
In 2022, Hamm also took control of the former Il Dandy and Civico By The Park restaurant space in Bankers Hill and discussed plans for a new concept. The location remained dark for years before Creative House relinquished it, allowing Cucina Urbana parent Urban Kitchen Group to secure the property for a future all-day restaurant expected in late 2027.
Black Swan also purchased the real estate and business associated with historic Hob Nob Hill in early 2025 for approximately $2.715 million. The company initially reopened the 82-year-old Bankers Hill diner with assurances that it intended to preserve the longtime institution, but Hob Nob Hill closed in June 2026 after ownership cited rising food, labor and operating costs. Several Hob Nob Hill employees were expected to transition to By The Sea, while Black Swan continues evaluating a future concept for the First Avenue property.
Hamm also became a prominent figure in San Diego civic affairs in 2024 after acquiring a 65,000-square-foot Kettner Boulevard warehouse that Mayor Todd Gloria proposed converting into the city’s largest homeless shelter.
The original proposal called for San Diego to lease the property for 35 years, beginning at approximately $1.9 million annually, while paying an estimated $18 million to renovate the privately owned building. The proposed rent would have totaled about $92 million over the initial term, prompting scrutiny from councilmembers, budget analysts and real estate professionals who questioned the length and expense of the agreement.
County records showed that companies controlled by Hamm borrowed millions against the warehouse and another property on the same day the Kettner site was purchased. Hamm defended the proposed arrangement, saying he had entertained comparable commercial offers and was attempting to make the shelter plan financially workable rather than accepting a major loss on the property.
While that episode placed Creative House’s real estate activities under an unusual level of public scrutiny, By The Sea is a very different undertaking: a privately financed restaurant created by owners who now live in the community where it will operate.
Hamm has said the idea emerged after he and Lara moved to Coronado in 2021 and concluded that the island lacked the range of destination restaurants found in other affluent coastal communities. That assessment may have been more accurate when By The Sea was conceived than it is today.
Coronado’s hospitality landscape has changed rapidly during the restaurant’s long development. Hotel del Coronado has completed much of a sweeping resort-wide renovation and added an outpost of internationally recognized Japanese restaurant Nobu. The nearby Bower hotel opened with rooftop restaurant and bar Dive, while Consortium Holdings transformed the former La Avenida Inn into the Baby Grand hotel across Orange Avenue with the outdoor Greek restaurant Night Hawk and concealed oyster-and-champagne bar Fallen Empire. Hotel del Coronado’s Serẽa also continues to serve Mediterranean-influenced seafood from chef JoJo Ruiz and has received recognition from the Michelin Guide.
Rather than arriving in the “dining desert” Hamm perceived five years ago, By The Sea will open in the middle of an increasingly competitive Coronado restaurant renaissance. Its advantages are scale, location and the magnitude of its redesign. Few independent restaurants on the island offer more than 200 seats, extensive indoor and outdoor areas, a full bar and a location close enough to attract Hotel del Coronado guests while remaining separate from the resort.
The restaurant also gives Coronado another destination intended to stand on its own rather than functioning primarily as a hotel amenity. For residents, it represents a locally owned concept shaped by operators who live on the island. For Black Swan Hospitality, it is the company’s largest and most consequential opening since Nolita Hall debuted more than eight years ago.
By The Sea will open on August 12 at 1300 Orange Avenue in Coronado. For more information, visit bythesea.co.
Originally published on August 4, 2026. Information first reported by Lori Weisberg of San Diego Union-Tribune.
Black Swan also purchased the real estate and business associated with historic Hob Nob Hill in early 2025 for approximately $2.715 million. The company initially reopened the 82-year-old Bankers Hill diner with assurances that it intended to preserve the longtime institution, but Hob Nob Hill closed in June 2026 after ownership cited rising food, labor and operating costs. Several Hob Nob Hill employees were expected to transition to By The Sea, while Black Swan continues evaluating a future concept for the First Avenue property.
Hamm also became a prominent figure in San Diego civic affairs in 2024 after acquiring a 65,000-square-foot Kettner Boulevard warehouse that Mayor Todd Gloria proposed converting into the city’s largest homeless shelter.
The original proposal called for San Diego to lease the property for 35 years, beginning at approximately $1.9 million annually, while paying an estimated $18 million to renovate the privately owned building. The proposed rent would have totaled about $92 million over the initial term, prompting scrutiny from councilmembers, budget analysts and real estate professionals who questioned the length and expense of the agreement.
County records showed that companies controlled by Hamm borrowed millions against the warehouse and another property on the same day the Kettner site was purchased. Hamm defended the proposed arrangement, saying he had entertained comparable commercial offers and was attempting to make the shelter plan financially workable rather than accepting a major loss on the property.
While that episode placed Creative House’s real estate activities under an unusual level of public scrutiny, By The Sea is a very different undertaking: a privately financed restaurant created by owners who now live in the community where it will operate.
Hamm has said the idea emerged after he and Lara moved to Coronado in 2021 and concluded that the island lacked the range of destination restaurants found in other affluent coastal communities. That assessment may have been more accurate when By The Sea was conceived than it is today.
Coronado’s hospitality landscape has changed rapidly during the restaurant’s long development. Hotel del Coronado has completed much of a sweeping resort-wide renovation and added an outpost of internationally recognized Japanese restaurant Nobu. The nearby Bower hotel opened with rooftop restaurant and bar Dive, while Consortium Holdings transformed the former La Avenida Inn into the Baby Grand hotel across Orange Avenue with the outdoor Greek restaurant Night Hawk and concealed oyster-and-champagne bar Fallen Empire. Hotel del Coronado’s Serẽa also continues to serve Mediterranean-influenced seafood from chef JoJo Ruiz and has received recognition from the Michelin Guide.
Rather than arriving in the “dining desert” Hamm perceived five years ago, By The Sea will open in the middle of an increasingly competitive Coronado restaurant renaissance. Its advantages are scale, location and the magnitude of its redesign. Few independent restaurants on the island offer more than 200 seats, extensive indoor and outdoor areas, a full bar and a location close enough to attract Hotel del Coronado guests while remaining separate from the resort.
The restaurant also gives Coronado another destination intended to stand on its own rather than functioning primarily as a hotel amenity. For residents, it represents a locally owned concept shaped by operators who live on the island. For Black Swan Hospitality, it is the company’s largest and most consequential opening since Nolita Hall debuted more than eight years ago.
By The Sea will open on August 12 at 1300 Orange Avenue in Coronado. For more information, visit bythesea.co.
Originally published on August 4, 2026. Information first reported by Lori Weisberg of San Diego Union-Tribune.
