A Minted Location day guide
Dock & Dine in San Diego
San Diego has a real dock-and-dine culture, and it runs on the telephone rather than on published terms.
The Port counts "more than 60 waterfront restaurants" on San Diego Bay — "a picturesque, unique dining experience" — and leaves dock access to the venues themselves, so the arrangement is made venue by venue, on the call.
Point Loma Marina publishes the one rule anybody has written down: "Two-hour maximum time limit for reserved slips." During business hours you call the marina for gate entry; after hours you call the restaurant. Two venues take part — one at Point Loma Marina and one at Pier 32 Marina — and vessel size and any fee are settled on that call.
One Coronado restaurant publishes genuine boat access in its own words: "easily accessible by land or water — just a five-minute trip from downtown via private yacht or water taxi", and "Moor your own vessel at Peohe's dock." Call ahead to agree size and duration.
Everywhere else on the bay works the same way — the Coronado Ferry Landing, which is the landlord for a row of waterfront restaurants, and the best-known dining rooms on the water: take a slip at the marina nearest the table and walk, or anchor in one of the three permitted anchorages and go in by tender, and phone ahead if you want to come alongside.
The chart below runs the harbour rather than a restaurant strip: the entrance where the ebb runs a knot harder than the flood, the clearance docks that make this the border port, the yards that make it the refit port, and the three permitted anchorages.
The stops, as their own docks describe them
| Spot | Where | Arriving by boat |
|---|---|---|
| Point Loma Marina — the two-hour ruleThe one dock-and-dine rule published anywhere on the bay, and worth having for that alone. During business hours boaters call the marina for gate entry; after hours they call the restaurant. Vessel size and any fee are settled on that call. | America's Cup Harbor | "Two-hour maximum time limit for reserved slips" |
| Peohe's, Coronado Ferry LandingThe one restaurant on the bay that publishes boat access in its own words: "easily accessible by land or water — just a five-minute trip from downtown via private yacht or water taxi." Call ahead to agree size and duration. | Coronado | "Moor your own vessel at Peohe's dock" — call ahead to agree size and duration |
| Waterfront Grill, Pier 32 MarinaOne of the two venues in the Point Loma Marina dock-and-dine scheme, on the Pier 32 docks six miles south of downtown. The two-hour reserved-slip limit is the term to plan against: call the marina for gate entry during business hours, and the restaurant after hours. | National City | Participates in the Point Loma Marina dock-and-dine scheme |
| The other sixty waterfront restaurantsThe Port counts "more than 60 waterfront restaurants" on San Diego Bay and leaves dock access to the venues themselves. So dining here works from a berth or a tender: take a slip at the marina nearest the table and walk, or anchor in one of the three permitted anchorages and go in by dinghy. The Coronado Ferry Landing — landlord to a row of waterfront restaurants — and the best-known dining rooms on the water are all reached that way. Phone ahead if you want to come alongside. | San Diego Bay | Berth nearby and walk, or anchor and tender in |
Dockage notes are what each restaurant publishes on its own site — space is first-come and dinner-hour rafting is real, so hail ahead. Where a venue states nothing about docking, we say so rather than guess.
Planning more than lunch?
We represent buyers wherever the right boat sits — shortlisting, surveying and sea-trialing on the buyer's side of the table. Tell us the mission and we'll tell you which boat, and which berth, it calls for.