San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

Author: San Diego Magazine

The weekly guide to San Diego's food drink scene, hosted by award-winning food writer and Food Network host Troy Johnson and San Diego Magazine's culture brain, Jackie Bryant. Field notes and perspectives on restaurants, bars, and chefsincluding dishes and drinks you gotta try, restaurant openings and closings, events worth your time, and laugh-cry interviews with chefs, restaurant owners, farmers, brewers, and makers who make San Diego's food drink scene hum.
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Language: en

Genres: Arts, Food, Society & Culture

Contact email: Get it

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San Diego's Roast Beef Awakening
Episode 415
Thursday, 8 January, 2026

#415 On the latest Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson traces a proper Sunday roast into its evolution as a distinctly American handheld obsession. Following the breadcrumbs leads straight to Big Jim's Roast Beef in Pacific Beach, which is owned by today's guest, James Jones. He's a North Shore Boston transplant who brought the "super beef" to our fair shores. His version has a griddled onion roll, rare- to mid-rare beef, and the cult-favorite James River barbecue sauce shipped in from back East. We also get a rapid-fire history lesson featuring British roast-beef nationalism, refrigerated rail cars, the invention of the meat slicer, and L.A.'s French dip origin story. Johnson makes the case that the piled-high roast beef sandwich is top-notch, cross-generational gustatory engineering. Follow Big Jim HERE. Discover more at San Diego Magazine.