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Plaza del Pasado Review
Read our San Diego sights reviews. Or post your own.
Plaza del Pasado
- Address: 2754 Calhoun St., Old Town, San Diego, CA | Map It
- Phone: 619/297-3100
- www.plazadelpasado.com
- Category: Stores/Malls
- Location: Old Town
Fodor's Review:
North of San Diego's Old Town Plaza lies the area's unofficial center, built to represent a colonial Mexican square and until recently known as Bazaar del Mundo. In mid-2005, this collection of shops and restaurants around a central courtyard formerly in blossom with magenta bougainvillea, scarlet hibiscus, and other flowers in season, was transferred to new management and remodeled to what it might have looked like in the early California days, from 1821 to 1872, complete with shops stocked with items reminiscent of that era. Nine shops are open and there are also three restaurants, including Casa de Reyes, serving Mexican food. The transformation of this area is not popular with the San Diegans, however, who loved shopping, drinking margaritas, and listening to live mariachi music in their old bursting-with-color bazaar even if it was not an authentic representation of Old San Diego. They lament that the color-free Plaza del Pasado (Place of the Past) is all too accurate a representation of the arid San Diego of yore. Expect further changes.
- Open: Shops daily Jan.-Mar. 10-6; Apr.-Dec. 10-10.
Member Reviews & Ratings:
Different kind of theme park
Posted by Froglover4ever from San Diego on 11/13/07
I enjoyed my two trips to Plaza del Pasado. Southern California has plenty of glitzy theme parks. Getting a taste of authentic California history is a welcome change for me. It looks like they're going to be re-opening the Jolly Boy Restaurant and Saloon soon and what I heard about that place from the interpreter I spoke to sounded really promising. So I plan to go back and give it a try too.
A HUGE disappointment and a total bore
Posted by ItsHappyBunny from Los Angeles on 1/15/07
I was so, so disappointed when I drove down from Los Angeles with my guests, whom I wanted to take to Old Town and the Bazaar del Mundo. I was horrified to find that it was gone--I hadnt heard that the State had taken it over and turned it into an ultra-boring historically correct theme park that isnt fun. Gone was the excellent Casa de Bandini restaurant and the colorful shops that sold rather lovely artwork. Instead, we had biege and brown shops that sold... pine boards? I dunno, the shelves were mostly empty. We fled this drab place and found the relocated Bazaar del Mundo shops. Unfortunately, the wonderful Casa de Bandini and its awesome margaritas is no more :(
A travesty and a pox on whoever wrecked a wonderful and fun place to foist their historically-correct-but-no-fun vision on the rest of us.
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