Rancho Santa Fe Village's Newest Counters Were Opened by Its Own Regulars and Landlords
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026
After her tennis matches, Jennifer Fields ate at the Rancho Santa Fe Bistro nearly every day. In time she became one of its most loyal regulars and a friend of Mozy Jahanguiri, who had owned the place for 12 years. When he decided to retire, he asked whether she would take it over. She took ownership on Nov. 1, 2025, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Village's other big food addition of the past year followed the same pattern. Chris Miller owns the bank building at El Tordo and La Granada. In June 2026 he took a conference room he wasn't using much and turned it into a sandwich shop. Each new counter was opened by someone who already had a key to the Village, either as a building owner or as a customer who showed up every day. Each one also fills hours the Village used to leave open: breakfast, a quick lunch, and Sunday.
Paseo sits in the former Rancho Santa Fe Bistro space at 6024 Paseo Delicias, Suite C. The building is a local landmark. It was the first Rancho Santa Fe School, and its first graduating class in 1924 had one student. Fields spent more than $800,000 on the inside: new paint, fixtures and furniture. The brick and the exposed wood beams stayed. Taking out the Bistro's wine racks and cabinetry made room for more tables.
Fields described what she was building to the Union-Tribune as a restaurant "rooted in gathering as friends, family and community." The menu covers seafood, house-made pastas and prime cuts. Its best-known dish may be the Paseo Chopped Salad, which is based on the La Scala chopped salad from Beverly Hills. Paseo's own February post says the neighboring space is being turned into a market and bakery with baked goods, crepes and café service, meant as a morning stop. That part is still a plan.
Fields has opened a second business in the same building. Paseo Pizza and Gelato, in Unit D at 6024 Paseo Delicias, held its grand opening Sept. 25 and 26. It serves 18 signature pies plus build-your-own options, rotating gelato flavors, and craft beer brewed in-house. The namesake Paseo pie comes with Grande mozzarella, imported burrata, crispy prosciutto and arugula.
Rancho Sandwich and Creamery at 6110 El Tordo started with a building owner, not a restaurateur. Miller owns the building and runs a private investment firm, and he had no food-industry experience. He told the Union-Tribune that permits from six different county and state entities took a year, and the work included a new plumbing system. Owning the building, he said, made the difference. Friends and family helped with the build-out, using materials left over from building their own home on Via de Fortuna.
"We wanted it to feel like Rancho… fresh but traditional," Miller told the paper. The shop has a tile floor and murals by Carmel Valley's Hanna's Murals, including one that reads "Ice cream fixes everything." Several sandwiches are named for Miller's five daughters, including Chloe's Chicken Chipotle and AK's Special with pastrami and provolone. The best seller in the early weeks was the East County Native, a turkey, bacon and avocado sandwich on a French roll that nods to his Fallbrook roots. The pineapple Dole Whip soft serve was selling out every couple of days.
The first days showed the demand. With no marketing beyond a sign and some balloons at the soft opening, the shop was seeing more than 100 customers a day, according to Miller. He planned for a busy fall because the shop is within walking distance of R. Roger Rowe School.
Taken together, the three counters cover the week like this, using each business's posted hours. Hours can change, so check before you go.
| Stop | Address | Posted hours | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rancho Sandwich and Creamery | 6110 El Tordo | Monday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. | Breakfast and grab-and-go lunch |
| Paseo | 6024 Paseo Delicias, Suite C | Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m., closed Sunday | Sit-down lunch and dinner |
| Paseo Pizza and Gelato | 6024 Paseo Delicias, Unit D | Seven days, noon to 9 p.m. | Sunday, families, takeout |
The pizza shop is open on Sunday, the day Paseo is closed. The sandwich shop opens three hours before Paseo's kitchen does. The pieces fit because the same owner runs two of them out of one building, and the third is a building owner who opened in a space he already controlled.
The same building has one more new tenant that isn't food. Make Me Up RSF, a makeup service and retail bar, opened in Suite I at 6024 Paseo Delicias in a former jewelry store and held its grand opening Aug. 27. Paseo opened there in late 2025, and the pizza shop and the beauty bar followed in 2026, which makes 6024 Paseo Delicias the address with the most new doors in the Village over the past year.
Across from the sandwich shop is the year's other errand-level project. Rancho Santa Fe Pharmacy, owned by Jason Sabouri, is building a new home on the vacant corner lot at El Tordo and La Granada, next to Third Bloom and across the street from its current location, as the Union-Tribune reported when the project's approval was extended. The current building is more than 60 years old, according to The Coast News. Construction started in August 2025, and the building was still under construction at the end of June. When it opens, the La Granada and El Tordo corner will have breakfast, lunch and a pharmacy within a few steps of each other. This project also comes from inside the Village: an existing local business moving across the street.
The Village's best-known dinner spot is closed this week. Nick & G's, in the Lilian Rice building at Paseo Delicias and La Granada, closed Oct. 19 and says on its website that it will stay closed through Nov. 15. The Union-Tribune reported that the remodel covers a redesigned dining room and bar, new private event and patio spaces, and a California-Italian menu built around handmade pastas, pizzas and seasonal shared plates.
This one fits the pattern too. The building dates to the 1920s and was the home of the Millar family, one of Rancho Santa Fe's earliest families. Before Nick & G's it was Delicias for 24 years, then briefly Ponsaty's. Local resident Sandra DiCicco-Bonar of Grand Restaurant Group opened Nick & G's in 2017 and named it after her children, Nicolas and Gianina. Gianina Pickens, the "G," is now chief operating officer. Chef and partner Alex Carballo, who was the chef at The Crosby Club when it opened, is running the remodel. The new look draws on the Amalfi Coast, with a large olive tree at the center of the dining room and a new wine cellar between the dining room and the bar.
Several community events land while Nick & G's is closed, and most of them are in or near the Village core:
On the afternoon of Oct. 30 the village green will be busy, and Paseo Pizza and Gelato is a short walk away on the same block of Paseo Delicias. By the Garden Club brunch on Nov. 19, Nick & G's closure window will have ended.
If you want to talk through how changes in the Village, from new tenants to the pharmacy corner, show up in the value of a Covenant home, Chad Basinger is glad to go over it with you. More on the area is on the Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood page. Let's Connect.
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