"As a Rancho Bernardo resident and parent of three young children, I understand the need for more family-friendly gathering places in our community." That's Harland Brewing CEO Jeff Hansson explaining why his company picked one very specific storefront for its newest restaurant: 16480 Paseo Del Sur, Suite 105, inside Del Sur Town Center. It's a corner longtime residents have watched change hands twice before this one finally stuck.
If you've been shopping at the Target and Sprouts end of the center for more than a few years, you've probably noticed the pattern without naming it. That same 3,400-square-foot space has now held three completely different restaurants. First it was Ponce's Mexican Restaurant. Then it became the craft-beer gastropub Waypoint Public. Now it's Harland Brewing's first-ever full-service kitchen, which opened its doors on January 30, 2026. Two concepts came and went here. The third one just signed a ten-year lease.
Two Restaurants, One Very Short Run
Waypoint Public arrived with real momentum. North Park restaurateur John Pani's ELE Collective, the group behind Park & Rec in University Heights and Hotel Vyvant in Little Italy, opened the Del Sur location in April 2017 with hexagonal play cubbies for kids, a full bar with 30 rotating beer taps, and former Top Chef contestant Rich Sweeney running the kitchen. It closed a little over a year later, on May 18, 2018, with no public explanation beyond the fact that the North Park flagship stayed open while the satellite did not.
That's a fast turnaround for a space built to anchor a growing town center. Here's how the address has actually played out:
| Era | Concept | Time at 16480 Paseo Del Sur |
|---|---|---|
| Ponce's | Mexican restaurant | Original tenant in the space |
| Waypoint Public | Craft-beer gastropub with kids' play area | April 2017 to May 2018 |
| Harland Brewing | Family-focused full-service restaurant and taproom | Opened January 30, 2026 |
The Tenants Who Never Left
While that one address kept resetting, everything around it stayed put. Piacere Mio Del Sur has been serving homemade pasta and Neapolitan pizza since owner Marco Fontana turned his Fern Street coffeehouse into a full-fledged South Park restaurant in 2014, before bringing the concept north to Del Sur. Board & Brew, the sandwich shop with the laid-back California vibe, has anchored its spot since 2016. Burger Lounge and Luna Grill's fast-casual Mediterranean counter have held steady too, alongside the Sprouts and Target that draw people into the center in the first place.
None of those businesses asked customers for a full sit-down evening commitment. They're built for quick trips, weeknight pickup, a smoothie after a workout. The one slot in the center that kept struggling was the one built around a longer, more adult-leaning night out. That's worth sitting with for a second, because it says something specific about what this particular stretch of Paseo Del Sur actually wants from a restaurant, not what a restaurant group in North Park assumed it would want.
A Chef Who Already Knows the Regulars
Harland's approach to that same real estate looks different in a way that tracks with the neighborhood rather than against it. The kitchen is led by Scott Cannon, who spent nearly a decade as executive chef at Cork & Craft in Rancho Bernardo before that, with earlier stints at Delicias in Rancho Santa Fe, L'Auberge Del Mar, and Jake's Del Mar. He's not new to the area, and he's said as much.
"It's incredibly rewarding to now bring a full-service Harland venue to a place that shaped me," Cannon told San Diego Beer News. "I feel like I truly understand the kind of food our guests are looking for, and that's allowed me to create a menu that speaks directly to the neighborhood, bold, balanced and diverse without being pretentious."
What's Actually on the Menu Right Now
The food pulls from a wider range than Waypoint's American gastropub playbook, mixing Asian, Italian, Mexican, French, and American influences into one all-day lineup:
- Starters like kung pao Brussels sprouts with pork belly and garlic-and-soy bucatini
- Handhelds including a fried chicken sandwich, fish tacos, a birria quesadilla, and a Southwest shrimp and lobster roll
- Mains like braised short rib, seared salmon, pork ribeye with pumpkin polenta, three-cheese gnocchi, and a roasted half-chicken
- A dedicated lunch menu with chicken satay salad, clam chowder, and a salmon poke bowl
- Weekend brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, plus a kids' menu and a play area just off the patio
Current hours run 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, with brunch worked into weekend service on Saturdays and Sundays.
A Ten-Year Bet, Not a Trial Run
The lease tells you more about Harland's confidence than any menu item does. Where Waypoint Public lasted about thirteen months, Harland signed on for ten years with an option for ten more, according to the San Diego Business Journal. The company hired 25 new employees for the location, pushing its total headcount past 100, and is projecting 2026 revenue of $16.3 million, up 45 percent from 2025.
This fits a broader shift for Harland. The brewery built its name on tasting rooms in Scripps Ranch and then Bay Park, which it opened mid-pandemic in 2020, before converting a South Park space into its first restaurant. Last fall it closed its One Paseo tasting room in Carmel Valley as part of a pivot toward fewer, more hospitality-forward locations, and it's now planning a full-service restaurant and taproom at Mission Bay Golf Course. The 4S Ranch address is the biggest version of that bet yet, and co-founder Anthony Levas, who grew up in the area and graduated from Rancho Bernardo High, framed it in personal terms: "Harland 4S Ranch will look different than any of our other locations."
If you're the kind of neighbor who's watched that corner cycle through two identities already, the smart read isn't that the space was cursed. It's that the first two tenants built for a different customer than the one actually walking through Del Sur Town Center on a Tuesday night with two kids and a stroller. The address didn't need a better gastropub. It needed a play area, a brunch menu, and a chef who already knew the regulars from Cork & Craft down the road.
If you're looking for another neighborhood rhythm while you're at it, the Del Sur & 4S Ranch Community Market still sets up on the first Sunday of every month at the Design39Campus playground, with dozens of local vendors selling produce and specialty goods a short walk from that same Town Center.
Del Sur keeps changing in small, specific ways, and the businesses that last are usually the ones paying attention to who's actually there. If you're weighing what a home in this pocket of San Diego might be worth, or you're curious how a neighborhood this dialed-in shows up in current market data, Karlee Van Dyke knows this stretch of Paseo Del Sur block by block. Get Your Free Home Valuation and find out what your Del Sur home could be worth today.
