Your Guide to Rancho Santa Fe Village's New Restaurants for Fall 2026

Nick & G's will close in mid-October for a full renovation and menu change. It is scheduled to reopen in November. In past years, losing the anchor table at Paseo Delicias and La Granada for a few weeks would have left a real hole in the Village. This fall the closure lands on a Village with more places to eat than it had a year ago. Most of the newcomers are run by people who live in the Covenant and were customers before they were owners.

The math is simple. Within about thirteen months, three new places to eat opened within a short walk of each other: Paseo, Rancho Sandwich and Creamery, and Paseo Pizza and Gelato. Each was opened by a local owner. Two of them share the same address on Paseo Delicias.

The new tables, by address

Paseo's website lists a later close at the end of the week. The dining room stays open until midnight on Friday and Saturday, and the kitchen takes orders until 9:45 p.m. On weekdays the kitchen closes at 9 p.m. On a Sunday, the pizza shop is the only one of the three that is open.

The 6024 Paseo Delicias building has also added Make Me Up RSF in Suite I. It is a makeup-services atelier and small beauty shop, open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. That puts three new businesses at one address in under a year.

Regulars before owners

Before Jennifer Fields owned Paseo, she was a customer there. She moved to Rancho Santa Fe from Las Vegas in 2019. After playing tennis matches in town, she ended up at The Bistro nearly every day and became one of its most loyal regulars. The owner, Mozy Jahanguiri, had run the place for 12 years and learned she had 24 years in hospitality behind her, including a decade at the Bellagio. When he planned to retire, he asked whether she wanted to take it over. Fields officially took ownership on Nov. 1, 2025.

The building came with history. A plaque marks it as a local landmark: it housed the first Rancho Santa Fe School, which held its first graduation in 1924 with one student. Fields put more than $800,000 into the interior and kept the brick and exposed wood beams. On its website, Paseo describes its food as California bistro: seafood, house-made pasta, salads and Brandt beef. Ranch & Coast Magazine named it Best New Restaurant 2026, according to the restaurant's website.

Chris Miller's route was different but just as local. As a teenager he came over from Fallbrook to paint horse-corral fences in the Ranch to help pay for college. He moved back with his family in 2015. Miller owns the El Tordo building, and his sandwich shop sits in what had been an underused conference room in the corner of it, under the clock tower. He had no experience in food service. Getting permits took a year and involved six county and state entities, plus a new plumbing system.

According to Miller, more than 100 people a day were coming through within a week of the soft opening, with no marketing beyond the sign out front. The menu is built on Boar's Head meats and O'Brien's bread. The top early seller was the East County Native, turkey, bacon and avocado on a French roll. The pineapple Dole Whip soft serve sells out every couple of days. Miller expected a busy fall because the shop is within walking distance of R. Roger Rowe School.

The pizza shop is Fields' second Village project, next door to Paseo. It offers build-your-own pies and 18 signature pizzas, including the Paseo with Grande mozzarella, burrata, crispy prosciutto and arugula. Gelato flavors rotate, and the shop makes its own craft beer.

The chef who will reopen Nick & G's sees the same thing from inside the industry.

"I like the energy when there's more…it gives people a little more variety and a reason to go into Rancho Santa Fe, and we're in the heart of it." Alex Carballo, chef and partner at Nick & G's, as quoted by The San Diego Union-Tribune

The month Nick & G's goes dark

Nick & G's follows the same local-owner pattern. Sandra DiCicco-Bonar, a Rancho Santa Fe resident with the Grand Restaurant Group, opened it in 2017 and chose its name. The building on the corner of Paseo Delicias and La Granada was designed by Lilian Rice and built in the 1920s as the home of the Millar family. Before Nick & G's, it housed Delicias for 24 years and then, briefly, Ponsaty's.

The planned November reopening is a major redesign. Carballo worked with Rachael Lorraine Harris and Michael Soriano on a brighter Amalfi Coast look in yellows, oranges and blues. A large olive tree will stand in the center of the dining room, surrounded by new custom banquettes. Diners will see through a new wine cellar to a lighter bar and lounge, and the kitchen will be visible. The patio is getting a wave-shaped shade canopy, and the rear courtyard is getting more greenery and water features.

The menu will be shorter and focused on coastal Italian-American cooking, with handmade pasta, seafood and local produce. Some current favorites will stay. Carballo plans to use the closure for wine pairing, hiring and service training. Updates before the reopening are posted at nickandgs.com.

During the closure, the rest of the Village lineup Carballo named is still in place: Mille Fleurs, Lilian's, the cafe at The Inn, Thyme in the Ranch, Caffe Positano and Rancho Roasters. Another dining room is also close to finished. As of Oct. 4, the Association's renovation of the RSF Golf Club clubhouse and restaurant was getting ready for a fall opening. The new kitchen has a temporary certificate of occupancy from the county, which lets staff begin prep and training.

The calendar lands in the same weeks

The weeks Nick & G's is closed are also some of the busiest on the Village calendar. Most of these events are within walking distance of the tables above.

1. Oct. 13, 3 p.m. The Rancho Santa Fe Garden Club marks its centennial with a California oak planting at the Lilian Rice statue in North Village Park, across from Banc of California on Avenida de Acacias. The RSF Association Public Works Department will plant the tree. A member potluck follows at about 3:45 p.m. at the Secret Garden, 17025 Avenida de Acacias.
2. Oct. 15 and Oct. 17 The RSF Library hosts a talk on bone and joint health, then a watercolor class.
3. Oct. 22 The library holds an author event at 17040 Avenida de Acacias.
4. Oct. 24 The library runs a pumpkin-succulent craft. That evening, from 5 to 8 p.m., the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society holds its Fandango Street Party at La Flecha House, 6036 La Flecha, with a taco bar and live music.
5. Oct. 31, 5 to 9 p.m. Horizon Church holds a public Harvest Festival at 6365 El Apajo.
6. Nov. 7 and Nov. 12 The library offers a clay-jewelry class on Nov. 7. On Nov. 12 it holds a reception for the RSF Art Guild cityscapes exhibit, which runs through Nov. 20.
7. Nov. 19, 10 a.m. The Garden Club holds a holiday brunch at the Secret Garden, with a talk by an arborist on keeping trees and plants healthy. Tickets are $25 for members and $40 for guests.

The Garden Club's centennial also reaches into everyday Village errands. Bloom Again, the club's resale shop with its entrance on La Granada, now has Mikki Kristola as manager. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Those hours line up with the Rancho Sandwich lunch window across the Village, so a weekday morning can cover the resale racks and lunch under the clock tower.

Planning around the gap

The Fandango ends at 8 p.m. on Oct. 24, a Saturday. For a late dinner afterward, Paseo's kitchen takes orders until 9:45 p.m. on Saturdays. Paseo Pizza and Gelato is open until 9. On Oct. 13, Rancho Sandwich is open until 4 p.m., which leaves time for lunch in the Village before the 3 p.m. oak planting. For a Sunday dinner in the Village, Paseo Pizza and Gelato is the only one of the three new places that is open.

Nick & G's says it will return in November, in the same Lilian Rice building, with an olive tree in the dining room and chef/partner Alex Carballo in the kitchen.

Several of the Village's historic buildings, including the old schoolhouse and the Millar family home, have new owners, new uses or new interiors this year. If you own near the Village and want to know where your home stands as the Village changes, Kathleen Gelich offers a private, senior-led home valuation built around your specific street.