Padres set to open 50-seat upscale cocktail lounge near Petco Park

Diamond Room, an upscale, 50-seat cocktail lounge co-owned by the San Diego Padres, will open Friday in the former City Tacos location near Gallagher Square at Petco Park in downtown San Diego.

Located near the San Diego Padres ballpark’s Gaslamp Gate at Seventh Avenue and K Street, Diamond Room will serve classics-inspired cocktails and food in a 1970s retro-chic setting, with red velvet curtains, black leather booths, mirrors, turntables, album displays and a disco ball.

The Diamond Room project is the first collaboration between Finest Collective, the Padres’ hospitality and events division, and Patina Group, the fine dining/hospitality arm of Delaware North, which oversees concessions at Petco Park.

L.A.-based Patina Group runs a number of higher-end restaurants and bars in entertainment, music and sports venues around the country, including at Downtown Disney in Anaheim and at Lincoln Center in New York City.

In a phone interview on Sunday, San Diego Padres CEO Erik Greupner said Diamond Room helps fulfill a promise the Padres made to San Diegans back in 1998, when voters overwhelmingly approved Prop. C, the ballot measure that authorized the use of public funds to build the popular downtown baseball park.

“We’ve increasingly activated not just the ballpark, but Gallagher Square year-round,” Greupner said. “We promised to be more than a ballpark with 81 home games. There’s a vibrant energy for our region, specifically downtown, because we do so many events in addition to the 81 home games.”

When the 2,138-square-foot City Tacos outlet at 323 N. Seventh Ave. closed last June, Greupner said the Padres saw it as an great opportunity to expand the area’s food and beverage offerings, particularly because there isn’t an upscale cocktail concept in the immediate area.

“The space is perfectly adjacent to Gallagher Square and the ballpark and it will be a really great amenity for fans of music and baseball when they come down to Petco Park,” he said.

The look of Diamond Room will playfully celebrate San Diego’s “stay classy” look and vibe of the 1970s (including a cocktail named after newsman Ron Burgundy’s dog in the San Diego-set film comedy “Anchorman”). The bar is in the southwest corner of the historic Simon Levi Building, a restored early 20th-century warehouse.

Diamond Room will have a menu of 14 cocktails, including two non-alcoholic options. The aforementioned “Anchorman”-inspired drink is the Baxter’s Old Fashioned, with Green River bourbon, California-made Brucato Orchards Amaro, demerara brown sugar, aromatic bitters and orange peel.

There’s also the Diamond Margarita, a clarified cocktail with Casa Dragones tequilla blanco, lime and Grand Marnier, and the Fluffy Garibaldi, made with Campari liqueur and orange juice that’s nitro-infused tableside with an orange wedge jell-o shot. There will also be extensive wine and beer offerings.

The bar will also serve a limited food menu, with appetizers, salads, flatbreads, hand-held items and a ’70s-inspired fondue for two. Its sigature dish will be the Diamond Dog, a Snake River Farms Korean-style corndog with kim chi crispy shallots and spicy mayo.

Greupner said Diamond Room will also serve as a special events space. It will regularly host Patina Group’s “Shaken & Stirred” interactive mixology classes for groups of six to 10. The bar will be available for private rentals for up to 50 guests, and it can accommodate even larger parties by expanding into Finest Collective’s adjoining office space. When things warm up next summer, Diamond Room will also offer outdoor patio seating.

Diamond Room will be managed by Jason Hatton, a San Diego native and mixologist who recently trained with Patina Group at its Disney Springs property near Walt Disney World in Florida.

Diamond Room’s initial operating hours beginning Friday will be 4 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays and 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays and Mondays (closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays). Greupner said the bar’s hours will expand when the Padres’ home season begins and when onsite concerts and other events are scheduled at Gallagher Square and Petco Park.

For more details visit diamondroomsd.com.