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How Sam the Cooking Guy Won the Internet | San Diego Magazine

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1 year ago

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How Sam the Cooking Guy Won the Internet | San Diego Magazine


About seven to 10 years ago, Troy found himself on a flight from Chicago to San Diego, sitting next to none other than now-YouTube star and restaurateur, Sam the Cooking Guy. A bomb threat had diverted the plane to Phoenix instead. Amidst the chaos and fear, they found themselves calling and texting their loved ones back in San Diego, unsure of what was happening. 

Sam the Cooking Guy is our guest on this week’s Happy Half Hour. Spoiler: He and Troy survived that fateful flight and remain happily trauma-bonded to this day (we get into details of what happened and how it all ended in the episode). 

These days, Sam’s also sitting pretty at 3.7 million YouTube followers as of publish and just opened his latest restaurant, Basta, in Little Italy. The new concept joins his other restaurants including Not Not Tacos, Samburgers, Graze, and Coo Coo’s Nest. In classic Sam style, the food follows only a few rules, resulting in brain-bending, mouth-watering combos like deep-fried pate à choux gnocchi with cacio e pepe aioli. It’s one of the best things we’ve ever popped in our mouths.

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Sam shared insights into his journey from being miserable in a corporate biotech job to finding success, fame, and, most importantly, happiness from taking the leap into his cooking and media career. “I was miserable. I knew I needed to find a way to make me happy,” Sam remembers. 

Courtesy of Basta!

He took a bet on YouTube at the behest of his son who saw the platform’s promise and paired it with his dad’s love for cooking and irreverent personality. “He’s a really talented guy that learned how to cook live on TV and now is actually a great cook,” Troy says, describing Sam’s unique journey of becoming kitchen-fluent live and on-camera, while becoming famous at the same time.

Sam’s YouTube channel, which has now grown to nearly 4 million subscribers, is a testament to his perseverance, creativity, and adaptability. He recalled the grinding early days, which netted him only 30,000 subscribers after seven years. But a shift in approach—shorter, better-produced videos—catapulted his channel into the stratosphere. 

“We started to make things that we imagined our audience would want to see,” Sam explained. This includes making mistakes, which he doesn’t edit out, and evaluating his viewers and playing to what he thinks they’d like to eat and cook. “It’s all part of the process,” he says. 

The cover of Sam the Cooking Guy's new book
Courtesy of Amazon

Part of that now includes several restaurants, as well as a number of successful cookbooks. Sam continues to chug on–his latest cookbook, Sam the Cooking Guy: Between the Buns, showcases his love for comfort food with a twist, which reflects the kind of dishes you can find at his restaurants and in his videos.

We also dove into the local culinary news: A new Japanese fusion spot called Cherryfish is set to open in Pacific Beach this September. Owners Danielle and Carlos Marcos are eager to “contribute to the wave of culinary change in the area.” Meanwhile, chefs Nick Weber and Jacob Jordan are making waves in Oceanside with their Chinese cuisine pop-up, 24 Suns, which has been receiving rave reviews for its seasonal summer menu.

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San Diego, CA

Proposed fuel pipeline draws interest from investors. Can it give San Diego drivers a break?

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10 hours ago

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January 7, 2026

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Proposed fuel pipeline draws interest from investors. Can it give San Diego drivers a break?


Plenty of financial and regulatory hurdles still need to be cleared, but a fuels pipeline project that may lead to lower gas prices in San Diego and Southern California has received a healthy amount of interest from other companies.

Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan have proposed building what they’ve dubbed the Western Gateway Pipeline that would use a combination of existing infrastructure plus new construction to establish a corridor for refined products that would stretch 1,300 miles from St. Louis to California.

If completed, one leg of the pipeline would be the first to deliver motor fuels into California, a state often described as a fuel island that is disconnected from refining hubs in the U.S.

The two companies recently announced the project “has received significant interest” from shippers and investors from what’s called an “open season” that wrapped up on Dec. 19 — so much so that a second round will be held this month for remaining capacity.

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“That’s a strong indicator that people would be willing to commit to put volume on that pipeline to bring it west long enough for them to be able to pay off their investment and provide a return for their investors,” said David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, a transportation energy consulting company in Irvine. “They won’t build this thing on spec. They’ll need commitments from shippers to do this.”

The plans for the Western Gateway Pipeline include constructing a new line from the Texas Panhandle town of Borger to Phoenix. Meanwhile, the flow on an existing pipeline that currently runs from the San Bernardino County community of Colton to Arizona would be reversed, allowing more fuel to remain in California.

The entire pipeline system would link refinery supply from the Midwest to Phoenix and California, while also providing a connection into Las Vegas.

The proposed route for the Western Gateway Pipeline, a project announced by Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan designed to bring refined products like gasoline to states such as Arizona and keep more supplies within California. (Phillips 66)

A spokesperson for Kinder Morgan told the Union-Tribune in October that there are no plans for the project to construct any new pipelines in California and the proposal “should put downward pressure” on prices at the pump.

“With no new builds in California and using pipelines currently in place, it’s an all-around win-win — good for the state and consumers,” Kinder Morgan’s director of corporate communications, Melissa D. Ruiz, said in an email.

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The second round of “open season” will include offerings of new destinations west of Colton that would allow Western Gateway shippers access to markets in Los Angeles.

Even with sufficient investor support, the project would still have to go through an extensive regulatory and permitting process that would undoubtedly receive pushback from environmental groups.

Should the pipeline get built, Hackett said it’s hard to predict what it would mean at the pump for Southern California drivers. But he said the project could ensure more fuel inventory remains inside California, thus reducing reliance on foreign imports, especially given potential political tensions in the South China Sea.



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San Diego, CA

San Diego sues federal government over razor wire fence near U.S.-Mexico border

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22 hours ago

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January 6, 2026

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San Diego sues federal government over razor wire fence near U.S.-Mexico border


The city of San Diego has filed a lawsuit against the federal government that alleges the construction of a razor wire fence near the U.S.-Mexico border constitutes trespassing on city property and has caused environmental harm to the land.

The complaint filed Monday in San Diego federal court states that razor wire fencing being constructed by U.S. Marines in the Marron Valley area has harmed protected plant and wildlife habitats and that the presence of federal personnel there represents unpermitted trespassing.

The lawsuit, which names the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Defense among its defendants, says that city officials first discovered the presence of Marines and federal employees in the area in December.

The fencing under construction has blocked city officials from accessing the property to assess and manage the land, and the construction efforts have” caused and will continue to cause property damage and adverse environmental impacts,” according to the lawsuit.

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The suit seeks an injunction ordering the defendants to cease and desist from any further trespass or construction in the area.

“The city of San Diego will not allow federal agencies to disregard the law and damage city property,” City Attorney Heather Ferbert said in a statement. “We are taking decisive action to protect sensitive habitats, uphold environmental commitments and ensure that the rights and resources of our community are respected.”



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San Diego, CA

Padres roster review: Sung-Mun song

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1 day ago

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January 6, 2026

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Padres roster review: Sung-Mun song





Padres roster review: Sung-Mun song – San Diego Union-Tribune


















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SUNG-MUN SONG

  • Position(s): Third base, second base
  • Bats / Throws: Left / Right
  • 2026 opening day age: 29
  • Height / Weight: 6-foot / 194 pounds
  • How acquired: Signed as a free agent in December 2025
  • Contract status: A four-year, $15 million deal will see Song make $2.5 million in 2026, $3 million in 2027, $3.5 million in 2028 and $4 million in 2029 if he does not opt out of last year; Half of his $1 million signing bonus is due in January 2026 and the other half in 2027; There is a $7 million mutual option for 2030.
  • fWAR in 2025: N/A
  • Key 2025 stats (KBO): .315 AVG, .387 OBP, .530 SLG, 26 HRs, 90 RBIs, 103 runs, 68 walks, 96 strikeouts, 25 steals (144 games, 646 plate appearances)

 

STAT TO NOTE

  • .214 — Song’s isolated power in 2025, a career high as he prepared for a jump to the majors. Isolated power measures a player’s raw power (extra bases per at-bat) and Song had a .190 OPS in 2018, in his third year as a pro in Korea, before it dropped to .101 in 2019 and then a career-low .095 in 2023. Hitting 19 homers pushed Song’s isolated power to .178 in 2024 and then a career-high 26 homers push it even higher in 2025.

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