After 23 years in business, the Cohn Restaurant Group-owned Blue Point Coastal Cuisine in downtown San Diego has abruptly shuttered due to a lease fallout with a landlord, owners confirmed.
“For seven years we’ve been trying to work out a lease extension with our landlord, and unfortunately, although we were very close, the landlord leased the space to another restaurant at the very last minute,” David Cohn, co-founder of Cohn Restaurant Group, told NBC 7 Wednesday.
When patrons walked up to the long-standing restaurant at Market Street and Fifth Avenue earlier this week, they were met with a sign posted on the door explaining it was closed – for good.
“Effective November 24, 2019 Blue Point Coastal Cuisine will be permanently closed for business,” the sign read. “Thank you for your patronage over the past 23 years. It has been a pleasure to serve you, your family and friends.”
Cohn said his company feels fortunate to have been part of the Gaslamp community but, over the past two decades, the downtown San Diego restaurant landscape has changed, favoring more casual concepts in the heart of the Gaslamp.
This, naturally, has impacted CRG’s upscale seafood restaurant – and what it was set to become.
“Having been a white tablecloth restaurant for 23 years, our plan was to remodel and re-concept to a more casual restaurant,” Cohn said in an email.
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Cohn told NBC 7 that CRG was given a notice of 10 days by its landlord before having to shutter the property. Despite the quick turn-around, he said all Blue Point Coastal Cuisine employees have either been transferred to other CRG locations or found work at other San Diego-area restaurants.
At this point, it is unknown which restaurant will move into the now-empty space. NBC 7 is trying to track those details down.
The Cohn Restaurant Group has been around for nearly 40 years. The hospitality collective runs 27 restaurants including well-known, uniquely San Diego spots like Corvette Diner, The Prado at Balboa Park, Coasterra, Island Prime, and Indigo Grill, just to name a few.
