In June of this year, Martino Hospitality Services, a San Diego based hospitality consulting firm completed a yearlong rebranding and renovation project for Treehouse Hospitality Group. After successfully opening Music Box for the group, a live music venue and event space in the ever popular Little Italy neighborhood, Treehouse tasked Andrew Martino to create a concept for vacant space on 5th Avenue in downtown San Diego. It was to be replacing the downtown Nicky Rotten's with Martino’s concept of a prohibition era sports bar and "Speakeasy”, aptly named 1919, a nod to the year of the Black Sox World Series scandal. The idea came together to connect the Prohibition cocktail era with the greatest sports scandal of all-time. Martino’s project debuted on time, opening up just before March Madness and the Major League Baseball season.

The San Diego 5th Avenue space is in a prime downtown location and has been thoroughly remodeled bringing the building back to its 1880’s original brick and mortar, creating a new vision for a neighborhood sports bar that includes a private dining room, 18 beers plus two cocktails on tap, 25 HDTVs with special technology that enables diners to listen to audio from any of the games on their smartphones, a weekday happy hour and a late night menu available until 1:19 a.m.

The build out area that Martino had to work with was comprised of two side by side parcels, one with a street level and second floor shell and the other with a street level entrance to a basement level space. The prohibition era “Speakeasy” concept works in conjunction with the sports bar in reference to the year of the “Black Sox Scandal”, which is also the year that Prohibition began. In 1919 eight Chicago White Sox players who were up against the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series were caught intentionally losing games in exchange for money from organized crime syndicates.

The menu at 1919 and Last Call Lounge ranges from fried chicken skins to fancy popcorn, a charcuterie board, salads, soups and larger plates that includes gourmet burger variations, chicken and waffles and an open faced short rib cornbread sandwich. There is also a drink list that runs from whiskey with homemade vanilla cola and prosecco with elderflower liqueur to shots with house made pickle backs. Their Pickle Back Program, features several homemade pickle back selections to pair with spirits, like Woodford Rye with a strawberry pickle back, or a generous shot of Herradura Reposado with a pineapple-jalapeño pickle back. “I wanted to create a menu that focused on refined bar food that would allow customers to enjoy familiar flavors in a more creative way,” said Martino.

Prohibition, the underground “Speakeasy” is accessed through a street level entrance with a simple “Attorney at Law” sign on the entryway door. Prohibition is opened from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday and features live jazz, blues and soul music.

Prohibition offers a hand crafted cocktail list with spins on Prohibition-era drinks, riffs on a daiquiri and original recipes. It also has a dress code, which is enforced on Fridays and Saturdays, and a “secret” password system for entry that is being passed around San Diego’s elite, via word of mouth, for front-of-the-line privileges.

Last call lounge features live music Sunday-Wednesday nights with a cocktail menu that features a shareable format. Drinks are made for one, for two, or for a few with specialty punch bowls and frozen riffs on classical cocktails such as the frozen tropical Negroni. The low lit lounge is a great escape from the high energy sports bar located on the ground floor.

In a previous project for Treehouse, Martino Hospitality Services consulted on the opening of Music Box in September of 2015. The firm helped in the hiring of key members of the team, the build out of the venue, setting up standard operating procedures for the operation, and the marketing and PR for the venue. Martino’s firm also previously overhauled the management team and operation of Nicky Rotten’s Bar and Burger Joint in Coronado in the summer of 2015 for Treehouse Hospitality Group.

Martino Hospitality Services is located at: HOSPITALITY CONSULTANTS 5125 Convoy Street, Suite 201 San Diego, CA 92111. Andrew can be reached at 201-213-8330 or by email at: [email protected].