Gutted

The nightmare year continues its ominous roll. San Diego Eater reported today that Tiger!Tiger! will not reopen. Done. Gone. History. Memory. This one hurts. I did not frequent Tiger!Tiger! because I do not live nearby, but the times I went were all great. Every time. Good food; outstanding beer. The ambience, the employees, and the diverse menu and beer list, when mashed together made each visit positive. It was one of those places that if we wanted to venture out of our neighborhood we always thought about, because we knew the meal would be special and worth it. 

During the COVID lockdown, we have picked up pizzas, salad, and beer from Blind Lady Alehouse (BLAH), Tiger!Tiger!'s sister restaurant, and the process from order to pickup to quality of the food was excellent. After reading the Eater article and interview with Tiger!Tiger! and BLAH owner Clea Hantman, it is time to get another order into BLAH.

I try to keep this blog positive. I try to not even give bad beer reviews anymore (although they are more fun and easier to write). The unrelenting bad news is becoming hard to handle. Restaurants like Tiger!Tiger! made San Diego a better place to live. I am worried about another restaurant here in Point Loma, Royale!, which has been "temporarily" closed for over a month. I am trying to stay optimistic, but still afraid "temporarily" becomes permanent. I know new restaurants will open, and they will be good, but that does not ease my immediate anger about all the Tiger!Tiger!s that are being forced to closed due to events they did not cause. So much damage was avoidable and COVID's impact should have been far less catastrophic. I thought of the last lines of Philip Larkin's short poem The Mower when I heard about Tiger!Tiger!:

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time.