A major new public market and community space is on currently on track to debut this fall in the South Bay, gathering 14 diverse local food and retail vendors under its barrel-ceilinged roof. Housed in a renovated 1940s-era building, Market on 8th spans 9,000-square-feet in downtown National City and will feature plenty of indoor and outdoor communal seating.
Developer Joel Tubao, who grew up in National City and owns other properties in the area, recently shared Market on 8th’s final food roster, which has changed since the large-scale project was first announced. Adjacent to Wordsmith, the incoming culinary store that will sell cookbooks and chef supplies as well as host events, National City native chef Phillip Esteban will an open an extension of Weapon, the ramen shop that’s one of two stalls Esteban operates at Liberty Public Market. At 600-square-feet, it’ll be the only food vendor to have its own dedicated seating, and Esteban tells Eater that he’s planning to add breakfast bento boxes, Japanese sandos, and binchotan-grilled fish to Weapon’s menu of ramen and chirashi bowls.
Market on 8th will have wide representation of Asian cuisine; in addition to Weapon, there will be Indonesian food, Thai-style skewers, another location of popular Convoy dessert shop MNGO cafe, and the first brick-and-mortar spot for Filipino pop-up Serbesa.
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Other San Diego names taking up residence in the public market include Moe Coffee, which has outposts in Little Italy and North Park, Chula Vista’s La Central Urban Grill, Poway transplant Pacific Poke, and Smitty’s Taste of the Bayou which previously operated in North Park; The Fresh Yard, a retail boutique with a flagship on 30th Street, will also be part of the space. And Pizza Kaiju, a pizza pop-up from a team of local chefs that found great success during the pandemic, plans to serve a variety of styles including Detroit pan pizza.
Tubao is also a partner at Novo Brazil Brewing Company, which will have a satellite tasting room and beer garden at the venue. He tells Eater that there is one space remaining but a tenant should be secured soon.
