Up on the Roof

THE DRIFTERS HAD IT almost right. Twenty-two stories up on the roof of the San Diego Marriott Gaslamp Quarter, it’s not exactly peaceful as can be. But still, the world below can’t bother me. It’s a late-spring night, the weathermeter toggles between heavy mist and light rain, and the Altitude Bar is soaring.

A Sanyo blimp floats overhead, while some 250 feet below——and a line drive to the southeast——is the glorious pasture of Petco Park, where the semifinals of the 2006 World Baseball Classic are playing out. There’s only one way the view from here could be better. That’s if the U.S. team hadn’t washed out in the early going. So, nobody argues when a fan wearing a Dominican Republic jersey——and still reveling in his team’s quarterfinal victory——sounds off: “We’re gonna show these guys where baseball really comes from!”

Tonight, it’s a stirring mélange of sight and sound as the Japanese and Koreans go at it. That pop I just heard wasn’t a champagne cork from the bar. It was Japan’s Kosuke Fukudome popping a two-run homer off the Korean reliever to break a scoreless tie in the seventh inning, en route to a victory.

Management at the Altitude Bar doesn’t promise this sort of action every night. But there’s action, and then there’s action. Of downtown’s three premier hotel rooftop bars, this is the most diverse of crowds, where business travelers mix with sports nuts and career women merge with conventioneers. And the music that pours from the deejay’s booth reflects the diversity, offering up everything from Busta Rhymes to Ol’ Blue Eyes.

The difference between Altitude and attitude may be only one letter, but the difference spells success for this friendliest of nighttime nests. Not much posing going on here——from the patrons or staff. No cover charge. No dress code. No surly bouncers. Call it “polite security.”

General manager Jim Durbin, who once owned his own small hotel chain, came out of early retirement to run the Gaslamp Quarter Marriott. And its success makes it all worth it. This Marriott fits the boutique mold.

“Only 306 rooms,” he says. “But it’s 10th in the international chain of 337 Marriotts for overall guest satisfaction.” A good deal of that satisfaction is reflected in the numbers for Altitude. The bar holds 225 patrons. On a good night, with turnover, it’ll count 1,800 customers.

Altitude was not the first, nor is it the newest, but it’s the loftiest in San Diego’s trend toward rooftop nightlife. The W started the game four years ago with its Beach bar on the third-floor balcony at the corner of Columbia and B Streets. Not many scenic vistas from this perch, crowded as it is by high-rise office buildings. But then, the W was re-creating a beach here. And with its floor of heated sand (3 tons of it), fire pit, tropical cabañas (you can rent them for a $500 food-and-drink minimum), comfy chaises and full menu of tropical libations——along with a gentle breeze blowing in from San Diego Bay——a beach is pretty much what you get.

When the weather cooperates, which is about 95 percent of the time in San Diego, the Beach bar is as crowded as Mission Beach in July. When the hotel opened, there were lines of hopefuls snaking around the corner and down the block to win a couple square feet of sand. On weekend nights, you may still have to queue up. I’m here on a Wednesday night, and for most of my visit, it’s pretty much me and bartender Bayardo De Murguia. I’ve chosen one of the 5 percent nights; a light but steady rain is falling on the Beach.

Fortunately, I’ve been here before. So I can report that on weekends, on the clear nights, it’s still an in-crowd crush of upscale boomers and Gen-Xers, be they hotel guests or locals. To goose up the action midweek, Bayardo reports, the Beach recently added a 92101 Happy Hour. On Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m., patrons who live and/or work in the downtown ZIP code get drink discounts. (Don’t worry. Nobody asks for business cards or driver’s licenses.)

FOR PURE HIP, or cool, or tight, Jbar, on the dividing line of the Gaslamp Quarter and the Ballpark District, is it. This expansive playground on the fourth-floor roof of Kimpton’s boutique Hotel Solamar includes a lap pool; neon-trimmed gazebo; a palapa-style curved bar with lights trimmed in grass skirts; and the ubiquitous cabañas. This is pretty uptown when it comes to downtown. The cabañas at Jbar rent for minimums of $300 to $1,000 on weekends.

The Jbar crowd —— which peaks Thursday-Saturday nights——is a fairly balanced mix of attractive hotel guests and attractive young professionals who pour from surrounding office suites still wearing their Brioni suits and Versace frocks. There’s no strict dress code——and that, you may note, extends to the cocktail waitresses. On cooler nights, the bar staff may resort to warm-up suits. On weekends, you see considerably more skin, when guests of the hotel congregate in and around the adjacent rooftop pool. (The pool is designated for hotel guests only, but the occasional bar patron has been known to dip.)

The bad news for Jbar is that yet another Ballpark District condominium tower will soon obscure most of its view of Petco Park. The good news is that the best view isn’t out, but in. It’s a decidedly eye-friendly clientele that frequents this urban oasis. And when the inevitable high-rise rises, there’ll still be the Padre Margarita on the drink menu.

Unique among the rooftop hotel bars, Jbar has its own kitchen. And what comes out of it is delicious and surprisingly reasonable. We’re not talking hot dogs and chili burgers here——although the prices are within the range. A skewer of tender beef with Cabernet sauce comes with a little grilled blue-cheese sandwich for $5 ($3 during the 4:30-6:30 p.m. Happy Hour). A duck confit quesadilla with roasted poblano aioli is $8. A shrimp cocktail of Hawaiian blue prawns ($9.50) boasts a cocktail sauce hot enough to cure goose flesh on a cocktail waitress who forgot her warm-up suit.

In a bow to poolside safety codes and potential lawsuits, the shrimp cocktail comes in a rather unchic martini glass made of plastic. But it’s a minor blemish on an otherwise flawless face. Up on any one of these three roofs, you stand a pretty good chance of finding a world that’s trouble-proof.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »