San Diego lists 7,673 places, and 5,520 of them are restaurants. The count also includes 384 quick service spots, 833 cafes and 821 bars. Coffee shops and cafes (877) take the top spot, followed by Mexican (703) and bars (691) in the category counts for this guide.
San Diego's 54.6 places per ten thousand residents put it above the 41.8 median across all cities.
5,762 listings are independent; the chains that show up most are Starbucks (171), Subway (84), Jack in the Box (49) and McDonald's (46).
In the Servestack Independent Restaurant Index, San Diego ranks #54 of 332 large US cities for the share of places that are independent.
Food in San Diego by cuisine
Coffee shops and cafes in San Diego
- Cafe · Chain · 12889 Rancho Peñasquitos Blvd A
- Cafe · Chain · 789 W. Harbor Drive Old Police Headquarters
- Cafe · Chain · 3352 Adams Ave
- Cafe · Chain · 1206 28th St
- Cafe · Chain · 5492 Mission Center Rd.
- Cafe · Chain · 3202 Governor Dr
Mexican in San Diego
- Restaurant · Mexican · 2363 Midway Dr
- Restaurant · Mexican · Chain · 4370 Genesee Ave
- Restaurant · Mexican · 3910 30th St
- Restaurant · Mexican · 9272 Miramar Rd
- Restaurant · Mexican · Chain · 1460 S 43rd St
- Restaurant · Mexican · 5145 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
Bars in San Diego
- Bar · 528 F St
- Bar · 930 Market St
- Restaurant · 1776 Shelter Island Dr
- Bar · 308 University Ave
- Bar · 1807 Fifth Ave
- Bar · 5034 Newport Ave
Pizza in San Diego
- Restaurant · Pizza · Chain · 2810 El Cajon Blvd
- Restaurant · Pizza · Chain · 12650 Sabre Springs Pkwy
- Restaurant · Pizza · 2555 Morena Blvd
- Restaurant · Pizza · 5335 Overland Ave
- Restaurant · Pizza · 4634 Mission Blvd
- Restaurant · Pizza · Chain · 5618 Mission Center Rd
Sandwiches and delis in San Diego
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · Chain · 1722 Euclid Ave
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · 4984 Voltaire St
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · 4651 Mission Gorge Pl #4147
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · Chain · 2015 Garnet Ave Ste 101b
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · 4504 Park Blvd
- Restaurant · Sandwiches and delis · 3357 Rosecrans St
Japanese in San Diego
- Restaurant · Japanese · Sushi · 12075 Carmel Mountain Rd #205
- Restaurant · Japanese · 4240 Kearny Mesa Rd
- Restaurant · Japanese · Chain · 8973 Mira Mesa Blvd
- Restaurant · Japanese · Sushi · 2628 Del Mar Heights Rd
- Restaurant · Japanese · 4380 Kearny Mesa Rd
- Restaurant · Japanese · Sushi · 1953 India St
Own a restaurant in San Diego?
6,922 of the 7,673 places here (90%) list a website. When a guest searches for food in San Diego and lands on a delivery app instead of your site, the app takes a commission on the order and shows them your competitors. Servestack gives you your own ordering site with zero commission, POS sync and loyalty, and Studio makes the menus, flyers and posts to promote it. See what you would keep with the commission savings calculator, or browse the restaurant marketing guides.
Place data from the Overture Maps Foundation (overturemaps.org), which includes data from Meta, Microsoft and Foursquare, used under the CDLA Permissive 2.0 and Apache 2.0 licenses. Restaurants open, close and move; check with the restaurant before you go. Data refreshed 2026-10-11.