Eddie V’s Moves Into Historic Ocean View Location

It’s tempting to dismiss a corporate restaurant as unexciting. So many of them fall prey to the status quo: unchallenging menus with little latitude—lacking heart. Whether Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, slated to open in early August in the long abandoned Chart House spot at 1270 Prospect is counted among these uninventive types remains to be seen but, according to the group’s president and CEO, the place will have heart.

In fact, it’s clear after interviewing Jim VanDercook, who’s been in the restaurant business for 30 years, that he, at least, is full of it—heart, that is. And joy. He loves La Jolla, and he and Chef Bill Greenwood, who will helm the seafood-cum-steakhouse, have long wanted to open a restaurant like this in The Village. The area holds meaning; VanDercook proposed to his wife 25 years ago at . And he once lived in the area—years ago, when the letters CEO were less important than BYOB.

“I used to bartend for across the street, and Boxford’s; Doug Manchester used to own it,” he said.

And now he’s in charge of San Diego’s first Eddie V’s. The Scottdale, AZ-based restaurant group includes two locations in Scottsdale, several in Texas and one in Newport Beach. Some go by Roaring Fork or Wildfish Seafood Grille. The new locale will be three levels high with approximately 9,300 square feet of space.

“I used to go up into the little bar upstairs [when it was The Chart House] and try to get a window table. The [old] pine tree is still there,” VanDercook said. “What’s fun for us is I think we can kind of reinvent that.”

Long time La Jollans know the property, still under construction, as more than just the former Chart House. It was originally the famed Green Dragon Colony, a group of cottages built by Anna Held Heinrich between 1894 and 1902 that served as a retreat for composers, artists, authors, teachers and architects. Heinrich’s own cottage, “Green Dragon,” was among them.

When asked whether Eddie V’s will compete with or complement other local California coastal seafood restaurants such as , VanDercook talked about his early experiences as an upwardly mobile vacationer in the area, looking for different places to eat each night.

“When I would stay in La Jolla a week or 10 days on vacation, I would just try a variety of restaurants, whether it was something Sami [Ladeki] was doing with or FRESH,” he said.

VanDercook said in order to distance the restaurant from the stigma of “corporate,” he’s not only hiring local managers, servers, bartenders and cooks, but sourcing ingredients from local growers and artisans. Chef Greenwood, now a full-time La Jollan, has been meeting with the likes of Lucila de Alejandra and Robin Taylor of Suzie’s Organic Farm, and purveyors such as Bread & Cie in Hillcrest, Catalina Offshore Products near Fiesta Island and Winchester Cheese Company in Riverside County. But, while they’ll try to source from—and support—local vendors, it comes down to quality of product.

“I think you look at who has what at what time,” VanDercook said, while explaining that he and his team plan to develop—and honor—relationships with local purveyors, indicating on the menu where they purchase the baby artichokes used in one dish or fresh fennel used in another.

“There’s so much knowledge today; the consumer’s so well educated. Words like farm-to-table and locally grown that have been around are now buzz words; they’re a lot more known today to a wider community,” he said. “It used to be just the foodies [knew them].”

VanDercook and Greenwood know that in order to be competitive among the fine restaurants of La Jolla, they’ll have to impress immediately.

“There are things we need to do to support the community. I’m one of the partners in it. I lived in San Diego for about 20 years. I feel like we fit right in with the community,” he said. “We’re not an outsider in some community that wants to build restaurants all over the place.”