For nearly a decade, the restaurant space tucked in UC San Diego’s Old Student Center has struggled to keep a permanent identity.
Porter’s Pub. Soda & Swine. Uncle Italian. Underbelly. Shores Diner. Now, IPO BBQ.
For many on campus, Shores’ closure came abruptly. But, in the context of the Old Student Center’s broader history, the restaurant’s disappearance is less of an isolated incident and more of another chapter in a decade-long cycle of reinvention.
Each concept arrived with ambitious plans to transform the location into a social hub for students. Porter’s Pub, the first restaurant to occupy the space in 1993, remains one of the most recognizable former tenants of the Old Student Center. The lease for Porter’s — a go-to spot on campus for beer, comfort food, and live music — was not renewed by the University Centers Advisory Board. This decision was due to negative feedback from the UCSD community gathered through student surveys, which highlighted concerns such as weak sales and limited student access to the stage spaces. The restaurant closed on June 30, 2015.
Each restaurant introduced a new atmosphere and menu to the location. And one by one, they all disappeared.
Following the closure of Porter’s Pub, San Diego hospitality group Consortium Holdings took over the location and redeveloped it into Soda & Swine, a project that reportedly cost nearly $2 million. The company’s founder, UCSD alumnus Arsalun Tafazoli, previously expressed hopes that Consortium Holdings would remain part of UCSD “for the next decade or two.”
Instead, the space quickly cycled through new identities under different concepts and operators. Soda & Swine became Uncle Italian, which served pizza and pasta. By 2022, the space had transformed again into Underbelly, a ramen restaurant and bar. That concept lasted less than a full academic year before Shores Diner replaced it in 2024.
When Shores was first announced, co-owner Adam Jacoby, who also co-owns Dirty Birds, told SanDiegoVille that the diner idea had been developed after “listening to the students and faculty alike.” In a 2024 interview with The UCSD Guardian, Leslie Sepuka, associate director of University Communications, said that the opening of Shores reflected “student feedback and campus survey results” and would create an environment where students could “hang out, study, and have fun with friends.”
The emphasis on community and social gathering spaces was not unique to Shores. Nearly every restaurant since Porter’s Pub highlighted nightlife, events, or student gatherings in some form, yet none managed to establish long-term roots on campus.
The latest transition came this April when Shores Diner quietly closed after a little more than a year in operation. According to UCAB Vice Chair Holly Menninger, Shores’ owners chose to leave the space themselves, selling the remainder of their lease to IPO BBQ, the newest restaurant taking over.
Menninger said University Centers attempted to support Shores through additional programming in the area, including bingo nights and line dancing events near the Stage Room. Still, those efforts appeared to have limited success.
“I don’t think many people were surprised [with the closure],” Menninger said. “I don’t know a lot of people who went to Shores in the first place.”
The repeated turnover also raises broader questions about whether large social dining spaces still align with the habits of UCSD students. While many of the restaurants attempted to create destination-style social spaces on campus, few were able to sustain long-term student engagement.
IPO BBQ, which serves Hawaiian-style barbecue dishes, now occupies the former Shores location, becoming the latest restaurant to attempt to establish a lasting identity within the Old Student Center.
