Chris Miller came to Rancho Santa Fe as a teenager from Fallbrook and painted horse corral fences to help pay for college. Decades later he owned a bank building at El Tordo and La Granada, and it had a corner conference room nobody used much. He had no restaurant experience. In June he opened a sandwich shop in that room. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that permits from six different county and state agencies took a year and required a new plumbing system.
His opening marketing was a sign and a bunch of balloons. According to Miller, more than 100 people a day were already coming through during the soft opening.
That shop, Rancho Sandwich and Creamery, is one of several small openings that changed how the Village works this year. Most of them came from owners who were already on these blocks. They also arrived while the community's planned gathering place, up the hill on Via de la Cumbre, was still closed for renovation.
The hub the Association planned
In December 2025, about 400 Rancho Santa Fe Association members came to a kickoff party for the Ranch Clubhouse renovation. The Union-Tribune described the goal as making the clubhouse "the place to go for everybody in the Ranch," a central hub for the whole community and not only golf club members.
The $9.4 million plan included structural repairs to the 18-year-old building, an open floor plan around a central circular bar, a larger patio and new sliding glass walls facing the golf course. The historic wood beams stay. Construction was scheduled to start January 15, 2026, with a grand reopening set for August. Christmas Eve 2025 was the restaurant's last day of service before the work began.
On publish day, the Association's Ranch Clubhouse page still says the clubhouse at 5827 Via De La Cumbre is closed for renovations. Members can still get food at the Snack Bar, which is open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed Mondays. The page says that service lasts "until its renovation phase begins." The Snack Bar has its own project. In February the Association board approved a $3.3 million remodel, paid for entirely by the golf club, which adds a bigger kitchen, ADA-compliant restrooms and a small upper deck that RSF Golf Club Manager Shanon McCarthy described as having "one of the best views of the golf course for everyone to come and enjoy."
So the Clubhouse restaurant is closed for renovation, and the Snack Bar now covering for it has its own approved renovation ahead. Meanwhile, the Village has been adding places down the hill.
What opened on El Tordo and Paseo Delicias
Rancho Sandwich and Creamery, 6110 El Tordo, sits under the clock tower at the corner of La Granada. When it opened, the Union-Tribune called it "a much-needed grab-and-go breakfast and lunch option" in the Village. Breakfast includes avocado toast, breakfast burritos, muffins and bagels. Lunch is sandwiches and wraps made with Boar's Head meats and O'Brien's bread, finished with an "RSC" sticker. The sandwich menu was developed with help from Alexis Mendez and Art Preciado, the owner of Sandwich Bags Deli in Santee. Soft serve is the "Creamery" part, and a wall mural by Carmel Valley's Hanna's Murals reads "Ice cream fixes everything." It is open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Paseo Pizza and Gelato, 6024 Paseo Delicias, Unit D, held its grand opening September 25 and 26. Owner Jennifer Fields also runs Paseo next door, which she opened last fall in the former Rancho Santa Fe Bistro space. The new place has 18 signature pies plus build-your-own. The house pie, the Paseo, has Grande mozzarella, imported burrata, crispy prosciutto, arugula, balsamic glaze and olive oil. Gelato flavors rotate, and the shop brews its own craft beer. It is open seven days a week, noon to 9 p.m., with online ordering at paseopizzarsf.com.
Both openings follow the same pattern: an owner who is already in the Village turns a room they control into a place you can walk into without a reservation. Miller owned the building. Fields owned the business next door. Neither needed a new destination restaurant to make it work.
A weekday in the Village, by the clock
Put the posted hours side by side and you can see which parts of the day are now covered and which are still thin:
- 8 a.m. Rancho Sandwich and Creamery opens Monday through Saturday. The Association's Snack Bar opens for members at the same hour, Tuesday through Sunday.
- Noon. Paseo Pizza and Gelato opens every day of the week.
- 4 p.m. Rancho Sandwich and Creamery closes.
- 5 p.m. The Snack Bar closes.
- 9 p.m. Paseo Pizza and Gelato closes.
- Sunday morning. The sandwich shop is closed. Pizza starts at noon, and members still have the Snack Bar.
- Monday. The Snack Bar is closed, and the Village opens at 8 a.m. with the sandwich shop.
Before June, neither of these new places existed. Now a casual counter is open in the Village from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day but Sunday, when the day starts at noon. That is the gap the two new shops filled. Next comes the Village's sit-down room.
Nick & G's returns to a busier block
The corner of Paseo Delicias and La Granada is a Lilian Rice building from the 1920s. It was first the home of the Millar family, one of Rancho Santa Fe's earliest families. Later it housed Delicias restaurant for 24 years and, briefly, Ponsaty's. Local resident Sandra DiCicco-Bonar of the Grand Restaurant Group opened Nick & G's there in 2017 and named it after her children, Nicolas and Gianina.
The restaurant's website says it is "temporarily closed through November 15" for a refresh ahead of its tenth anniversary. The Union-Tribune's preview describes the changes:
- The room. The design, by Chef/Partner Alex Carballo with Rachael Lorraine Harris and Michael Soriano, is inspired by the Amalfi Coast, with yellows, oranges and blues. A large olive tree stands at the center of the dining room, with new custom banquettes and tables around it. From the dining room, guests can see through a new wine cellar into a lighter bar and lounge, and into the kitchen.
- Outside. The patio gets a wave-shaped shade canopy and lots of plants, and the back courtyard is redone as a garden with water features.
- The menu. It is smaller, with a coastal Italian-Americana focus on local produce, handmade pasta and seafood. Some Nick & G's favorites stay.
Carballo has about 20 years in San Diego restaurants, including Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens and Fox Point Farms, and he was the opening chef at The Crosby Club. He also oversees the Grand Restaurant Group's reworked Nómada in Carlsbad and the upcoming Bangers BBQ in Escondido.
His comments to the Union-Tribune connect the reopening to this year's new places nearby:
"I like the energy when there's more…it gives people a little more variety and a reason to go into Rancho Santa Fe, and we're in the heart of it."
That changes what Nick & G's is for. It used to be one of the few places on the block where you could sit down for a long meal. Now it comes back with pizza and gelato a short walk down Paseo Delicias and a lunch counter around the corner. A smaller menu, a private event space and a garden courtyard are the choices of a restaurant aiming at the evening and special-occasion end of a Village whose daytime is already covered. The restaurant has said it hopes to keep hosting live music, special dinners and community events, building on the multi-course Patrimony Estate wine dinner it held recently.
The rest of the walk
The new places join a group of long-standing Village spots that Carballo named himself: Mille Fleurs, Lilian's and the cafe at The Inn, Thyme in the Ranch, Caffe Positano and Rancho Roasters. Together with this year's openings, a few blocks of Paseo Delicias, La Granada and El Tordo now cover breakfast, coffee, a casual lunch, an early pizza dinner and a full evening out.
The clubhouse renderings promise sliding glass walls and a circular bar facing the fairways. When it reopens, it joins a Village that has changed since the Association planned it in December 2025. The Snack Bar's upper deck, planned for breakfast and coffee, adds one more morning option on the golf club campus. For now, a weekday lunch in the Ranch is a short walk from the clock tower on El Tordo.
If you're weighing how the Village's changing daytime fits your own routine, or how it shapes the appeal of homes within walking distance of Paseo Delicias, Pacific Harmony Realty is happy to talk it through. Schedule a free consultation with Patrick Brown for a calm, direct conversation about Rancho Santa Fe.
