Barbara Rourke and Jason St. John are the founders of Bells + Whistles, the award-winning hospitality design firm behind Providence, Lilo, Jeune et Jolie, Campfire, Animae, RYLA, Starlite, Broken Spanish, Dora Ristorante, and numerous other hospitality concepts throughout Southern California.

Named among Forbes' Top 100 Architects & Designers in America, Barbara and Jason have spent more than two decades designing restaurants, bars, hotels, wellness spaces, retail concepts, and hospitality experiences that shape how people gather, connect, and create memories.

In this conversation, we explore what it means to be creative on demand, the relationship between design and human behavior, designing at the Michelin-star level, empathetic design, leadership, curiosity, and the psychology behind unforgettable guest experiences.

Whether you're a designer, entrepreneur, hospitality professional, creative, or simply someone who appreciates great spaces, this conversation offers a rare behind the scenes look into the thinking, process, and philosophy of two of hospitality's most respected creatives.

Connect with Bells + Whistles:
Website: www.bw.design
Instagram: @bellsandwhistlesdesign

Connect with Barbara on Instagram: @theelegantcast

Connect with Jason on Instagram: @jasonwhistles

Follow Wellness on the Rocks on Instagram: @wellness_ontherocks

Listen to and watch all episodes of Wellness On The Rocks on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. Hosted, edited, and independently produced by bartender Taylor McQuade

On this episode of Wellness On The Rocks, Taylor McQuade sits down with Patrick Ballow, Managing Partner of Vino Carta in Little Italy, San Diego, as the neighborhood wine shop and bar celebrates its 10-year anniversary.

What started as a small, community-driven wine shop has grown into one of San Diego’s most respected hospitality spaces, built around approachable wine, genuine connection, and a passion for small family-run producers who farm organically, sustainably, and often naturally.

Patrick and Taylor reflect on the evolution of Little Italy over the last decade, the culture surrounding wine and hospitality in San Diego, building a business through changing times, and how places like Vino Carta slowly become part of the communities around them.

The conversation also dives into developing your palate, hospitality culture, leadership, business growth, and what it means to create a space where people can slow down, connect, and feel at home.

Vino Carta
2161 India St, San Diego, CA 92101

Purchase tickets to the upcoming 10-year anniversary block party on May 30th at:
https://www.vinocartasd.com

Follow Vino Carta:
@vinocarta
@patrick_ballow

Follow Wellness On The Rocks:
@wellness_ontherocks
@taylorredmondmcquade

All episodes of Wellness On The Rocks are hosted, produced, and edited by bartender Taylor McQuade.

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Roberto Alcocer is the chef behind Valle, the MICHELIN-starred restaurant in Oceanside, California. He is a James Beard Award semifinalist and a defining voice in modern Mexican cuisine.

With more than 25 years of experience cooking in Mexico, France, and Spain, Chef Roberto has built a career rooted in culture, discipline, and pushing standards forward.

From building his acclaimed restaurant Malva in Valle de Guadalupe to earning a Michelin star at Valle, he has helped redefine what Mexican fine dining can look like at the highest level.

In this episode, we sit down inside the kitchen at Valle to talk about excellence, leadership, sacrifice, family, culture, and what it takes to operate at the highest level.

Valle is located at 222 N Pacific St, Oceanside, CA 92054.

https://www.valleoceanside.com

Wellness On The Rocks is hosted, produced and edited by bartender Taylor McQuade. You can find all episodes on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

Follow on Instagram:

@alcocerroberto

@valleoceanside

@wellness_ontherocks

@taylorredmondmcquade

Rie and Dave Sims, the husband and wife team behind Warung RieRie, have created one of the most unique dining concepts in San Diego. An intimate, Indonesian fine dining setting built right in their backyard in Serra Mesa.

Rie grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she studied art and built a career in film and television production, eventually breaking into directing in the male dominated industry. After losing her father, she made the decision to move to Bali to reset and rebuild.

Dave, on the other hand, comes from a creative background in the U.S. and was first introduced to Indonesia through a surf trip. An experience that left a lasting impression and would later shape both his personal life and their shared vision.

The two met in Bali, built a life and business partnership, and years later brought that vision to San Diego. Starting with a spontaneous idea to ship a traditional Indonesian structure to their backyard.

What followed was something they largely “winged” into existence.

Warung RieRie is now San Diego’s first fully legal MEHKO (Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation) An invitation only dining concept rooted in culture, storytelling, and genuine human connection. Their work has since been recognized at the federal level with a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for their impact on the community, marking a historic milestone for both their business and the home kitchen movement.

To connect with them, reach out on Instagram: @warungrierie

You can find all episodes of Wellness On The Rocks on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.

Hosted and independently produced by bartender Taylor McQuade.

On today’s episode of Wellness On The Rocks, I’m joined by Nina Singer, the National Brand Experience and Marketing Manager for Humano Tequila.

Every year, Troy Johnson, Claire Johnson, and the team at San Diego Magazine do an incredible job highlighting the hospitality industry with their Best of San Diego issue, which the city gets to vote on. Since Nina and I both work in the industry, we thought it would be a cool idea to sit down and cast our votes.

San Diego runs off the hospitality industry. The restaurants, the bars, the hotels, and the people behind them are the heartbeat of this city.

So we sat down at Stout Public House, one of the great local industry bars, and went category by category, giving our picks while shouting out the people grinding every day here in San Diego.

A lot of the names we talk about in this episode aren’t just places, they’re regulars, they’re friends, they’re part of the community.

Huge shoutout to Stout Public House for letting us record in the bar. It’s home for me, and for a lot of people in this industry.

If you’re listening, go check these places out.
Go support these bars, these restaurants, these people.

And if you’re ever downtown, come by Stout.

Shoutout to Humano Tequila for supporting the episode.

Let us know what you think. Who we got right, who we got wrong.

And don’t forget to vote before March 22.

Chef Drew Deckman is the owner of Deckman’s North in San Diego and Michelin-starred Conchas de Piedra in Baja California.

Drew grew up in Georgia before spending more than a decade in Europe honing his craft and training under some of the most respected chefs in the industry, including Paul Bocuse, Jacques Maximin, and Madeleine Kamman. During his time in Germany, he worked at Restaurant Vitus in Reinstorf, where he was part of the team that earned a Michelin star in 2000. He would later go on to build award-winning restaurants of his own across Baja California and San Diego.

His restaurant Conchas de Piedra earned a Michelin star in May of 2024 along with a Michelin Green Star for sustainability, while Deckman’s en el Mogor also received a Green Star. In August of 2024, he opened a new project in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, Deckman’s North, bringing with it the expectations and attention that come with operating at the Michelin level.

In addition to his restaurants, Drew also operates a restaurant inside Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, called Deckman’s at The Draft by Ballast Point.

In this episode, Chef Drew sits down for a vulnerable conversation about the real challenges chefs face in today’s kitchens. Chef Drew Deckman had the courage to talk openly about something that rarely gets discussed in this industry: the mental health of chefs and the people who dedicate their lives to hospitality. Acceptance, self-love, and positive self-talk take courage, and those decisions have helped reshape the way he approaches both leadership and life in hospitality.

We also discuss sobriety, and Drew offers advice to the next generation of cooks coming up in the industry.

If you’re in San Diego, go visit @deckmansnorth and follow Drew at @bajafishingchef.

Full episodes of Wellness On The Rocks are available on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.

Hosted and produced by bartender @taylorredmondmcquade.

the3131.com
deckmans.com
conchasdepiedra.com
ensomakase.com

Reese Honse has spent over a decade working in bars and restaurants across San Diego. He started out working security at Henry’s and worked his way up to becoming the former general manager of El Dorado. Along the way he spent years working for Consortium Holdings, one of the most influential, and polarizing restaurant groups in San Diego. With more than 20 bar and restaurant concepts under their umbrella, CH gets a lot of love from people and a lot of criticism, and we get into both sides of that conversation.

We talk about the lessons and mistakes that come with running bar programs, the pressure of leadership in nightlife, and what it takes to build a career in the hospitality industry.

We also get into Yelp culture, bartending philosophy, the difference between craft and high-volume bars, whether a Long Island Iced Tea is actually a cocktail… and the current state of the San Diego bar scene.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation I also tell the story of chasing Dennis, a serial dine and dasher through the Gaslamp for walking out on his tab. He has hit bars all over the city claiming he had just beaten cancer… and then leaves without paying. 

You can listen to all episodes of @Wellness_OnTheRocks on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Hosted and independently produced by @TaylorRedmondMcQuade

Chef Claudia Sandoval is an award-winning chef, best-selling author, TV host, and the executive producer and host of the docuseries Taste of the Border and La Mesa Mexa. Her career took off after winning Season 6 of MasterChef, and over the past decade she has continued to evolve and push herself creatively within our industry.

On Episode #24 of Wellness On The Rocks, Claudia and I sit down to explore authenticity and vulnerability as creators and storytellers within the hospitality industry. We unpack what happens when your public persona begins to replace who you really are. The conversation moves through identity, storytelling, mental health, and the pressure of always being “on.”

We also examine why impact matters more than attention, and why choosing meaning over ego is essential in today’s creative world.

“Impact is humanity.”

You can find all episodes of @Wellness_OnTheRocks on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.

All episodes of Wellness On The Rocks are hosted and independently produced by bartender @TaylorRedmondMcQuade.

Wellness On The Rocks Ep #23 – Q: Bartender, Star Bar (A Farewell to Time Out Sports Tavern) is now LIVE!

Q came up in the punk scene of Seattle, Washington as a musician and bartender. He moved to San Diego three years ago and has worked at Swing Social, Carnitas’ Snack Shack and Time Out Sports Tavern until its recent closure. He’s now pouring at Star Bar, one of the best dives in San Diego’s Gaslamp district.

In our conversation, we talk about what Time Out meant to the people who built it and the community who called it home. These bars are our third spaces, and when a local establishment goes down, the community feels it. It’s where we celebrate, grieve, decompress, fall in love, fight, reconnect, and feel seen. Here is one last goodbye to Time Out Sports Tavern 🙏🏻

We also talk about the realities of working in hospitality, fast money, burnout, identity, mental health, and the strange comfort of standing behind a bar when the rest of life feels uncertain.

You can find all episodes of Wellness On The Rocks on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts

Follow us on IG:

@wranqavelli

@wellness_ontherocks

@taylorredmondmcquade

📍You can visit us both behind the bar:

@starbarsandiego

@stout_sd

@carnitassnacks

@swingsocialsd

Self Reflection #6

In this self-reflection episode, I speak on the process of building Wellness On The Rocks.

I reflect on culture in bars and restaurants, why integrity matters more than hype, and the responsibility that comes with telling other people’s stories. I talk about the realities of running a podcast solo, creative growing pains, advocating for small businesses in San Diego, and learning to stay patient with this lonely process.