Grantville, San Diego, CA

In 1774 the Spanish relocated Mission San Diego de Alcala inland to this stretch of San Diego, and the restored mission still stands in Grantville, close to where Interstate 8 meets Mission Gorge Road at the far eastern reach of Mission Valley. The neighborhood took its name from President Grant more than a century later. Most of the neighborhood is a working district. Light industrial shops, recording studios, a Home Depot and the Kaiser Permanente hospital campus line Mission Gorge Road and its side streets, and Friars Road brings a string of shopping centers along the valley floor. Homes are the smaller share of the land. A 2015 city plan aims to add more housing around the Grantville trolley station so new residents can live close to the train. That industrial mix is where the beer comes from. San Diego Brewing Company, founded in 1993 and counted among the city's original breweries, pours about 50 local beers on Friars Road. McGregor's on San Diego Mission Road has been a sports bar for three decades and stays open until 2 a.m. Filippi's Pizza Grotto and a long list of taco shops, sushi counters and Thai kitchens fill the Friars Road centers. Mission Trails Regional Park starts where Grantville ends. Mission Gorge Road heads north out of the neighborhood and into the park's Mission Gorge section, a regional park established in 1974. Inside the neighborhood itself, green space is scarce. Green Line trains stop at the Grantville station, right beside Interstate 8 near Fairmount Avenue, with direct trains to downtown and San Diego State. A Vons on Mission Gorge Road handles weekly shopping, and the Mission San Diego branch library is on San Diego Mission Road. Driving is still the default for most trips. Living here means trucks, traffic and parking lots more than front lawns. In exchange, residents get a trolley stop, a regional park up the road and a beer from a brewery that has been pouring since the early 1990s, all inside one district.