The Story Behind the City’s Backyard Restaurant With a Year-Long Waitlist

Happy Half Hour

If you received this month’s San Diego Magazine, you already know about Warung RieRie. Happy Half Hour host and food critic Troy Johnson dubbed it “the star of the city's thrilling backyard restaurant scene.” Wait. There’s a thrilling backyard restaurant scene in San Diego? Indeed, there is, and the individual restaurants are formally dubbed MEHKOs—Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations. We had Chef Rie Sims and her right hand—husband, sous chef, host, and marketing manager Dave Sims—in to talk about their Sumatran hut that they transported via Bali to their Serra Mesa backyard. In that hut is Warung RieRie, a fine dining restaurant operated out of their home kitchen. “For chefs like Rie, MEHKOs are a way in, or just a different way,” writes Johnson in this month’s review. “Few people can afford to open a restaurant, which can run (at the very lowest end) tens of thousands to millions of dollars and lock dreamers into long-term leases. In 2013, California implemented the Homemade Food Act, allowing anyone to make and sell low-risk foods (granola, jam, the like) out of their homes. Hot meals were a no-go, deemed too dangerous.” “But on Jan. 1, 2019, AB 626 allowed cooks in California to run restaurants out of their homes, serving all but the most notorious get-sick foods (like oysters and tartare). The new restaurants were called MEHKOs.” With a year-long waitlist, Warung RieRie is undoubtedly the city’s most famous backyard joint. We hear about the couple’s movie-worthy love story, their journey from Bali to the US, Rie’s former career as one of the most prominent film directors in Indonesia, and that time she cooked traditional Indonesian food for the Indonesian Prime Minister. As for news, we discuss LA-based Brewjeria Company opening in Chula Vista; Padres will re-debut their “Clara” beer at Petco Park; and Vega Caffe will open just next to the park, as well.