Two restaurants in San Diego made Yelp’s 2024 list of top 25 new restaurants in the United States.
California and Texas had the most citations on the list with four each. Along with San Diego, the Los Angeles area had two.
The two San Diego venues are:
- No. 4 – Kinme Omakase in Bankers Hill, a Japanese restaurant with a menu that changes almost daily.
- No. 8 – BoujieMana in Serra Mesa, a Mediterranean, salad and pizza restaurant that donates 3% of profits to a different local nonprofit each month.
“We really want a restaurant that is more than just good food but does good in the community,” Samer Khouli, founder and CEO of BoujieMana, said in an email interview. “The Yelp national recognition encourages us to continue doing good work. It’s like a huge high five from all our customers.”
To create the list, Yelp identified full-service businesses in the restaurant category through analytics based on reviews and how often people returned to the establishments, according to Hannah Navarra, Yelp community manager in San Diego.
Beyond the star ratings, the evaluation took total volume and the restaurant’s ambiance and eater experience into account during a period between Jan. 1, 2023 and Sept. 1, 2024.
Then Yelp Trend Expert Tara Lewis zeroed in on what spots Yelp reviewers were enjoying. According to Navarra, Lewis and other community managers look at trends across the country to determine what restaurants should be considered.
Navarra said she and other community managers also may confirm if restaurants deserve to be on the list by visiting.
“BoujieMana is actually on my list of places to go to, so when I saw they made the list, I was super excited,” Navarra said. “Kinme Omakase is more of an experience that you definitely want to book in advance and it’s super intimate.”
