6 Places Worth Your Time in Southeast San Diego, Ranked

Imperial Avenue is the spine of the Black Arts and Culture District, and the art on it is free to walk. Murals, creative businesses, and community institutions share the same few blocks, with Graffiti Gardens the anchor you plan the route around. Take it slowly and watch the work change from block to block. Daylight and comfortable shoes are the whole equipment list. Then spend money at one of the businesses you just walked past.

Brisket, ribs, and links, and a patio out front that works like a front porch for the block. The plates come out generous and the people handing them over act like they are glad you came, which is not a small thing on a Wednesday afternoon. Sides do their job. Go early — the good cuts go first — and eat on the patio rather than in the car. This is the meal the rest of a day out here gets built around.

Order the Dynamic Latte and look at what comes with it — a dried orange slice, sitting there like the drink has been thought about. This is a Black-owned coffee and tea bar on Imperial Avenue built around wellness-minded drinks rather than a standard menu with a new sign on it. The service is warm in the way only small rooms manage. It is a morning place, and it is the right way to start a day out here rather than a place to spend one.

Every neighborhood has one building everybody actually uses, and out here it is this one. The branch runs community programs, keeps a real children's section, and gives you somewhere free to sit and work for as long as you need it. The staff know the area and will tell you what is on this week. Go for a program, or go to work for an hour and come out understanding more about the neighborhood than any plaque on Market Street would tell you.

Ackee and saltfish is the order that tells you whether a Jamaican kitchen is serious, and this one is. Oxtail comes rich and slow, jerk chicken and curry chicken hold up the rest of the board, and the plates land heavier than the room prepares you for. The person handing them across the counter will talk to you like you have been coming for years. The room is plain and nobody is trying to fix that. Start with the oxtail and work outward from there.