Turf Supper Club

The mid-century building at 7777 University Avenue in La Mesa held Jamar, a cocktails-and-mock-turtle-soup restaurant, from 1962 until Michael and Barbara Rammelsberg bought the business in 2011 and turned it into the Riviera Supper Club, keeping the do-it-yourself grill that had been added a few years earlier once they saw how much regulars liked cooking their own steaks together. A heraldic-symbol mural, found in a storage shed during the renovation, now hangs where a plain bar mirror was planned, and the adjoining Turquoise Room brings in live bands five nights a week. Beyond the grill, the kitchen plates a daily catch, Turquoise Tater Tots under bleu cheese and chili oil, and a bacon chocolate cake.