volare italian restaurant / sports arena – san diego, ca

Volare is this awesome little hole in the wall Italian family restaurant in the Sports Arena/Old Town area. It’s in a strange location, off of Barnett Ave. near the Marine Corps Recruit place with a very large adult store that apparently has an “adult arcade”. But location isn’t everything, and I digress

.volare window

If you’re looking for fancy ambiance you won’t really find it here. What you will find is a cozy little place with salmon colored walls, posters of Italy, and a “sit where ever you want” kind of laid back attitude. And the food is totally delicious and affordable. A lot of the pasta dishes are under $7, such as the pesto (with your choice of pasta noodle) or lasagna. The seafood/meaty dishes are a bit more expensive but still totally affordable. They also have awesome calamari appetizer for $5.50 and cannoli’s for $2.50. Garlic bread is also included with most meals and salads can be added on for another $1.50.

pesto pasta at volare

I’ve been here a handful of times and the food has always been excellent. Everything is pipping hot and tastes freshly made. The pesto I got was bright green – the jarred stuff does not come this bright unless it’s fresh. It’s simple food that tastes great.

lasagna at volare

I also personally think the place has its own cozy little charm. I’ve read other reviews of Volare and they all seem to dock it a few points because of the decorating. So, it’s not the fanciest place ever but the food is more important to me than how the place looks. But maybe that’s just me.


Anyway. I highly recommend it. Also – funny little story about the place, which I pull off of my friend’s live journal. She was here in town at a conference and I took her here since the food is yummy. And she lost her hat but I thought she never had it with her. Here, the story begins:

“I have this dark corduroy cap that I love. In cooler weather, I am more or less inseparable from it. I had stuffed it into the front flap of my bag. kyten took me to a great Italian restaurant in Old Town called Volare. Fun was had, but as she was driving me back to my hotel, I had the nagging feeling I’d left my hat there. kyten said she didn’t recall me having my hat with me, but sure enough, when I got back to my room, I was hatless. On a lark, I called the restaurant and began babbling about sending money for them to mail my hat back until the guy said, “Well, I’m the delivery guy, I can bring it to your hotel.”

!!!

So, one hour and a tip later, my hat was back in my possession. Volare will forever have a soft spot in my heart for not only being tasty, but nice above and beyond the call of duty.”

So go here. Eat the food. Enjoy it. Yum, yum.

Volare Italian Restaurant
3528 Barnett Ave.
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 224-0030

Volare Italian Dining on Urbanspoon


2 thoughts on “volare italian restaurant / sports arena – san diego, ca

  1. I have just stumbled upon your blog. I love the clean design and fantastic photos. I am a blogger myself and always thought that design was key and you have certainly captured that! There are so many food blogs out there these days and being different to all the others is key. I have just started http://www.ifoods.tv which is a website for chefs, foodies and food bloggers to hand out, share recipes, photos and videos. When i was blogging I always thought i should be getting more traffic as my blog was getting lost in the masses of stuff out there so my new site is aimed at giving food bloggers and chefs a bigger platform! Hope you enjoy it and keep up the good writing and design here! I have now bookmarked you so will be regular reader, Cheers!

  2. We’ve been here a few times and the food has always been good and quite a bargain. Sad to say the last time we visited we saw several large cockroaches running rampant throughout the restaurant. Won’t be back

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