Del Mar Highlands Town Center — Attraction in San Diego

We have been living in the area since 2012 and have been frequenting the Del Mar Highlands plaza for over 10 years. We have always enjoyed our visits and really appreciate the management's attention to detail in keeping everything nice and pleasant.

However, during our most recent visit, we had an incident at the electric vehicle stations in the parking garage that made me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe.

My husband and I stopped by for a quick bite and parked at the last available Volta EV station. The vehicle in the next spot had just pulled in about 3 seconds before us. After parking, and while waiting for the elevator, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the owner of the neighboring vehicle had walked over to our car. We watched him yank the charging plug from our car and proceed to plug it into his own car. We presume that this was because his plug was broken. When we walked back to confront him about it, he became extremely aggressive and told us that it was rightfully his because he was there first.

We noticed his uniform and he confirmed that he is an employee at “Dirty Dogs and Meow,” one of the shops at the plaza. After ranting on about how he had been waiting since 8am for a spot and throwing a very loud fit, he stormed off without apologizing or trying to fix the issue.

At that point, since we no longer felt safe in case this individual decided to vandalize our car, we chose to leave. Normally, we would not have minded giving him the plug given the situation and called it a day. However, his barbarous and immature behavior made us feel like we should bring this to the attention of the Del Mar Highlands management. This type of rude and hostile behavior from store employees in the parking lot really does not reflect well on the plaza. This entire incident makes me feel unsafe and uncomfortable to shop at a plaza that I have been visiting for more...

Used to be a family friendly place. They got rid of most of the family friendly places to give themselves a more "upscale" flair. I no longer come here to eat with my kids unless we go to McDonald's or get a pizza from Domino's. We used to go to Red Robin, IHOP, and Daphnes regularly. The restaurants there now just roll their eyes when you show up with kids. They also got rid of Barnes and Noble as well as Bath and Body Works - my two favorite stores. They also bankrolled the anti One Paseo movement because it is being built across the street from them. They got the size of One Paseo decreased and they are now quietly increasing the size of their plaza without any improvements in traffic infrastructure like One Paseo is performing. There is no opposition to that because no one is paying for it. I will give the plaza three stars because I love Ralphs. The employees are friendly. They have low turnover. You ask a question and you can usually get a good answer. They make an effort to learn your name, and their prices are better than Vons. If it wasn't for that store, I don't think I'd ever come to this...

My only issue with this shopping center is that it's hard to figure out what entrance you need to use to get to the store or restaurant you're trying to go to!

This is a two tier outdoor center with some really great shops.

Spend the day here and do the following: Have breakfast at Snooze Eatery. Go get a blow out at Dry Bar (be sure to make your appointment BEFORE you go - they book up quickly) Go to Chuao Chocolates and get some sweet treats. Eat your Chuao Chocolate while watching a #legsup movie! Have an early dinner / late lunch at Searsucker Del Mar. End your day buying your groceries for the week at Jimbos.

Seriously, there are so many stores here you could easily spend an entire day having fun at this one shopping center STARTING...