The Hills Pub — Restaurant in La Mesa

Best Cocktails in East County.

Pete has built a quiet little bar that is trying to sophisticate an otherwise dilapidated bar scene. Filled with Pubs, dive bars and a sprinkling of wine bars, there is less than a handful of places to get a real drink around here.

The red storefront, wood enclosed rear patio and lively interior have a very OB/PB feel, minus the college riff raff. The rear parking is small and a little dim, but don’t be afraid as the area isn’t bad. That rear alley can be confusing. Bathrooms are decent.

True to form as an SD bar they carry a few dozen local craft beers. The menu is very sports bar-ish, but has some class of a gastro offering items like bahn mi, ginger soy wings, venison sliders, Brussel sprout/kale salad, serrano jelly on the pulled pork, mahi, blue cheese/d’anjou pears.

What I like about Pete is he bartended for years as you can tell from the spirit forward drinks menu, but this place is fun hosing trivia and burgers on Thursdays, live music on Saturdays. All you can eat tacos on Tuesdays, wing specials, brunch specials.

Staff is very friendly and accommodating and the prices are pretty decent on entrée’s, but not sides. The place is clean, a little dark and some areas a little crowded.

Items I’d recommend are the wings when they are on special, either loaded fries offerings (fried egg on the green meanie and chipotle sauce on the carne), any of the sliders (Hawaiian rolls), pulled pork sandwich (serrano jelly), cannonball run 2.0, Le Bleu Burger(bleu cheese & pears), turkey burger (roasted poblano, salt & pepper tomatos), bouffant burger (bacon, avo, fried egg, but swap the fragile croissant bun).

It’s a great place to come for a meal and a drink when pub food and college kids are not your scene yet cheese & wine amongst snobs...

Had a good time here last night. Stopped by for a couple drinks and some apps with friends. Always a fun place, great service and the food is really good. We love the pretzels and cheese, and the beets, brussel sprouts and bleu cheese salad was delicious. My wife really enjoys the Puff the Magic Dragon and I keep it simple with a nice cold beer.

Edit: Went back today for a “business meeting” and couldn’t be happier. I was thinking about the burger but someone ordered the turkey melt and it looked delicious. I think we ordered like four of them with garlic fries. These fries had so much garlic it was insane, they also had Parmesan on top. The turkey melt had big Texas toast, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. It was served with a jalapeño candied bacon which was so delicious, a mixture of sweet, salty and spicy in your mouth, it was like a hot tub full of hot chicks. The turkey was good and the cheese was all Melty, exactly what I wanted. Someone ordered a chicken salad and it looked good. The kids got a grilled cheese sandwich with french fries and it was very good. My friend ordered a bloody Mary which was delicious with bacon and olives. She also got an espresso martini which I did try and it was super good. We dealt with five or six bartenders and waitresses and everybody was awesome, always so nice. My friends twins were acting like kids act and I was concerned the staff was gonna come say something to us. Eventually one of them did ask who the kids belong to and when we told them she just wanted to inform us that she had put them to work watering the plants. It was so cool that she took the time to get the kids to help out. She also gave them some cookies. We...

As a patron of The Hills I can say I am leaving that place forever. While it is a friendly place for the most part, it has been over run over by a group of bullies and misogynists that are regulars there for years. The bullying all begins with the head misogynist Kevin or as one of his minions are Brad, Jairo, and Seth at the moment, attack. There is just no excuse for them. I have kept to myself and put up with their talking behind my back and snide remarks to my face but no longer feel safe at the Hills.

Sometimes It matters what you say such as when Brad accused me of being a “Timmy” as I'll explain next.

They have berated others out of the bar as well. Others such as Timmy. They now call people they do not like “Timmy” and have turned a persons name into a derogatory term that they claim designates a creep which is ironic because these people are, without doubt, creeps as well as pigs. If your name is Tim you definitely do not want to go to this place or should I say “who's name is next?”. This is just one of several people they have attacked and run out of the bar, and now me.

The management (Pete) does not care, or are just plain an idiot about it. Though this place is not that big so find it hard to believe they do not know this is happening. You only get one chance in life to do the right thing. Either way, I'm not sure which weakness is worse. “Has Kevin been bullying people?” this there is only one answer, YES.

The bullies win. I have tried very hard to work around it and stop it but this is not a place that is safe.

To my friends there, I only wish the best, where ever...