Legendary Japanese Cream Puff Shop Landing in La Jolla

After a short stint in National City more than a decade ago, Beard Papa’s is back. The famous dessert shop, which serves filled-to-order cream puffs, is returning to San Diego with a new location set to grand open at 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 26 in downtown La Jolla with specials for its first 100 customers. Going strong for over 20 years, the chain was launched in Japan by owner Yuji Hirota, whose snowy white beard served as inspiration for the brand’s name and cheery logo.

For its first few weeks in operation, the Girard Avenue store will offer an abridged menu of its fresh-baked choux pastry shells in original, chocolate eclair, and green tea eclair flavors and a vanilla cream filling. A more extensive lineup of desserts will follow, ranging from strawberry and s’mores eclairs to crispy almond doughnut-shaped shells, chocolate and green tea-flavored cream filings, mini cheesecakes, and molten lava chocolate cakes. There’s also a cream puff flavor of the month: February features a creamy caramel filling in a chocolate eclair shell.

A rep for the company tells Eater that they may open more locations in the San Diego area depending on response to the La Jolla store.

• All Coming Attractions Coverage on Eater [ESD]