North County dumpling lovers have a new reason to celebrate. Dumpling Bar, the handmade-dumpling concept that built a loyal following in Encinitas, is expanding into San Marcos with a new location at 157 North Twin Oaks Valley Road, inside the Grand Plaza shopping center near Cal State San Marcos.
The 1,500-square-foot space, formerly home to Ramen Mik, will serve the same menu that made the Encinitas original a neighborhood favorite: handmade soup dumplings (xiao long bao), potstickers, steamed dumplings, wontons in chili sauce, fried rice, and noodle dishes, alongside sweet dumplings for dessert.
The expansion is led by Shuai Liu, the company’s CEO and CFO, and Alex Zili Hu, who serves as secretary and shareholder, with backing from UC San Diego graduate Yingkang Lu and restaurateur Yukun Sun. The team says the strong response to the Encinitas location, which opened in September 2024, gave them confidence to bring the concept to a new part of North County. San Marcos, with its mix of students from Cal State San Marcos and commuters along the 78 corridor, offers a different customer base than the beach-town crowd in Encinitas.
Dumpling Bar isn’t the only project on this team’s plate. The same group operates a Dumpling Bar location in San Marino in Los Angeles County that opened in 2025 with an all-you-can-eat format, plus China Max Dumpling House in San Diego’s Convoy District, which reopened as a dumpling-focused concept in March 2025. Between the two counties, that’s a fast-growing regional footprint built almost entirely around one dish done well.
No opening date has been announced yet for the San Marcos location, but the buildout is underway in a shopping center that already draws steady foot traffic from the university and nearby retail. For a North County dining scene that’s seen plenty of turnover in recent years, a proven concept moving in rather than testing something untested is a good sign for both the shopping center and the neighborhood’s restaurant mix.
Small, independently run concepts expanding store by store are exactly the kind of growth San Diego’s food scene depends on. If Dumpling Bar’s track record in Encinitas is any indication, San Marcos residents won’t have to wait long before lines start forming.
Source: SanDiegoVille, “San Diego’s Dumpling Bar Expanding With New North County Location In San Marcos”
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