Cesar Vallin of Cloak & Petal restaurant (Courtesy photo)

Cesar Vallin of Little Italy’s Cloak & Petal Swung from Severe Addiction to Successful Entrepreneur

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

It is one of Little Italy’s few Asian restaurants, a stunningly designed hub for crafty sake drinks, prized liquors, and kaleidoscopic sushi rolls. Known as Cloak & Petal, the upscale business operates under co-founder Cesar Vallin, who just celebrated nine years of sobriety on New Year’s Eve.

Vallin used to be an extreme partier. He had become addicted to drugs and alcohol. Thoughts of suicide plagued him as he tried coping with the failing of a previous business and other personal issues. After hitting rock bottom, his path to becoming clean was remarkable considering that he did so without the help of Alcoholics Anonymous or any other professional support group.

Now with a prosperous restaurant under his belt—and another concept in the pipeline—this dynamic, creative businessman continues pressing ahead with a clear vision while candidly reflecting on the rough rollercoaster ride it took to get there.

Downtown Condo Guys: When did you open Cloak & Petal? And why in Little Italy?

Vallin: It was in December of 2017. I happened to be walking by the property (1953 India St.), which was a restaurant called Estrada. It was already closed down. I could see fake olive trees inside. With my Japanese partners, I thought we could do a very unique restaurant there. I envisioned the olive trees as cherry blossoms. The space was bigger than what we wanted, but the price was the same as smaller places around town—especially others in Little Italy.

Downtown Condo Guys: Did you end up converting those trees into faux cherry blossoms?

Vallin: Yes. We had hired a couple different designers. It was a process that took 1,000 hours of work, which was longer than we expected. It came out to be $10,000 more than our original quote. We also added elements of our own upbringing with pop art and graffiti art. And the back of the restaurant represents cities of Japan at night.

Downtown Condo Guys: What was your life like prior to opening Cloak & Petal?

Vallin: I had fallen into a 16-year pattern of heavy partying. I was bartending at The Catamaran and The Tavern in Pacific Beach. And with partners, I had a website called SoCalVibe.com, which was a platform with videos and information about nightclubs. We came up with it while doing drugs. It was my launching pad into drugs and alcohol. Then I went into business with some partners at Prospect Bar and Grill in La Jolla.

I also went to Japan about eight times. I first went because I had good friends there who wanted to open a bar, and they needed someone with an American style to help them strategize. I went with an 8-Ball of cocaine, drank for three days, ate fast food, and ran out of money.

Downtown Condo Guys: What were some of the other low points you experienced during those times?

Vallin: I had made so many bad decisions and I was doing so much of everything with drugs and alcohol. Prospect Bar & Grill was failing. I went through a breakup because I had been a bad boyfriend. There were moments I was drinking alone with a loaded gun. My health wasn’t good, and I realized the writing was on the wall.

Downtown Condo Guys: Was there a particular moment or event that put you on the road to sobriety?

Vallin: My first realization was when I was in a temple in Japan. My friend and I wandered in. I was hungover and sweating. There were chanting monks. Eventually I started to settle and then I started crying because I didn’t want my life to continue like that. But the pattern still kept getting worse, even though being in temples on other visits gave me moments where I was able to slow down.

But the actual thing that made me shift happened in late 2016. I had a dream of my best friend coming and talking to me, and I remember feeling it was about something important. But I couldn’t later remember the words that he spoke in the dream. Then one day I randomly grabbed a book called Conversations with God, and I put it into my gym bag on the way to the gym. I’m not religious by any means but I do believe in a god. 

At one point the book fell out of the gym bag along with a photograph of my best friend inside the book. When I opened it up to the page, it read that I would start receiving messages from every corner of the world. It was told to me that it’s okay to start over. It was at that moment I decided to change my life.

Downtown Condo Guys: What steps did you back then take to do so?

Vallin: I didn’t go to AA. I instead started doing 30 days completely sober, which wasn’t easy. Then I took it to a full year and finished when we opened Cloak and Petal in December of 2017. When New Year’s Eve came, a friend grabbed my favorite shot of tequila and said, “Here, you get to decide.” I don’t know if she was testing my will. But I grabbed the shot and smelled it and got emotional. All of the moments of me drinking alone with a loaded gun came back along with the heartaches, the losses and all of my worst insufferable moments that caused the addiction. They flashed before my eyes. I’ve been sober ever since.

Downtown Condo Guys: Did you have any specific apprehensions about joining AA at the time?

Vallin: No. I just knew that the power was within me to stop. I knew that if I didn’t do this, I’d be dead. And if I do it, I’ll stay alive.

Downtown Condo Guys: Do you belong to any support group today to maintain your sobriety?

Vallin: I don’t. I’m just so busy with a million things going on. What makes me successful is breath work every day. I’m also a Wim Hof instructor, which is a major contributor to me staying healthy mentally and physically.

Downtown Condo Guys: Does Cloak & Petal acknowledge or promote the growing tradition of Dry January every year?

Vallin: We don’t. But now that you’re bringing it up, I have a bunch of ideas. I think we can do a better job of that.

Downtown Condo Guys: Does your bar menu offer any mocktails?

Vallin: Yes, currently just three. We are definitely expanding on them this spring with the goal to have four to six more. We will also do a revamp on our food and regular cocktails, as we do every spring.

Downtown Condo Guys: Is it difficult being around the vast collection of liquors at your bar?

Vallin: It’s nostalgic, it’s missing the taste. But I don’t have a fear of [going back to] drinking again.

Downtown Condo Guys: Given the sustained success of Cloak & Petal, do you have any plans on opening another restaurant?

Vallin: Yes, we are taking part of the current restaurant to add a coffee cafe under its own name, which is yet to be determined. It will also have its own entrance. We’ll have a pan-Asian food menu for it. We are aiming to open in April or May of this year.

Downtown Condo Guys: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs or aspiring business people who are battling addiction?

Vallin: Be your best. Take ownership that you have a problem. And if you can’t stop on your own, you have to be willing to ask for help.