Ben & Esther's Vegan Delicatessen in College Area runs a fully plant-based Jewish deli counter at 6663 El Cajon Blvd Suite Q, San Diego, CA 92115, inside the Aztec Village Shopping Center near SDSU. Founded in 2020 in Portland, Oregon, by CEO Justin King — who named the business after his Jewish grandparents of Ukrainian descent — the San Diego location opened in January 2022 under COO Marc Bennett, a thirty-year vegan who also owns Pappy's Barber Shop in the same shopping center. The bagels are boiled then baked in-house, and the cream cheese is whipped on-site from a refined coconut base in flavors including scallion, everything, and strawberry. The Reuben sandwich stacks house-made seitan pastrami with sauerkraut, Swiss-style cashew cheese, and Russian dressing on toasted rye, and the carrot lox — thinly shaved carrots marinated in liquid smoke, nori, and capers — replicates the texture and brine of cold-smoked salmon on a fresh bagel. The whitefish salad substitutes hearts of palm for the fish, producing a flaky, briny spread that reads as deli-counter authentic without any animal product. El Cajon Blvd through the 92115 ZIP carries one of San Diego's best brunch corridors, and Ben & Esther's morning-service format positions it as a breakfast near SDSU anchor for the plant-based crowd. King and Bennett are fifty-fifty co-owners across all locations, and the San Diego shop's volume led to a second county location in Oceanside. A San Diego County health inspection returned a score of 99 out of 100. The bakery case stocks fresh-baked rugelach, black-and-white cookies, and babka alongside the bagel lineup, and Maya's Cookies in Grantville runs a parallel plant-based baked goods program focused on cookies rather than deli bread. The matzo ball soup uses a vegetable broth base with hand-rolled matzo balls that hold their shape through a full simmer without the egg binder traditional recipes rely on.