The fourth annual Maritime Gala Dinner & Awards ceremony will take place from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Port Pavilion on Broadway Pier. Held in conjunction with the fourth annual Blue Tech & Blue Economy Summit, the reception runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and dinner and awards until 9:30 p.m.

San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. has hired Tammy L. Bailey as the chief marketing officer.

Good news for San Diegans, city businesses and pop-culture fanatics: Comic-Con has extended its contract with the San Diego Convention Center for one year, guaranteeing that "America’s Finest City" will host the comic book and popular arts convention through 2016.

Carlsbad-based Integral Senior Living, a senior living communities manager, has added the future Paradise Retirement at Waikiki to its management portfolio.

Carlsbad-based Terramar Retail Centers announced that it has entered into the next phase of the adaptive re-use and redesign of the Old Police Headquarters next to Seaport Village.

The 49-room Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa in Rancho Santa Fe officially reopens its doors Friday following a $30 million transformation.

While Escondido-based Realty Income Corp. (NYSE: O) saw a slight dip in its earnings in the third quarter, it continues to strengthen as it adds new single-tenant retail properties to its portfolio.

When they travel to continental Europe, many Americans head to France, Germany, Italy or Spain. Yet far fewer American tourists visit one of the continent's smallest countries, Luxembourg.

Before it became a Navy town, San Diego used to be a tuna town. Nearly a dozen tuna canneries dotted the waterfront in downtown during the early 1900s, from 1911 through 1920.

Satisfying the needs of a rising car culture that demanded convenience, San Diego businessman and restaurateur Robert Oscar Peterson opened his first drive-thru Jack in the Box in 1951. Located at the corner of 63rd Street and El Cajon Boulevard, it was the first restaurant to use new two-way intercom technology. A giant jack-in-the-box took customers’ orders through a speaker box, and about three minutes later, they could pick up their 22-cent hamburgers at the drive-thru window. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1951 was the first year the term “fast food” appeared in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Jim Jessop always wanted to go into the jewelry business. He has the seventh grade school paper to prove it.

The 662-room Harrah’s Rincon Casino and Resort is about to get bigger, as construction on a new hotel tower and convention center at the resort highlight an expansion project expected to begin Nov. 1.

While San Diego County may not be the country's strongest region in terms of residential and commercial property investment, a joint report by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the county is holding its own.

SeaWorld San Diego is looking to give the park entrance a facelift and make it more efficient for guests, as the marine-life theme park will start a multimillion dollar renovation project in December.

San Diego-based Trigild Corp., which is best known for its receivership business, has formed an alliance with Santa Barbara-based Blu Hotel Investors — a company that not only acquires hotels, but also builds them from the ground up.

San Diego native Matt Richman wears both chef and owner hats at his restaurant, Table 926, in Pacific Beach, open since December.

Revised plans for the Lane Field North hotels and some big hotel leases are each scheduled to come before the Board of Port Commissioners Tuesday.

The craft beer business in San Diego is booming. Existing breweries are selling more beer than ever, and new breweries are opening on a monthly basis. Stalwarts of the San Diego beer scene like Stone, Karl Strauss, Coronado Brewing and Green Flash, are opening new breweries and restaurants, and new breweries like Societe Brewing and Hess Brewing are becoming overnight successes.

Six cruise ships are in port Thursday and Friday, each carrying between 1,900 and 2,700 passengers and expecting to generate about $8 million for the local economy.

The $520 million plan to expand the San Diego Convention Center partially through an increase in hotel taxes has received its final approval from the City Council.