restaurantMystery Diners · Season 7, Episode 5 · Aired August 27, 2014
Devine Pastabilities
San Diego, California
This one did not make it. The business closed. The site is now home to Cucina Caprese (also since closed).
On the show
Season 7, Episode 5 · August 27, 2014 · restaurant (Italian/pasta)
trademark-dispute sting
What happened after
Italian restaurant at 3545 Midway Dr Ste E; marked closed on MapQuest. Space was subsequently occupied by Cucina Caprese, which has itself since closed.
What happened on the show
Damien Devine had just survived a lawsuit over the rights to his own signature sandwich, the Torpasta, when he began suspecting his own staff of stealing and selling it at his San Diego restaurant. Charles Stiles sent mystery diners Amanda, Shane and Andy in as a restaurant executive, a waitress and a customer. As aired, a bartender is clean, but a manager had lifted the recipe, spun off a knockoff he called the Torpatty, and roped the head chef into passing it off as a special. The confrontation has the chef spared once he learns he was used, and Damien firing the manager, who vows to sell yet another imitation. Given the scripting claims that later dogged Mystery Diners, this recipe-theft sting is best framed as broadcast rather than as verified.
After the cameras left
Devine Pastabilities has since closed, in the ordinary run of things. The Italian restaurant at 3545 Midway Drive is marked closed, the space later taken by another restaurant that has itself since closed, at medium confidence and with no date in our 2026 pass. That is ordinary turnover of a single address, unconnected to a sandwich-recipe sting. A small independent ran its course and the room moved on to the next tenant, which is how most of these stories quietly end.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.