Look, 2025 has already been a wild ride—AI went from sci-fi to HR, billionaires keep trying to launch themselves into space and the rest of us are just trying to keep our screen time under 14 hours a day. So let’s pause the doomscrolling and raise a glass (organic, local and biodynamic, of course) to what truly matters: celebrating Marin being so Marin.
The Pacific Sun has spent more than six decades chronicling this county’s culture, quirks and contradictions. And Best of Marin is where it all comes together—the chefs and salons, the activists and artists, the dog groomers and dive bars, the weirdos and wonders that make life here singularly golden.
This year’s honorees, voted in by our loyal readers, remind us that local still matters. That the best sandwich can still change your life. That the right yoga studio can straighten your spine and realign your world view. That the community we’ve built here—not perfect, not always pretty—is still something of which we can be proud.
Special thanks to my fellow conspirators, Isabella Cook and Ada Ionesco, for their eloquent contributions this year. And to you, dear readers, for showing up with votes, love and the occasional impassioned email subject line written in all caps.
Is stewarding this paper a calling or an accident? Hard to say. But one thing is clear: The Pacific Sun wouldn’t be what it is without you. And neither would Marin.
