Flanked by roofing, tile and carpet stores in one of San Diego’s most aesthetically unappealing districts, Lot 81 is a bizarre anomaly in an area that is completely void of trendy restaurants.

In the four months that it’s been open, I’ve driven past its exterior gray wall dozens of times without ever noticing the small piece of signage marking its rather sullen-looking entranceway. A narrow frontage road used for pickups and deliveries of design materials runs along the foreground, distracting further from the fact that a restaurant as stylish as this can possibly exist here.

Yet pass through the small foyer and you’ll gasp at a dining room flaunting an updated, minimalist ’60s motif, replete with tangerine-orange banquettes, a low white ceiling studded with recessed spotlighting and a big frosted window speckled with artsy squares in orange, gray and black. Soothing techno music plays softly in the background. And the attractive bar and a few stocked wine shelves further distort your sense of location.

“Why would anyone open a place like this in the heart of San Diego’s blue-collar Morena District?” I asked my lunch companion after he blurted “wow” a few times at the interior design. “What kind of crowd are they attracting here at night?”

Unfortunately, those questions were vaguely answered with a strange pinch of defensiveness by one of the owners, a 30-something guy with dark curly hair who played the role of rushed waiter during our visit. In my two-minute chat with him at the end of our meal, he told me there were “three owners,” then quickly changed it to “four” before flailing his hands in the air and claiming “three” again. We learned that one or more of them runs the nightclub next door, called Brick by Brick – a cryptic looking place from the outside. Another devised the menu, while yet another designed the interior.

When I finally asked what types of people come to eat and drink here – students, clubbers, neighboring business owners? – he answered “no” to all, adding, “they come from all over.” So there we sat in the near-empty dining room even more confused as the owner’s demeanor became increasingly taxed from tending to the few occupied tables on the back patio.

From beginning to end, the service we received was abysmal. Water and soda refills were hard to come by. I received the wrong entrée. And the impatient attitude we witnessed left us feeling that we had better eat and leave quickly.

Conversely, the food was very good. From a solid orange-colored menu that matches perfectly to the interior color scheme, we started with the Shrimp Cocktail Martini, served in proper stemware and filled with a killer cocktail sauce that struck a rousing balance of horseradish and garlic. After polishing off all six medium-sized shrimp, a few of which were overcooked and heavily salted, we repeatedly spooned into the sauce while enduring the long wait for our main dishes.

My friend opted for a trio of lime and garlic shrimp tacos bursting with purple cabbage, juicy tomatoes and tender avocado. A light homemade white sauce drizzled sparingly over the tacos added just the right amount of richness. The colorful arrangement was presented on the kind of big square plate you’d see in any hip restaurant, and it included a heap of excellent thin french fries kissed with a hint of rosemary.

As if we needed more shrimp under our noses, the chicken fettuccini in creamy jalapeno sauce that I ordered arrived instead with… shrimp! Through subtle nuance, the owner at first seemed to shift the mishap on me before saying curtly that it would “take a while” for the kitchen to send out a new order. He then sold me on taking the dish for free, sparing himself and the cook the headache. So I retreated into an all-shrimp lunch – but admittedly with little regret.

The fettuccini was fluffy rather than sticky. The shrimp were, well, familiar at this point. And the sauce sported a buttery undertone with nice waves of heat from the peppers – a cut above other jalapeno cream sauces I’ve had that were congealed, oily or weak. A crowning of sliced black olives served as a tasty and attractive garnish.

Other lunch options include “specialty” tacos, gourmet burgers, wild salmon with thyme and mint, and a calamari sandwich with sweet chili sauce, to name a few. But don’t expect a noontime price break because the items that carry over to the dinner menu cost the same.

During evening hours the kitchen adds to the lineup various steaks, shrimp with garlic, peppers and onions, herbed chicken breast and chicken parmigiano.

“Would you come back?” we asked each other while exiting onto industrial Morena Boulevard. “Not until the owner improves the service situation,” my friend replied.

Me, I may return with other companions just to see the look on their faces when they walk into this very unexpected oasis of high design.