Founded from scratch in 2003 in downtown San Diego, Coastal Dental Arts is where Chotiner has spent his entire career — and the place every idea he's built since first began as an observation about real patients.
Inside Coastal Dental Arts — downtown San Diego.
Dr. Dave opened Coastal Dental Arts at 1230 Columbia Street in downtown San Diego in 2003. Rather than buying into an existing patient base, he built one from nothing, growing the practice through three separate physical expansions into the multi-specialty office it is today.
The space was designed deliberately to feel unlike a traditional dental office — contemporary art in place of clinical signage, HD screens and cordless audio in every treatment room, downtown San Diego views, and an atmosphere built around genuine patient comfort rather than institutional efficiency.
Coastal Dental Arts today includes several practicing dentists working alongside Dr. Dave. He treats mentoring his associate doctors with the same seriousness as his own clinical work — passing along not just technique, but the communication framework he's spent 25 years refining.
In 2024, he brought the practice into a partnership with MB2 Dental, a dental partnership organization, after approaching the model with real skepticism. What won him over was a structure genuinely different from the roll-up arrangements common in dentistry — one that let him retain ownership and clinical control rather than trading autonomy for capital.
Beyond his own patient care, Dr. Dave is recognized as a Continuing Education provider by the Dental Board of California and collaborates with 3M ESPE, educating fellow dentists on advances in dental technology. It's a standing built on top of two decades of clinical volume — the kind that comes only from having done the work long enough, and well enough, that other practitioners want to learn from it.
Publicly posted reviews on Healthgrades paint a consistent picture: long-tenured patients, meticulous attention to detail, and an environment built to put people at ease.
"Hands down the best dentist I have ever seen — I've used him for 20 years."
Healthgrades patient review"The moment I exited the elevator I felt welcomed... everyone in that suite made me feel wonderfully well."
Healthgrades patient reviewDeep cleaning, a filling replaced, a temporary crown, and Invisalign attachments in one visit — and, per the review, "never felt discomfort" through any of it.
Healthgrades patient review, paraphrasedChotiner's clinical philosophy centers on comprehensive treatment planning — evaluating the whole mouth and the whole patient rather than isolated symptoms — paired with communication tailored to the individual, including DISC-style behavioral analysis to adjust how a plan is presented. His stated aim, in his own words, is executing ideal dentistry whenever possible: recommending and delivering the treatment that's actually right, not the one that's easiest to sell or fastest to complete.
A sound treatment plan and a sound patient conversation are two different skills — most dental training only teaches one of them.
That observation is the throughline connecting his clinical work, his teaching, and the ventures described on the Ventures page.
